The past few months have been a whirlwind of ideas, planning, thumbnail sketches, and research. It has also been an interesting learning experience.

I got my feet wet in the publishing industry working for MacMillan in the late 80s and was totally hooked. I got my first real experience on a Macintosh (back when you said the whole word and desktop publishing was the buzz) working as an Art Director and assistant-everything for a tiny, nationally distributed paranormal magazine. I later went on to publish a zine for a large roleplay group for over a year, with a staff of seven writers, the highlight of which was (poorly) interviewing Charles de Lint. Since then I have made handmade zines (including the original KPM back in 2006) both solo and with groups back when cut and paste with a glue stick, white out, and a photocopier were your tool options. Ahh, the hours of standing and the smell of toner…don’t miss it.

Publishing for mobile devices, whole new beast.

Being self-taught in most things has its advantages. There is a constant, inherent urge to research and a thirst to learn that drives you from day to day. I tend to jump in with both feet, reverse engineering things on my way down the rabbit hole. It works most of the time and, when it doesn’t, you learn to adapt and improvise very quickly. Being ADD means I have a million ideas all at once, and can multi-plan several issues, which makes for a very creative life that is never boring. Thankfully I am an avid journaler. The downside is that you constantly have to renew your focus when the world around you vies for your attention on multiple levels.

Our goal for Kraft Paper Muse, and something we will be pitching on Kickstarter, is to have the magazine printed versus going through a print-on-demand service. While MagCloud gives me a tremendous advantage in not having to front printing costs, print-on-demand base pricing tends to be high and doesn’t allow for a very good profit margin. KPM was started as an artistic outlet, for myself and others, but also to help fund Art for Cures; KPM will be making a donations quarterly and we are going for 501c3 status this year.

The other advantage to printing it ourselves? Lots of inclusions to tuck in and mail our readers, like a true zine.

Each month, we will be offering a bonus to our readers as well as giveaways here on the site. On a recent outing to visit friends in Jacksonville, they took us to Chamblin Book Mine, a 55,000 square foot used/rare maze of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves (take string or breadcrumbs and a cell phone, no lie, we got lost) where I scored a stack of various Nick Bantock books prime for gifting. Bantock has been one of the biggest creative influences in my life, so I love inspiring others with his work…and I just love giving stuff away.

So with that teaser floating around your mind of things to come, I will leave you with the anticipation of our 3rd issue, Sustainability, on the fast approaching horizon.

Ria