WHY PRINT IS ON PAUSE
TL;DR? "The Hunting Issue" is next, and we need to raise $15,000 to put it in the mail.
The Summer Issue of our eponymous newsprint magazine is out in the world, fluttering through mailboxes and hands, awaiting hungry eyes and hands in need of some ink stains. With a smaller team and a tariff-strained advertorial budget, this issue was hard won.
At its core, it feels like art. Art is hard won. It can often feel like shouting into a void, and then trying to make a sculpture out of the echo that returns to you. Really, it can feel impossible in the beginning. The impossibility caught up to us in the last issue. We dug deep into our own pockets to make it work, and we learned we need to get ahead of the game in order to produce the next issue pragmatically.
This is a long update, so in summary, we’re proud of The Summer Issue and what we made alongside our writers and illustrators. After doing this twice, we finally understand the scope and work it takes to get this done, and we’re raising $15,000 so that we can run our next issue.
We’re calling it The Hunting Issue.
That sounds like a lot, but we need to be transparent about what it costs to hire contributors, something we’re unwilling to compromise on. And we can’t hire them without a budget.
If you are already supporting us through either paid subscriptions or single purchases, we’re so damn grateful for you! We’ll make sure you get your money’s worth as we build to the next issue. More on that below.
And if you appreciate our digital work as a free subscriber, you can help by becoming an annual or monthly subscriber, an advertiser, or by keeping an eye out for soon-to-be-released merch.
Interested in the whole story? Keep reading.
Narrative Journalism is Worth the Effort
We focus on narrative journalism and narrative nonfiction within the broad scope of outdoor writing. We rarely report on what is beyond our experience; rather, we report what’s within it.
A story about adopting a burro can also educate about the plight of wild equines on public lands. A story about facing down wild animals can inform us of how our energy moves through the world — and how it might be our jobs to shift that energy. A story about a garden can press up against one writer’s longing to be in the backcountry, while family ties her close to home.
This issue, to me, is closer to our vision than anything else we’ve produced. It’s funny, punny, light-hearted, and fresh. The illustrations sing, the photography breathes, and the stories cross recreational pursuits, scientific adventure, family connections, and friendly mischief. When our readers look at this, I hope they feel the same sense of relief it gives our team. Traditional journalism can’t really offer us that respite at the moment. But I believe narrative journalism can.
In a world of specialization and high-intensity niches, versatility can feel like a gamble. If dice were tossed, this issue wins the shake-a-day pot. I’m proud of it. That said, we’re not exactly making ends meet.
The Honest Math of a Burgeoning Publication
Out of our 3,529 subscribers, 225 are paid subscribers. This works out to about $12,000/year here on Substack. We’re in the Top 50 Environment Substacks because of this, and we’ve often beat out some of the best environmental writers in the world on the Rising List. It’s incredible to be doing that well on Substack, while also telling of how difficult it is to make a living there. We’ll say, it’s also just successful enough to be dangerous: It tempts us to leverage that support to do more.
Most importantly, we’re committed to paying our contributors a market-acceptable rate for stories. With around 10 stories per issue from contributors, more than 50% of our budget funds the work of writers, illustrators, and fellow creatives. Our editing process is thorough, and it takes a few weeks to complete. Our biggest expense, then, is making sure each contributor is paid adequately for their work over time, and that’s certainly a spot where we refuse to budge. We’re not willing to publish something that only exists through labor exploitation. If we’re making this, we have to build the audience and market to sustain it.
For this to work, we’ve made compromises with paying ourselves, but we must impose practical limits. We expected to be doing editing and design work without compensating ourselves for a bit. By doing this we broke even on the first issue, surprising for a new publication. But with the second printing, we had to put about $7,000 cash into self-funding magazine production costs. That’s too deep in the red to repeat.
So in the spirit of “Do you want it to be good, fast, or cheap?”— we’re sacrificing ‘fast.’
Our Fall Issue is Now “The Hunting Issue”
Our next slated issue focuses on all the harbingers of our favorite season: Fall. Honestly, it’s the issue we’ve been most excited about as DIY hunters ourselves. We know many of you have been looking towards it as well, both as potential contributors and dedicated readers.
Fall is our time of year. It takes the footwork of time on the ground and puts something in the freezer, that we can go back to again and again and again. For the next three seasons, it also feeds our favorite sort of story — the kind you want to tell your friends around a campfire, bundled in your favorite fleece, with a beverage in hand.
So, we’re renaming the next newsprint magazine The Hunting Issue, and we’ll make it once we have the funds in the bank to do so, on a timeline that works for us and for our future contributors. Ideally, we’d be able to ship before Christmas, so it arrives along with holiday cheer.
We’d also like to make it a slightly longer issue, where we can give stories, images, and illustrations even more space to breathe, while offering more bang for your buck — or, more buck for your bang, if we’re being hunters about it.
How You Can Help Us Reach Our $15,000 Goal
We’re setting our initial goal as $15,000 to run The Hunting Issue, an amount that would allow Kestrel, L, and myself to make ends meet. But, we don’t want to go the ol’ GoFundMe or Kickstarter route just yet. We’d rather stay inside our Substack universe.
The biggest way anyone could help is to…
If we sell 1000 copies, we’re good to go. That’s doable.
But, there are a ton of other opportunities to help us bring The Hunting Issue to life. And again, if you’re already on board, hell yeah friends! We’re so happy to have you on our team.
But should you want to help further, here’s the list:
Become an annual subscriber and you’ll receive both digital articles and print as soon as it drops. (And if you are an annual subscriber, don’t forget to fill out our address form to receive the paper!)
Become a monthly subscriber and you’ll receive print articles digitally that are only available to paid subscribers. But, you’ll have to purchase print separately!
Purchase a printed Spring or Summer Issue from The Westrn Store
Pre-purchase ‘The Hunting Issue’ from The Westrn Store
Purchase gift subscriptions or individual issues for friends and family that you think would like what we’re up to.
Advertise with us! It’s affordable, and it supports our commitment to storytelling more than you know. We start at just $250, and we offer discounts for nonprofits, small businesses, and NGOs.
We’ve done our damndest to stay away from becoming overbearing fools when it comes to asking for things in market speak. So, just know that supporting us goes exactly where we say it goes — to the pursuit of art and storytelling.
Merch Incoming
We know the outdoors crowd loves merch, and you all have been asking for it. We’ve got a few ideas up our sleeve that we’re excited about.
A “STAY RANK” t-shirt inspired by the advice column of the ineffable Rachelle Schrute
A “GET (the) WESTRN” t-shirt that inspires folks to stay rowdy
Hats, prints and stickers from our incredible illustrators, including 8-year-old Oscar Nichols-Chestnut’s badass skull drawing, our wrapping paper designs, and more
Already a Subscriber? We’ll Make Sure You Get What You Paid For
We know that print being on pause is not ideal if you’re already a subscriber. That’s a big reason we didn’t increase our price when we added print to the subscription model in January.
Our $50/year digital subscription promised two long-reads per month, and it stayed at $50/year when we added the newsprint magazine. It’s a silly decision from a business perspective, but it’s an honest decision when you’re unsure of how things will work long-term.
That said, we’re baking things into the annual subscription that we hope will convince you to stick around, like special discounts, pre-releases for merch, and other opportunities. And we’re still gunning to get The Hunting Issue out in 2025.
As our core community, we want to open the lines of communication. Have ideas that you think can help? Please let us know. Say something in the comments. Send us an email. Know us personally? Give us a call. And yeah, we’ll do your po
We’re new to selling this, but we’re committed to making it, and that in itself feels like a win.
Let’s do the damn thing —
Nicole, Kestrel, and L