If you are interested in journalistically written stories, and love newspapers, it might be a familiar feeling for you, too, this sadness to see so many newspapers and magazines folding in the last 20 years.
With all the change into digital and the shifts that have come in the way we consume media during this time, one has to wonder what it is takes for some people to keep going with print media.
I was curious about that.
I mean, staying the course and managing to figure things out as you go, takes energy, adaptability, flexibility, wisdom, risk, and persistence. I have reached out to half a dozen people in publishing, specifically print publishing, who have been in business for more than two decades and who seem to fit this profile.
One of those people is Samir Shukla, whose magazine, Saathee, has just celebrated its 25th anniversary.
Making a monthly print publication for 25 years (and counting)
Something about print just has a richness and lasting-ness to it.
A love of paper and the printed page is something I share with all of the people whom I have interviewed, so far, for this series, ‘Publishing through the Decades,’ for S P A C E. This is the first one in that sequence.
Here is Samir Shukla sharing his story, in ‘Making a Magazine.’
Geographic ties
I’m in Cambodia, and Saathee is in Charlottte, North Carolina, USA. We’ve yet to meet in real life, but we have talked on calls a few times over the last 10 years, across the world.
Calls on occasion were for us to talk over some column ideas that I suggested. He was receptive, and I appreciated that. I am glad that I got to publish three series of columns: ‘Just Being Honest,’ ‘Kismuth & The Way’ and ‘Uncertainty’ over the years in Saathee. I’m from North Carolina, so it was a neat way to keep in touch ambiently with a few, back home. I once got a great email, in which a reader of the magazine wrote, ‘I clip your story every month.’ That was pretty fantastic, and through publishing I felt connected. This kind of ‘connection’ is a conversation topic that comes up in the podcast, too.
S P A C E | Conversations
More soon from the series,’Publishing through the Decades.’ It’s a topic that I feel pretty excited about. S P A C E and this podcast is supported by crowdfunding. (See the page, #spacethezine, here.)