Qbasicnews.com

I would like to announce a new magazine for the Basic community.

Before I continue any further, I wish to address certain remarks this will certainly foreshadow:
- I am aware, despite my on-and-off appearances in the community, of the criticism Pete has been facing with his magazine.
- This magazine will not be a regular thing. It will come out when it comes out.
- Not all submitted content will be put into this magazine. While the term 'elitist' has come up in the past regarding older magazines in this community, and while it will probably come up again with this one, this will never change.
- I have been semi-planning this in my head for a while now, and this is independant of what has been going on in the community recently.

And now, the magazine. While I appreciate the stellar efforts Pete has shown with almost two dozen issues spanning over two years, I think there is a major problem with QBE. Even though it closed major rifts in the community, it's free acceptance policy has resulted in some less than acceptable quality of articles. Content that is badly written, has lackluster content or is just plain (dare I say it) useless. I don't wish to point names, in fact, despite the poor quality of their efforts, I wish to congratulate these people, for they made the effort to do something, something more than others.

This magazine will be different. My aim is to produce a print-quality magazine for the community. Even if it is just one issue, it could be a testament to the decade past that brought us from the Secret of Cooey to Zero GTR. The magazine would be availible for purchase via Lulu.com, an online printing service which I have used and been extremely satisfied with.


For this to happen, I need some things.
First and foremost, I need content. This is blatantly obvious, but because the content will need to be of high quality, I'd take stuff previously published. Some things:
- No major articles, apart from a retro look, will be published on QBasic.
- I will only take articles from the original author, with a separate document clearly stating that the author agrees to give me full rights to re-use their work as I see. Email me for the details of this contract. I do this to avoid legal troubles.
- Send me your past work. Whether it's on your website, in QBE or another magazine, if it's a high quality piece of writing that explains a relevant issue well, it might make the cut.
- Spell/grammar check, and proper English. I shouldn't have to say this, but it's poor that many articles in QBE are written in SMS lingo.
- Submissions should be only in plaintext, using Textile for emphasis. Google for info.

I may also need a bunch of people to act as a team:
- Journalist - Will find news, write briefs and articles
- Asst. Editors - Will read submissions, perform corrections and formatting.
- Marketing - Market...
I say "may also", because I am not sure whether I'd be able to do all the work or not.


Last, but not least, I will need cash donations. These will be put towards resources for the magazine (professional-level fonts etc.), web presence, advertising etc. A major part of the money will also go to printing test copies of the magazine. The contributers will be mentioned in the magazine, although the value of the contribution will never be known to anyone but myself and the contributor.

Please, give me your money only if you truly want this to succeed. I'd rather you send it to the Fb development team first, or the developer of your favorite IDE before this, since they've already given you something. I only have one promise, and that is that this -will- happen, and it will, better late than never.


"But which newsstand will have your magazine, Avi?" (joke) I'd expect the readers to obtain the magazine like such:
- The print magazine will cost alot. I don't even want to ballpark, but definately expect a double digit USD figure. Lulu's pricing system is simple - At printing cost, whoever orders pays printing cost and shipping. Lulu takes nothing, I take nothing. Anything over, we share a split of profits. I haven't decided on pricing yet.
- The magazine would also be availible in a digital version, most probably PDF. A donator would recieve a free issue. Anyone else would probably pay a few dollars at the most.
- I am not sure if I will do it, but a stripped-down version could be offered in a plaintext or bare-HTML format for free. Maybe contains a few articles or something to give potential readers something tangible.

I expect almost no-one but myself and the people who's articles were published to buy the print magazine for anything but reasons of personal pride.


I sincerely hope people take me seriously, as I feel it would be a great achievement to pull something like this off in our community. Considering the leaps and bounds made in the software being produced in this community, this would be a great addition to the showcase that is the Qmunity.

I find this a rather good idea, but somewhat I feel that people will need to see something to feel commited to this endeavour.

You know how short I am of time, but I will try to submit you something valuable

To show something, I'm going to need stuff...

I was basically intending to show covers or something. I already have some articles I want to write in mind. We'll see. I want to read some other reactions first.

As soon as you have one article, do a "layout test". I love things correctly laid out - I find them overwhelmingly attractive. I think I'm not the only one to experiment this, so I'd rather give it a go. It might grap a couple of good writers who want their work to be layered in the classy way.

I actually rather like that idea. Since I was going to be writing an article myself anyway, I might as well get to it sooner rather than later, and have something to show...solid advice, thanks.

By the by, haven't seen you on MSN lately...what's the dealio?

Work mostly. But tomorrow I start my hollidays, so I'll be on more often. Then we'll talk about apeshell business

On freebasic.net's forums, some people voiced concerns that this was a scam for me to make money. Frankly I was a little surprised, but I figured to post my response to clear some stuff up.

Quote:I just re-read my original post to make sure my message was clear. I'm now pretty sure it is.

Nowhere in that post is said that I will make money. I will make nothing from this initially, apart from non-monetary benefits. Maybe, later, if this succeeds beyond the lackluster response I've gotten thus far, this could be a source of income for myself and writers, but nobody is making money from this.

All donations will be taken and put into production - hosting, resources, marketing. As for the price of the magazine, I can't help the production costs, but I never said I would put a markup, and even if I do, it would be for a similar reason for donations. As the pool of money builds up above what the costs of running this are, then paying writers could be considered. Advertising and what not could be other options to look at.

Frankly I am surprised that two people jumped to this same conclusion. I couldn't imagine anyone falling for something like this. Either this is the sort of reputation I've come to hold in this community, or neither of you really read the post. Either way is sad...

Nath: Cool, looking forward to it.

edit: this too: http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic...4226#44226

Looks like another zine revival has started...this happens every few years, it's a trend not unlike the rest of the trends that come and go...

Hi Aether, nice you see you again.

If you made a print edition, Im sure I would buy it, even if it was fairly pricey. (as long as the publishing quality was up to normal magazine standards)

Seems like you have big ambitions, good luck with them!