A night out at a gay bar can be anything you want to make it. Portraying it
as an open invitation for sexual activity is likely to scare away curious but
timid or inexperienced newcomers who might just want to meet other gay
people.
Some of the bars that distribute What's Up Magazine right now have
never placed an ad in What's Up. NEVER. Why am I harping on the bars?
Because, they CLEARLY make the most money directly from the gay
community and they OBVIOUSLY spend the most money on advertising in
exclusively gay magazines. The ones who do regularly advertise with us
seem to fully understand how we are different from the typical gay bar
magazine and what we are trying to do for our community. I think our
readers realize that this reflects well on these establishments.
What's Up Magazine is obviously becoming very popular. The free
copies that we distribute every two weeks are picked up and gone in just a
few days from almost all of the locations that we leave them. We print as
many as we can afford. Currently we distribute about 900 or so paper
copies. We would very much like to be able to afford to print more copies
and more pages per issue. The copy you are reading right now cost over
50¢ to print for you. If you don't see your favorite gay friendly business
advertising in What's Up, perhaps you might ask them to consider it. If you
do patronize any of the businesses that are advertising in What's Up, be
sure to tell them that you appreciate their contribution to making this
magazine possible.
What's Up Magazine belongs to everyone. If you have an idea for an
article that you would like to share with the local, reading, thinking gay
community, then we will do all that we can to make it a part of an upcoming
issue. All of the content for What's Up Magazine is created by members of
this local gay and gay friendly community, and in most cases, exclusively
for What's Up Magazine and no other. We do not simply buy nationally
syndicated columns and reprint them. Who cares about what's going on in
LA or NY?
If, for some reason, What's Up Magazine fails to be able to meet the
costs of printing, we will have to stop. We will NOT compromise the
standards we have set in order to attract more advertising. I don't think
that this is going to happen, because we already have regular advertisers
who would not advertise in any other exclusively gay publication due to
either their higher ad rates or their less-than-tasteful content.
A full page of advertising (5 inches wide by 8 inches high) is $50 per
issue. We do not charge on a sliding scale for smaller ads. We want to
present you with as many gay friendly businesses as we can and we do
not think that we should penalize anyone for not wanting a full page ad.
So, a half page is $25 and a quarter page is $12.50. Our most prized
advertisers are those who run simple ads that tell our readers who they
are, where they are and what they do -- and run this ad over and over
without having to be contacted for every issue. Many of our regular
advertisers are NOT gay owned businesses. We feel that it speaks
volumes for us and them when a NON gay owned business would want to
present themselves to the gay public in an obviously gay publication.
Spread the word. It's a good thing!
Peace on you! JL :o)
