Successfully reaching its goal, campaign for The Deep seeks to "stretch" support

The campaign to launch The Deep to provide longform journalism to and about Atlantic Canada has gone well, so well that the crowdfunding has topped the original $15,000 goal. With three days left to contribute, supporters are being asked to meet a "stretch" goal and reach $18,500.  The extra money will allow an expansion of photography and art, pay additional travel expenses for writers and get the project a bit closer to becoming self-sustaining.                                                                                                    

Atlantic startup The Deep close to its crowdsourcing goal

The Deep, the magazine startup for Atlantic stories by Atlantic writers, is about 25% away from its initial fundraising goal, with 25% of their $15,000 goal remaining to be contributed and about the same amount of time remaining in the campaign. So far, some 183 backers have contributed to the Kickstarter campaign. 

The intent is to publish one big, longform story every month starting in the new year.The Deep is a partnership between Halifax's The Coast magazine and writer/editors Chelsea Murray and Matthew Halliday, whose CVs as editors and writers include The Grid, Canadian Business, Quill & Quire, Toronto Life, the Toronto Star, This Magazine, The Walrus, and many more.

Winnipeg custom publisher to launch global digital magazine Tea Journey

A new digital magazine for tea experts and people who share a passion for tea, called Tea Journey is due to be launched in June. A Kickstarter campaign to help with the launch begins April 4.Dan Bolton, the Winnipeg-based founding editor and publisher, says in a release:

"Tea Journey is like a digital caravan of story tellers who travel to origin and return with authoritative, elusive and exclusive articles, photos, and video that will help our readers discover their tea destiny. It serves a growing marketplace for fine tea with decades of publishing experience and an unprecedented network of devoted and respected tea authorities."

(Bolton is editor of the Tea Biz blog, managing editor of STIR Tea and Coffee magazine and was editor and publisher of Tea Magazine and World Tea News.)

The new digital magazine, published by Mystic Media Custom Publishing, targets established tea lovers looking to discover and refine their taste in tea – selecting, correctly preparing and serving the finest teas from around the world. It will be published three times a year -- the April (Origins) issue, the August (Tea Review) issue, and the November (Gifting) issues -- and delivered via mobile app. Between issues, subscribers receive full-featured articles and multi-media content on the Tea Journey blog. Content can be viewed anytime online at www.teajourney.pub or via custom apps for Apple iOS available on iTunes and the Android store.

There will be profiles of collectors, scientists, antiquities scholars and tea blenders. The magazine will also seek out the best articles from Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Japanese publications and these will be translated by staff.

Subscriptions are $24.95 a year or $14.95 for three months. A 3-day access pass to sample the magazine costs $1.95. Founding sponsorships are $249.50 for 10 subscriptions. 

Lo-res prototype

Online magazine Covet Garden asking readers to contribute to print SIP

There has to be a better word for "crowdsourcing" when an online publication is actually passing the hat to its own readers to get enough money to publish a print special interest pub. Covet Garden, the online home and garden title, is asking its readers to pony up $18,000 between now and July 6 in order to produce Covet Garden Home, a 100+-page magabook.

The hope is to use the money it raises to pay some of the addition production costs such as paper and printing and that the difference between the $18,000 and what it really costs will be covered by selling the magazine/book in newsstands and in booksellers as well as online. So far, about $4,100 has been pledged. 

"We know you love our past features, but we also want to make the print version a new experience. Which is why we want to photograph new spaces, bring you updates on past homeowners and novel DIY projects and food and drink ideas for entertaining."

Like many such enterprises done through indiegogo.com and similar sites, contributors get varying rewards depending on the amount pledged. For $30 or more, they get a copy of the publication delivered to their door. For $1,000 (if it's in the Toronto area), their home will be featured in a CG photo shoot. For $2,000 they can get a full page advertisement in the book. 

Covet Garden has been publishing online, monthly, for about two and a half years from its base in Toronto. 

Brick magazine is looking for some help to get a new computer -- and a chair

Managing editor Nadia Szilvassy perched atop her rickety chair

A good natured example of the vagaries of publishing a cultural magazine in this country? Brick, the respected and award-winning literary magazine, is using crowdsourcing to get the money to replace its computer and some other office equipment. 

It's using the site Indiegogo to manage a campaign for $1,500 to purchase an up-to-date iMac on which to produce the magazine and to replace the managing editor's "hilarious, rickety chair" and get a new phone. While the magazine says it prides itself on being up-to-date and deeply engaged, its wheezing computer and office furniture is not.

"[While] our content is on the cutting edge, the equipment we work on struggles to keep up with the times. As you'll see from our picture, our managing editor currently works on an iMac G4—the model that was discontinued in 2004! Our office chairs are more than a little worse for wear, and our phone, well, we'll post a picture so you can see for yourself.

"Here are some phrases you may hear as Nadia waits for a file to download onto her computer:"It's fine, really. It teaches me to practice patience." or "I'll just go water the plants..."

As with most such donation drives, the more you give the more swag you get, from a published thank you for $10, some Brick postcards for donations up to $50 to a subscription and a signed book from one of the editors for giving more than $150. So far the campaign, which in intended to run for 3 4 months, has raised $250, or about one-sixth of its goal.