One of the secrets of BHM
Publishing a magazine involves a lot of coordination among various people such as writers, editors, office staff, artist, webmaster, weblog administrator, distributors, printers, mailing outfits, list marketers, etc. At BHM, Lenie and I divide up these jobs, with me taking care of most of the things that have to do with writing and the internet, and Lenie taking care of the entire business side of the magazine, plus dealing with various printers and list marketers. Her job is much bigger than mine, but mine is time consuming nevertheless. With whatever time I have left, I write.
When I began the magazine back in 1989, I had the romantic notion that I was starting an enterprise that would allow me to do a lot of writing. Writing has turned out to be a small part of what I have to do to keep the magazine alive and of good quality, but it does allow me a middle class living while I pursue writing on the side. That’s actually not a bad thing, since most writers barely make any living at all from their writing output. It’s just the nature of the game. The market does not pay writers well, unless you are among the fortunate few who make the big time. It’s sort of like the life of a basketball player; if you make the NBA, you get paid big, but if you don’t you starve.
Since coming back from our three-week driving trip to the MREA Fair a week ago, I’ve been doing a lot of coordinating with BHM’s webmaster, Oliver Del Signore, our weblog administrator and editor-at-large, Annie Tuttle, and our editorial coordinator, Lisa Nourse, to get the magazines new weblogs up and running smoothly and to get the next issue ready. At my level, I mostly delegate the hundreds of details that must be accomplished. I look over everyone’s shoulders to make sure that what they have done works to my liking.
Publishing is like any other business, requiring a manager to keep tabs on all the important tasks that must be accomplished. But as much as I do, and as important as what I do is to the making of BHM, it is not the most important job at BHM. The most important job is making sure there is enough money in the bank to implement all the other tasks. That most important of all jobs falls to Lenie, who is always on the lookout for a proper mail list to which the magazine can be marketed.
Most magazines, in fact, do not even have the luxury of employing a person like me who can look after the writing that goes into a magazine. Most magazines have business managers at the helm who look after keeping the money flowing in, while employing an editor like me much further down the totem pole. It is this fortunate marriage, literally and figuratively, of my skills as a writer and editor and Lenie’s skills as business manager that, I think, sets BHM apart from many other magazines. The key guy at BHM is an actual writer, but I have a strong financial manager backing me up to make sure I can do my thing. When it comes to maintaining a quality magazine, that’s an enormous advantage over other magazines.
