Project for an ILM blog/site/publication

"huh huh, I know where you work" is especially creepy coming from the guy who 's entire posting history is stats from RateYorMusic_metal.xls

b4 i forget - the chucks oral history was pretty awes

Why are some of you thinking about monetizing so early on? First you need an actual audience and a group of steady writers. Money doesn't come first.

ya just do it for like six months then sell to facebook for $100m

Yeah nobody knows who you work for. You kept it super quiet.

if it took the ebook route, a preview issue of some sort could be put together - make it say half the size of whatever the full release would be, make it a free release as a bit of a taster, and see what the reaction is like.

Why are some of you thinking about monetizing so early on? First you need an actual audience and a group of steady writers. Money doesn't come first.

― Moka, Sunday, September 16, 2012 12:19 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

this isn't like a band or something where you do gigs for peanuts until you can work your way up and make a profit -- you either set up a model from the beginning that might make money or at least pay for itself or that's never gonna happen.

is there any way we can get lurkers to pay for this?

ya moka we have an actual audience, theres like a million assholes who read this site everyday

that said, having some central person set up an actual business that money will go into, to be distributed to contributors living in a bunch of different countries, is pretty daunting to consider.

this isn't like a band or something where you do gigs for peanuts until you can work your way up and make a profit -- you either set up a model from the beginning that might make money or at least pay for itself or that's never gonna happen.

agreed, the "doing this for peanuts" part has been the last 6-7 years.

i think it might also be cool to propose or even present some content ahead of time -- see if a few writers that people generally love want to write some interesting long form pieces on spec, and either release or excerpt them before doing any fundraising, so that people have some idea of the caliber of the work that's being promised.

― nutrition aziz (some dude), Sunday, September 16, 2012 3:35 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a good idea.

that said, having some central person set up an actual business that money will go into, to be distributed to contributors living in a bunch of different countries, is pretty daunting to consider.

― nutrition aziz (some dude), Sunday, September 16, 2012 4:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

paypal etc would make the distribution part okay I think, it's the making of money in the first place which seems more daunting to me.

I know that someone floated the idea upthread but I felt like repeating it: how about trying to set up a non-profit?

If the click through model is the enemy wouldn't that be its natural opposite? A 501(c)3 like the New Inquiry?

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable-Organizations/Exemption-Requirements---Section-501(c)(3)-Organizations

i'm still most interested in 77 magazine

or set up an ILTMI publication to subsidise the ILM one

I'm not really a logistics guy but I'm game to write/edit

this whole thing's kinda your fault so you better do somethin' :)

We really need to enter into this from a non-salary point, with a promise of it in the future. This might be as simple, for a start, as launching whatever the malleable any-use equiv of a Wordpress/blogger is, with advertising options. Profit sharing may be the way to go.

Haha

What've I done

What monster have I unleashed

Should we proceed on parallel tracks here?

Track A: logistics
Track B: who wants to be involved and how?

Track C: what do we call this thing

Listen and Obey: We Are Here to Help You

A part of me likes the sell-it-as-an-Amazon file idea but I don't know if it's realistic

Track B: like I said, actually being a podcast voice for this would be kinda cool; after a decade of not being on the air and podcasting now ruling the universe and all, beginning to think it's about time.

Agreed. I dig that idea, maybe a "here's a podcast version of today's coverage, guv'nor" sort of courtesy.

yeah the nedcast is definitely going to be the cornerstone of this empire

I would love to help, either by writing or also the idea of recording some stuff for a podcast appeals to me quite a lot. Basically I'm in for general involvement.

for whatever this subsequently turns out to be

Also - somebody said this up thread and I dunno who - I love the idea of not being beholden to "the new" or "the timely" or whatever's hot or "we're only writing about these guys because a major show/fest looms"

"you wanna write about 80s norweigan synth pop? DO IT"

The one thing I'll want to get is a better microphone than I currently have. Michael J. Nelson recommended a good one in an interview last year that I was considering which had the advantage of being affordable but still pretty reasonably pro, I'll have to dig that up.

Ned, a Rode NT1 would work fine for you if you can spare $170 or so.

I'll need something in the low six figures & a private jet

you didn't get yours yet?

MaresNest -- noted, that would have to wait a bit if so given holiday and other upcoming expenses.

a podcast is a good idea, i think.

How will we fund Ned's ricola budget

A self-contained podcast or a internet radio show might be a good idea.

On the written side, i like the idea of fleshing out an artist or EOY poll into a short book and publishing via Amazon. Unlikely to make vast amounts of money but might pay for server costs.

Server costs are already paid-for, kinda. We could certainly incubate it here, at least. If it got to be too big to handle that's the good kind of problem, right?

when i suggested using ILM polls i meant more to help fill out a daily website -- that kind of thing seems like a nice way to beef up the content of a site and get people clicking around but something like an ebook or quarterly magazine would probably be better served with longform criticism/journalism. (xpost)

a quarterly print digest of usernames without annotation or explanation

the finest only

it's worth thinking about why ILM "works" (when it does). to my mind the magic mechanism is the question-and-answer format, and the back and forth generated by the answers (which often provoke new questions, etc). if you plucked the "best" and "most interesting" writers here and asked them to write a bunch of stand-alone articles, you might have something good, but it wouldn't capture what's great about ILM. the particular flavor of it wouldn't be there. so i'm sort of agreeing with kate in that i think ILM is already in its optimal form, for better or for worse.

that said maybe this new thing wouldn't just have to be stand-alone articles. the singles jukebox is a good example of something that thinks outside that format. although the various mini-reviews there don't interact with each other or propel each other the way threads here do.

in any case i think the only way to have something that isn't ILM, but which captures what ILM is good at, needs to have some kind of supercharged comments culture at its core, as the very basis for what it's doing. there are very, very few websites that have reliably great comments that aren't just one-off responses but which carry on their own narratives. so maybe "comments" as such isn't the way to do it, i don't know.

How about something along the lines of Frank's Why Music Sucks zine?

E.g multiple pieces responding to a question or proposition.

And responding to one another

yes, something like that! though it's the "responding to one another" part that's tricky, even just logistically. but yeah! [disclosure: i have never actually read why music sucks :(]

yeah i don't mean to sound like i'm pushing for just long thinkpieces or something -- i think it'd be great if we had a format that captured a bit of the argumentative/persuasive spirit of ILM threads and included multiple viewpoints on a given topic. i just worry about that kind of 'everybody gets a turn' stuff ending up becoming the meat of the project, and wonder whether it's possible for that not to eventually get insular to people not participating, the same way the message board would be less fun to read for a lurker or the unconverted.