Reflecting on our first print run: Issue No 9
Finally, I have time to reflect on the process of creating our first ever printed Issue of Beta Magazine: Issue No 9: Back to Basics. The push to begin printing Beta Magazine came about at the Women in Mountain Training conference in October 2022. Immy and I were were stationed in the 'Green Room' at Plas y Brenin, with a small table covered in print outs of past Issues. My sister Annabel very generously printed them all for us (that's a lot of paper and ink!) and for the first time, we got to see what the Issues looked like in 'real life.' With such a colourful spread in front of us, many conference attendees were drawn to come and take a peak.
"What's this?!" ... "I've never heard of Beta Magazine before but it looks so good" ... "Wow, I love the designs!" ... "I'd definitely buy it if it was printed" ... "I don't really want to read off a screen in my down time, I'd love it in print."
These were just some of the comments that were made over the course of the weekend and people had a point. It was time to figure out how to print Beta Magazine.
In January we put out an open call for submissions on social media and the response was incredible. We received more submissions than we were able to fit into the magazine (which means we already have some lined up for the next Issue!). Over a weekend in February, Immy, Nat and I edited submissions and began the process of laying them out. The Laundry Retreat in North Wales were kind enough to host us in one of their beautiful roundhouses, a big thank you to Jenny and Tom. It was then up to Nat to lay the rest of the features out. Followed by being proof read by JoJo, Lizzie, myself and Immy.
Next stop the printers! Issue No 9 was printed by Print Work, a local (to me) printer in Leeds. Print Work use sustainable printing practices, they print small batches and work with independent creators. They were exceptionally helpful and I would highly recommend them if you need any significant quantities of prints done. Once all of the copies were safely delivered to Beta Magazine HQ (aka, my house), it was then up to Ant and I to package and post all orders. We spent a lot of time one weekend sticking postage labels onto envelopes, but that's all part of the fun. Copies of Issue No 9 were posted to Mexico, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, Ireland and more. We sent copies to our Patreons, our contributors, our Etsy customers, as well as a number of stockists including The Climbing Academy, Rumdoodles, Yonder and shortly the Climbing Depot.
It's safe to say that it was a tiring process, it's very energy intensive and it takes a lot of time. Yet, so totally worth it. Have you seen the print copies?! They're beautiful. A special thank you to Clare Jepson for designing the stunning cover. Seeing a small idea turn into a printed magazine three years later is quite a surreal experience. Thank you so much if you ordered a copy and if you continue to support Beta Magazine.
Beta Magazine has never been driven by making money, but unfortunately running small batch orders is quite expensive. I don't know if you know this, but Etsy takes quite a fee from orders, when you add packaging, the accompanying card, the printing costs, it all stacks up and we have certain costs that we need to cover to be able to run. We hope that we can bring the price down in the not too distant future if we can tap into funding - but these things cost. It's really kind and cool to support small projects and people doing things independently, if you have supported us, you are so rad! Volunteer work doesn't equal free products - the amount of labour and energy that goes into producing Beta Magazine by our fantastic contributors and volunteers is immense. Anyway, let's see how we can move forward.
Soon, we will put out an open call for submissions to the next Issue, and if you're reading up to here, you get to hear the theme first. The theme of Issue No 10 will be 'Community' - we are a community platform after all. If you fancy contributing, check out our 'Contribute?' page on our website with more information about how to contribute. The deadline for submissions to Issue No 10 will be Friday 30th June. Ant and I are about to move house, so I may be even slower than usual to reply to your emails and messages, thank you for your patience and I cannot wait to see what you come up with.
Wear a helmet, stay safe, have fun and keep climbing!
Emily Ankers (she/her)
Co-Founder and Editor of Beta Magazine
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If you want to support us AND get copies of Beta Magazine, you can subscribe to our Patreon: CLICK HERE. When you subscribe to Patreon, you get access to Beta Magazine as well as Patreon exclusive community posts.
You can read our DIGITAL back Issues by downloading them from Etsy: CLICK HERE.
You can also become part of our FREE Discord Community: CLICK HERE.
A huge thank you to our Patreons, supporters, stockists, contributors and volunteers. We couldn't do it without you.
Our Patreons:
Jack Clark, Lizzie Medwell, Annabel Ankers, Jessica Emsley, Kath Pender, Elise Jansson, Ellie Griffiths-Jones, Millie Barlow, Andreas Lange, Nils Schaffer, Ian Birtwistle, Emma Tate, Pauline Taylor, Nicholas Ankers, Lizzie Darville, The Fox & Stork Podcast and Elbows.
Issue No 9 Contributors:
Immy Sykes, Natalie Moore, Clare Jepson, Sophie Low, Faye Latham, Faye Alexandra Rose, Camille Delègue, Lizzy Lee, Dani Mariano, Sinean Callery, Anesu Matanda Mambingo, Charlotte Ditchburn, Varun Jyothykumar, Imogen Campion, Alice Fonda-Marsland, Tasmin Lofthouse, Saskia Ryan-Munden, JoJo Lewis, Catherine Rawlinson, Lizzie Darville, Rebecca Stringfellow and yours truly, Emily Ankers.
A special thank you goes to Zofia Reytch for their contributions to Issue No 9 of Beta Magazine.