Hello from MEANS!
I hope you are all having a wonderful November.
We have been overjoyed by the response to MEANS volume 1 – there has been almost universal positive feedback across the board, and a real sense that people really enjoyed the diversity of content and styles. I am personally extremely grateful to all the writers, artists, musicians and labels that contributed to such a great first issue.
After a rather hectic couple of months, we are now looking forward to releasing issue 2, scheduled for the end of January 2025. Our plan is to release MEANS quarterly, with a third issue following April, then July, then October (and so on, adfinitum).
The theme of this issue is going to be: Privilege / Politics / Power.
OPEN CALL:
We are looking for contributions of all kinds that fall under a brand interpretation of the theme, including (but not restricted to): music, visual art, films, essays, scores, project reports, poems, stories, photography. We welcome a diverse range of contributors, both in terms of supporting people typically under-represented in the arts, and in championing a diverse range of opinions and viewpoints. We encourage you to interpret Privilege / Politics / Power as you see fit, and welcome radical or even controversial positions. Hateful or discriminatory content, however, is not welcome.
All selected artists will receive a minimum payment of £20 (more if we can afford it – we are a grassroots magazine without external funding, and operate on a co-operative model).
The deadline for expressions of interest is Dec 10th. You do not need to submit a completed work at this point, but rather a description of what you want to contribute, and some prior supporting work to show us the nature of your practice. For instance, as photographer might describe to us an as yet un-started photography series, and share with us some previous examples of their photography. After the expressions of interest deadline, we will confirm which artists/projects we wish to include in the final magazine. The final submission deadline is the 7th of January.
LABELS / ARTISTS / MAKERS – PURCHASE A PAGE IN THE MAG!
As with issue 1, the magazine will be funded by labels and artists purchasing a page in the magazine. You can purchase either an half A5 or full A5 page. These will be printed in full colour. Our preference is for artistic, creative images that help excite readers about your music/art /stuff: the magazine is designed to be aesthetically unusual, exciting, and much more than simply a collection of adverts (I think we achieved this in issue 1!). You can include link/QR codes, and we will happily include Bandcamp codes / stickers / prints / CD’s or any other promo materials within the magazine itself (just get in touch and we’ll discus the details!).
We’ve decided that, in order to both make the magazine sustainable and to support smaller artists, we will slightly change the price of adverts. With this in mind, we are moving to an ‘honesty’ pricing model. For each page size, you can choose to pay the minimum price, a middle price, or a higher price. For smaller artists – most of whom operate at a loss – we hope the lower price is affordable, but for artists who actually break even, or even make a little money from their art, we would encourage you to consider paying a little more. Doing so helps us to pay our contributors more, and increases the sustainability and quality of the magazine. However, you are completely free to pay which ever price you wish, without judgement.
1/2 A5 : £5 / £7.50 /£10
Full page : £10 /£12.50 / £15
Please send you pages to us by the 7th of January at the latest. We also offer a design service, where we will put a page together for you. This costs an additional £15.
ONE LAST THING…
MEANS will continue to feature music review on both the website (www.meansmagazine.com) and in the magazine itself. If you are an artist or label and want to submit something for review, please email us (with the subject including the artist/album name, and ‘for review’). Bandcamp codes are preferred, and we will only review E.p’s/albums, not singles. If you like writing reviews and want to contribute to MEANS voluntarily, please also get in touch!
Thanks for reading this massive email, and we look forward to hearing back from you!
MEANS
meansmag@hotmail.com
MEANS 