Audience Engagement
2 mins read

Film Stories founder Simon Brew on crowdfunding an independent magazine

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On this week’s episode of Media Voices, the founder of Film Stories magazine Simon Brew talks the dos and don’ts of a crowdfunding campaign, the potential of independent magazines, and the importance of giving new voices a chance to be heard.

Key quotes:


At heart I told the truth, and I put a Kickstarter page up, and yeah we had some concept design work done, although bits of it changed bits of it didn’t, but I did a very strict ‘Here is what I’m going to do, what we’re going to do, here is when we’re going to do it, here is what it looks like at the moment, if you can support it that’s brilliant, if not spread the word. If it’s not for you, that’s fine.’ I just told the truth and used social media to promote it. But that was it.


I’m conscious that a lot of the time it’s a street fight just to get noticed. If you say you’re going to do something, you do it, that is absolutely fundamental. I think that’s probably the thing that’s helped me the most, just making things exist for better or worse.


If you are publishing writing, and that is your business, you budget for writing. The whole ‘We’ve got no budget for that,’ you shouldn’t be publishing writing if you’ve not got a budget for writing. And so I made it part and parcel of Film Stories that at least two people in every issue would be getting their first paid print work. And they’re paid quickly.

In the news roundup Peter, Esther and Chris discuss why Facebook might be folding its messaging apps together, what next for journalism after over 1,000 media jobs were cut at Buzzfeed, Gannett and Verizon Media, and examine why Condé Nast is choosing to put all of its magazine titles behind paywalls. The team brainstorms new messaging app names with horrifying results.


Photo by 
Kilyan Sockalingum on Unsplash