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First Annual Independent Press Convention To Be Held in San Francisco

By M.S. Deshmukh | Special to AsianWeek

On Jan. 16, members of the independent press from around the country will gather at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco for the kick-off of the First Annual Independent Press Association Convention. Attendees of the conference will range from established long-running independent magazines like The Utne Reader, The Nation and Mother Jones to small start-up magazines like Hyphen, which is preparing for its May 2003 launch.

Issues slated for workshops, Friday and Saturday, Jan 17 – 18, include making money in a tough market for independents, designing a “pick-up worthy” cover and collecting the money your publication is owed. In addition, the convention is a vast networking field where the people responsible for publications at various stages of longevity can meet and learn from each other’s experiences, and make contact with national distributors and retailers.

Although the Independent Press Association (IPA) has held conventions in the past, the 2003 affair is being hyped as a more general kind of event. In addition to the strategic business planning and one-on-one meetings with BigTop Newsstand Services — a nationwide distributor incorporated under the association — the convention will be addressing issues of content and creative financing.

And it is all taking place at the “big, classy old Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill,” IPA executive director and founder Jon Anner said over the phone. Friday’s reception will take place in the Tonga Room, where it rains every half-hour. Another exciting first, the endcap of the event will be the first public presentation ceremony and banquet of the Utne Independent Press Awards on Saturday night.

Of the 400 member publications in the IPA, which include magazines with distributions of over and under 10,000 copies per issue and community and ethnic newspapers, membership coordinator Romeo delaCruz Carambas says there will be some 300 independent publishers at the convention. Carambas explained that the attendance would be mostly made up of small-circulation magazines in their first year of membership and publication. One of the fundamental benefits the IPA offers start-up members is access to a wealth of publishing, marketing and distributing advice accumulated collectively by all the member publications.

Noodle Magazine falls under the category of newish Bay Area member magazines who will be at the Fairmont. Currently, they are working on their third quarterly publication devoted to the exploration of queer APA issues. Noodle-founder and editor, Max Lau said that though he did his preliminary research on starting a magazine independently and already has a national distributor, he looks forward to the networking.

Lau has not attended any previous IPA events, but he said of the e-mail list-server, “you can ask questions over e-mail and they go to all the publishers who are members. Even if you don’t have questions, you read about the problems that other independent publishers are facing and you learn. The conference will be an opportunity to meet the people whose names you see on every e-mail. I’m excited to see their faces,” he said.

The East Bay-based race forum, Colorlines, up and running since 1998, will also be at the conference, and at the 2003 Utne Independent Press Awards Ceremony they will receive the award for the Editors’ Choice for Best Community Magazine. Editor Tram Nyugen will be participating on two of the weekend’s panel discussions and is looking forward to the keynote speaker Salim Muwakkil, senior editor of In These Times and columnist for the Chicago Tribune, and national radio commentator, public speaker and writer, Jim Hightower.

Anner founded the IPA in 1996 as a nonprofit that today posts an annual revenue of $8 million and a budget of about $2.5 million. This money goes back into the independent press in the form of revolving-door grants of up to $50,000 for members to use for direct mail marketing, increasing advertising sales, improving newsstand distribution, or upgrading their magazine’s infrastructure. This kind of grant has helped magazines like Mother Jones and In These Times weather financial rough spots. The IPA’s acquisition of BigTop Newsstand Services in 2000, has allowed members like Bitch to have access to national distribution without having to compromise their content to forge partnerships with the “big four” — national distributors who handle 90 percent of the magazines shipped in the country.

A big topic at this year’s convention will be the introduction of the co-palletization initiative undertaken by the IPA. This initiative falls under the IPA’s commitment to member advocacy by grouping small publishers with common mailing zip codes on the same pallet so that they can have access to the lower postal rates the U.S. Postal Service offers to larger distributors. An administrative member of the Postal Service will be on hand Saturday to explain the changing rates for small magazines following the IPA’s successful campaign.

In the membership application packet for the IPA, there is a statement issued by Anner with the headline “IPA members struggle against great odds to publish in the public interest.”

“The IPA exists,” Anner’s statement reads, “ to help [members] in their struggle, and we accomplish this goal through direct technical assistance, training, information sharing, public education, advocacy and promotional efforts. Through this work, the IPA helps to make these magazines visible to the larger American public. Our goal is also to help these publications make strategic alliances with other institutions active in the movement for a more just society.”

While Lau flippantly laments the annual $150 membership fee for publications with a circulation of less than 10,000 and $300 for those whose paid subscribers exceed 10,000, he concedes that “you can pay in three installments.” Of the association to which his magazine belongs, he says definitively, “the IPA is a good strong pillar for learning what goes into making an independent publication happen. They’re there to support you.”

For anyone who wants “to start something” in the independent press, the IPA is a great tool to learning how to get involved and stay involved in the production of culture, Lau said.

Admission to the IPA Convention Jan 17 – 18 runs $175 for member publications. That price gets three in. The Utne Awards Banquet is a separate event, with its own fee.