Today marks the day the Spring 2008 issue of Spacing hits the newsstands. Subscribers have begun to receive the issue in the mail (all copies should arrive in Canadian mailboxes by the end of the week — U.S. subscribers should get them next week). Spacing’s flagship stores (Pages, This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, Book City Annex, Book City Danforth, and Soundscapes) put the mag on sale yesterday and copies are already flying off the shelves (or so we’ve been told).
Check out our listing of stores that carry Spacing. Also feel free to post comments about the stories you like or send us a letter to the editor. We hope you enjoy the new issue.
7 comments
Best news I’ve heard all day. I’m on my way to Pages.
Just got mine in the mail today. It looks great!
Is there going to be a launch party, or was that earlier lecture where it made its debut what passes for a launch?
Has Spacing tried to get listed in Chapters/Indigo? Would dramatically increase potential readership/make it easier for me to pick up a copy …
Yes, there is a launch party. May 4th at the Gladstone. There’s an ad on the blog for it, but the formal announcement will come soon.
As for Chapters/Indigo: There is an easy way for you to pick up the magazine: buy a subscription since it’ll go right to your home.
But not being in C-I is partly a choice on our part. C-I has a very anti-competitive, bullying distribution policy. They only deal with one distributor which forces our distributor to sell to their very own competitor.
Secondly, our shape is a hindrance to their newsstand. Smaller stores know us, understand we’re a popular newsstand sale, so they place us at the front of the rack. This was part of our initial strategy when we decided to make Spacing landscape oriented. It forces us to the front. Our distributor promotes us to these stores and the employees get to know us, which helps the customer. We’re pretty confident that C-I would not give us that kind of attention or care.
Thirdly — and I admit this is a bit of stretch — I personally don’t feel good about being sold in a store that in many cases is the catalyst of the type of urban form that we are diametrically opposed to.
We hope we can find other avenues to get into the hands of people who might find us at Chapters.
What if Spacing went the Now/Eye route? Or was merged into Eye itself? Free distribution, supported by advertising, surely makes the most sense?
Or perhaps the goal is to be bought out by St Jo’s Media?
We’re doing fine without anyone’s help. We’re very happy to be owned by the 6 editors. The above cooments re: Chapters was not a complaint, and its not considered as a hindrance to us. As I said, its almost entirely by choice.