BIP Economic Conference

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I've got access to some cunning business people that I'll be meeting with this weekend, probably Sunday.

They're not very internets literate, otherwise I'd have them come here, but they've started numerous successful businesses.  It's their hobby.  Build a successful business, sell it to someone, and start another one.  And they're damn good at it.

Here's a chance to get professional insight on the monetary side of starting a periodical or the framework we'd need to build to launch one. 

Is thinking of our publication in business terms something we even want to do? 

Why?  Why not?

What questions do you want to ask these people, if any? 

[LHX]

its not my style to hint at things

so ill be blunt and say that until apocalypse reigns down upon this planet, i have every intention of earning my bread and butter in some form of media
and i would get a kick out of doing it up with the people from these boards

for me - if its not this, its gonna be something remarkably similar which is no doubt spawned from the topics discussed here


as far as your upcoming opportunity:

questions for these dudes:

1. what checks and balances need to be in place in order to get this done?
2. is the minimal-commitment approach viable in business terms?
3. is the publication market already too saturated?
4. what is the minimum quantity we would have to look at moving in order for this to be viable?


i think we are already good at not going forth with doomed ventures
but
as everybody else is apt to notice - theres a wealth of something here



ask them what they themselves look for before they invest in something

that would prolly be the most telling question

[The Littlest Ubermensch]

I have mostly the same questions as LHX, but what exactly would the product be? From what I've gathered, a magazine/series of books is what's most likely on the horizon, but some sort of concrete statement of intent would be helpful, if at least to give the business guys the impression that they would get some sort of return on their investment.

[LHX]

the production of creative and contradictory subversive and philosophical material that is dripping with style

the original PD was silly and funny
CotSG is threatening and funny

im not trying to be part of the LMNO fanclub here
but maybe its time to bring the sexy back

2007 style

keep all the sleazy-funny-morbid-threatening elements, but make it gorgeous to look at and easy to take in

[tyrannosaurus vex]

if you're out to mindfuck, then it's the company printer and your free time.

if you're out to produce an actual publication you expect to make at least enough cash from to do it again next month/quarter/whatever, then you have to make people want to read it just to read it, not for some higher motive.

i love this idea.

my new philosophy includes the idea that 'selling out' is probably how HIV convinces your cells to let it in.

[LHX]

my new philosophy includes the idea that 'selling out' is probably how HIV convinces your cells to let it in.

thats potent

[rygD]

Although this is completely unrelated this brings the novel "Accelerando" to mind.  Does anyone know anything about Manfred Macx's approach to business, or understand what Stross was going for enough to discuss it?

Another "cyberpunk" novel that deserves mention due to what you say these "cunning" people do, is Cryptonomicon.

I am not as aware of or involved in this project as I would like to be, but know that periodicals with a niche market have a hard time, and unless the publishing of the issues is going to be fairly irregular in frequency this may not be the best way to approach this.  Maybe an annual or biannual at best, otherwise just releasing it as a series of books may be the best approach.

[Triple Zero]

if we do it annual or bi-annual it's not going to work because of the revolving door thing. in a year from now nobody might remember "hey shouldn't we bring out BIPmag#2 somewhere in June?"

[rygD]

If you think it will be popular enough to worry about the financial side of it then go for it.  I think it is a good idea to try, I just don't know howm many submissions you will get in the time between each issue.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Paper is a kamikaze trip, due to cost and risk.

Why not publish in electronic form?
EXAMPLE

[Triple Zero]

If you think it will be popular enough to worry about the financial side of it then go for it.  I think it is a good idea to try, I just don't know howm many submissions you will get in the time between each issue.

i don't think the amount of content will be a problem. seeing how much interesting stuff is written, and if we ever hit a "dry" period there's an archive of several years to dig through.

problem is, a magazine costs more effort than just writing content, you need layout and editing, which takes a lot of work if you wanna do it properly

[Cain]

Produce the papers online.  Make them cheap to reproduce.  Print off and spread them around, with the site URLs.  More people who get interested, the larger a target audience can be built up.

[Triple Zero]

so, host PDFs.

but we've been doing this for years at poee.co.uk

what's the problem with those? not "slick" enough?

[P3nT4gR4m]

I got a real boner for making my counter propaganda look the same as the shit I'm trying to subvert. If I was releasing a BIP or Discordia ezine it would look like 'Smash Hits' or Cosmopolitan.

But that's a personal thing. I think the reason POEE docs look like they do is more because they are designed to be dl'd and printed out right?

[Cain]

You haven't done them as periodical magazines that make it look like we already have enough of a readership base to justify them.