Another bankrupt distributor affects BHM, but we are ready for these scoundrels
One of our major magazine distributors, Source Interlink, has filed for bankruptcy. I first reported about the problems of Source Interlink and the magazine distribution industry in general in my blog post of Feb. 5. I’m not sure how the bankruptcy will affect the distribution of our current issue (May/June 2009 – Issue No. 117) to major bookstores such as Barnes&Noble. About 4800 copies of the issue are affected.
The magazine distribution business is a dying industry. We’ve been slowly distancing ourselves from it for years, and we did take preventive measures to limit our damage from this new bankruptcy of a major player in that industry. We got our copy of the bankruptcy fling today, but it has been in the news at foliomag.com website.
So if you can’t find our current issue at your favorite bookstore this month, this may be the reason. You are better off becoming a subscriber, anyway, and so are we. We get paid for the issues, not have them rot on a dock awaiting a bankruptcy settlement.
Here’s a few interesting tidbits from this story:
– Source Interlink will eliminate approximately $1 billion dollars of existing debt through the bankruptcy.
– Source stock was trading at 16 cents per share, down from $10 per share a year ago.
– How’s this for corporateez spin: Source Interlink CEO Greg Mays boasted after the bankruptcy filing, “We couldn’t be more pleased. This restructuring will materially reduce our interest expense and debt levels, substantially improve free cash flow and allow us to capitalize on several operational opportunities to further improve and grow our business.”
– And here’s a real gem, as reported on www.5ones.com: “Citigroup, the same consortium that we the tax payers have bailed out, is going to do the same for Source Interlink to the tune of 900 million dollars. Giving them an 80% controlling share of the company after its 35 day restructuring and privatization. So here we have one group that was bailed out only to step forward and bail out another group. One would think that Citigroup would only look at the amount of debt they have and the amount of assets they have and revenue they generate to say, “I don’t think this is a good idea”. Unfortunately for us they don’t see it as that.”
What a world we live in! Big companies go bankrupt, hurting a lot of small companies, and the big company CEO not only boasts about how great it is, but he gets a big loan from a big bank that has itself just gotten bailed out by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. We must live in some sort of cruel Disneyland where poor slobs like me have to continue to bust my butt to support this outrageous behavior.
But we’ve been developing our plan to counteract this implosion of the print and distribution industries. We won’t be badly hurt by this latest distributor to go bust. And we’re developing our own way to reach the BHM audience without having to depend much longer on these antiquated distribution companies who are all doomed to going broke. Soon, at our website, we’ll reveal our way of going forward into this new internet age.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:24 am
As Obama maneuvers to take control of so many industies-auto, banking- and is eyeing several means for silencing talk radio, one wonders how he might go about squashing those such as yourself. Musollini’s ideas of totalitarianism, which are the blueprint for what Obama is doing, do not include a self-reliant populace. By definition, self-reliance removed those practicing from the body politic in a society based on individual need for government daily micro-supervision by the government. I would be interested in knowing your thoughts on this.
May 11th, 2009 at 12:09 am
I am small potatoes on the Government’s radar right now, but I am mindful that I will eventually be a target if Government succeeds on the road to socialism, which I think it will. I’ve thought of your question often — how will they come after me and BHM. Our powerful self-reliant idea is that a citizen does not need Government for anything but road-building, National Defense, and a few sundries. That’s a dangerous concept for people to have if you’re a Government bent on running things. I’ll bet the IRS is their first option, and since we don’t have the money to withstand a hostile IRS audit, they would succeed in closing down our print issue. But self-reliance, like freedom, is an idea, and you just can’t kill good ideas. The internet is here to take up the slack of a shuttered paper magazine, and I and many who read this magazine will continue to spread the ideas of self-reliance and freedom via blogs, websites, forums, and other formats.
Keep in mind that a future dictatorial government is not just dealing with BHM and its people, or even its generation. I’ve been talking to my daughter’’s generation, and they value government even less than my generation. They are not going to fall for any “we’ll take care of you” Government propaganda. My daughter’s generation has grown up watching incompetent Government squander her generation’s future opportunities, bankrupt social security, then bail out banks and rich investors with money her generation is expected to pay back. My daughter’s generation sees it, understands it, and is totally pissed about it. I’m not sure what they will do, but I am certain they will not stand for it. They will refuse to be the bill-payer for previous generations’ ponzi schemes. I think they are revolutionaries by necessity.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Dave,
Are you going to resurrect the archives on CD/DVD (not literally, necessarily, I just want to fill in my archives with PDF or HTML copies of the issues and jettison the pounds of paper that are filling up my shelves). Yes, I know, it will all be useless after the apocalypse (then again, so will much else in my house, being near to a major nuclear site), but I really need to eliminate these paper copies. I have all the archives at this point, some on paper, some on CD and the last several years as loose copies, since no further electronic versions were produced. Say what you will about Mother Earth News, they are fantastic about providing access to back issues online (and I understand why you don’t do the same, although it would be nice for subscribers) and issuing archives on electronic media (no-drm, either, so it works on any of my computers and on many of the new e-ink readers. It would be fantastic to add all the back issues here to my Kindle, to carry around for reference or reading as I get spare time.
Now that you are talking of moving the future of the magazine to the internet, don’t forget to update the past as well. And don’t do a half-way job like Organic Gardening. You can get their current issues as PDF’s by subscribing online, but they have zero access to archived issues, won’t sell you back-issue compilations, etc. And they are locked in to a single vendor for the magazine delivery, which would be even worse than the current retail situation for paper magazines