Launching this blog has to be one of the most frustratingly difficult things I have done in my life. It is a perfect example of the chasm that now exists in American society between an older generation like me who is not comfortable on the internet and a younger generation, like most of you who are now reading this blog, who are comfortable with it.

This blog is intended to help bring BHM into the 21st century. At age 63, I may not feel at home on this instantaneous-feedback medium, but I can see it represents the future of magazines, while a paper magazine such as I now publish will probably join other print relics of history before my lifetime ends. It’s all happening so damn fast!

Near as I can tell, about one-third of Backwoods Home Magazine’s print issue subscribers do not do the internet, and they likely never will. I feel for them. I empathize with them. I publish my magazine for them, and I go only grudgingly into this new medium because two-thirds of BHM’s print issue readership is as comfortable here as they are with the print issue. I have no choice unless I want to be left behind.

I am a hybrid, with one foot in the old print world and the other stepping lightly into the internet. Next month the internet will be even more revolutionary than it is today. And next year it will be unimaginably newer. I doubt society has ever been transformed so quickly, and so frequently.

But I have seen the future for a long time. That’s why I’ve worked with BHM’s webmaster, Oliver Del Signore, this past decade developing our large and well organized website, www.backwoodshome.com. And now I’ll hop aboard in a more personal way and try and give you a publisher’s personal view of what it’s like to found and direct a print issue magazine for 18 years, then transition to the internet over maybe another 18. I have a lot of insight, I think, but obviously I have a lot to learn with this new technology.

Of course, some things never change. There are millions of blogs out there in cyberspace, but most of them are written for families and friends. These are good, as they bring sharing and closeness back into our modern life. Of the many that are written for popular consumption, most have nothing to say. It will be my challenge to have something to say on a more regular basis. That’s going to be hard! Up to this point, I had two months to prepare my print issue columns. It takes a lot of reflection to think of something worthwhile to say. I am not a politician who can talk off the top of my head about nothing. But I’ve been preparing myself for the last several months, so have a lot of topics on my mind.

A number of people over the years have told me that they’d like to be “a fly on the wall” in my BHM office to see how I come up with ideas for a new issue of the magazine. That’s what this blog will be about. How do I locate good writers and people with knowledge about building, self-reliance, and other topics? How did I come to hire Jackie Clay? How about John Silveira? What about the mysterious O.E. MacDougal? Why did Mas Ayoob decide to write for a small magazine like BHM when he was already a well known quantity 20 years before BHM was even founded? Where did Jeff Yago come from? How about Richard Blunt, David Lee, Dorothy Ainsworth, Claire Wolfe? How come these and others know so much and how come they write about what they know so well.

This blog will try and tell all that and more in coming entries. It is not a simple thing to produce a high quality magazine like BHM. It takes lots of brains, creativity, hard work, and the ability to relate to very smart and knowledgeable people who are needed to produce the high level of content of the magazine. This is going to be the behind-the-scenes look at how I have been acting as the grand director overseeing the publication of Backwoods Home Magazine for the past 18 years. It’s been a lot of fun, very challenging at times, even prompting me to have heart bypass surgery. But it’s been worth it. Every heart-breaking minute!

We’re still a small magazine when measured by our number of paid print issue subscribers (about 24,000) or newsstand sales (about 7,000) or website page views (about 200,000 per month), but we are big when measured in influence and quality. We are widely quoted and discussed, whether in the mainstream media, on the internet, or in people’s homes. Our articles are reprinted all over, libraries carry our anthologies, and many people on the internet link to the several hundreds of articles we’ve posted at our website.

I’ll be at the MREA Fair in Custer, Wisconsin June 13-15

Coincident to the launching of this blog, I and my family are leaving town Friday, June 8th, to go to the MREA (Midwest Renewable Energy Association) Fair in Custer, Wisconsin, which will be June 13-15. You’ve perhaps noticed the ad for it on the BHM website. If you come to the MREA Fair, wear your BHM T-shirt and I’ll give you a free autographed copy of my book, Can America be saved from STUPID PEOPLE. It’s a collection of my past columns from the print issue.

For details, click the MREA website.

We’ll bring a stash of BHM T-shirts and hats to the show and sell them at dirt-cheap prices–$10 for a hat, for example. Buy either and I’ll give you the book.

This is the first show of any kind I’ve done in about three years, and I’ll probably never do another. I like staying home. That’s why I founded BHM–to build my own home and live in the woods with a garden and animals. So if you want to say hello in person, this will likely be your only chance unless you visit our office in Gold Beach, Oregon.

I am doing this Fair for the same reason I am launching this blog: BHM has good information and it needs to be passed on to those who think, as I do, that life is full of possibilities for enjoyment by living relatively self-sufficiently in the woods. The blog will also give you a glimpse of my home life and the many projects I undertake there.

I’ll post here on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Today is Friday. See you Monday.

–Dave

This entry was posted on Friday, June 8th, 2007 at 6:50 am and is filed under Publishing BHM, Writing and Editing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.