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Inside Out went to print on Friday 29 August, roughly two years after the initial concept for the magazine was dreamt up; and like all good ideas, despite being a cliche, it was conceived in my local pub over several glasses of wine.
The following six months were spent researching - literature, publishing, business, the gap in the market, mental health, art, design: you name it, I went there, and in depth. I can’t even begin to recount the number of courses I went on and the help and advice I gleaned from my various teachers. Overall, it was a pretty steep learning curve – I had previous experience of publishing, having worked as a deputy editor on several magazines; and a background in design, having started out as a graphic designer: but nothing requiring this much knowledge, spread across so many areas. Most days my head felt fit to explode, and I often asked if maybe I was attempting too much. But a genuine belief in the idea and the joy pursuing it was giving me proved enough to keep me pushing in the right direction, taking each set back, and there were many, as much in my stride as possible.
In addition to the research and learning, there was also a considerable amount of effort put into fundraising and writing and sending out proposals. For those of you with no experience of this - each proposal is about the equivalent of a university dissertation and takes around a month to write. But Inside Out was never going to make it out into the world without financial backing, especially because I quit my job to focus on making it happen full time and sank all accumulated savings into starting it up. So I kept on sending them out, hoping that someone out there would see the potential in the project. A full twelve months after that momentous night in the pub, I finally received a positive reply to one of my many proposals, and it was all go from there. I would like to say a big thank you to Matthew Hodder Charitable Trust, SLaM and UnLtd - my wonderful, generous funders. Without them I would still be thick in proposals with plummeting self-esteem.
Numerous people have since come on board, all helping out on a voluntary basis. I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for the generosity of my passionate and talented team, and can only hope that seeing the magazine in the flesh will be enough of a reward for them. Their believing in Inside Out and in my ability to make it happen, has played a large part in my being able to make it happen. No one wants to fight a battle alone and entirely up hill.
So Friday, as you can imagine, was a pretty momentous day, and to be perfectly honest with you, I was as excited as I was terrified. This was essentially judgement day, the day where it would all go right or all go wrong. Any mistakes made or inadvertently left in, would now be there to stay. Everything that I had learnt was being put to the test.
I turned up at the printers ready to check final proofs and look over the plates and then okay them for the press. The guys at Principal Colour, my printer of choice, were really supportive and helpful. Their passion for Inside Out has made it easier for me to let go of my precious pages and send them on to the next stage. For a time, there was a danger that I would keep clinging on, like a mother attempting to keep her child around her ankles.
It ended up being a long day, much of it spent waiting in the boardroom, flicking through other magazines and running through my ‘To Do List”, all the while wishing I had had the foresight to bring my laptop along so I could be working on pages for issue 2. The pile of work left behind on my desk had no intention of shrinking or even remaining the same size in my absence. And currently it is a very big pile.
After five hours, I felt confident my work there was done and left Inside Out in the capable hands of the team at Principal Colour. Today, the final magazines are being delivered, turning my house into a warehouse of sorts. Again, I find that I am terrified and excited. But good terrified and even better excited.
Click here to order a copy of Issue 1.
Visit our website: http://www.myinsideout.co.uk for more Inside Out info.
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