How to Sustain Your Labor of Love

Love’s Labour Lost?: Working for a sustainable alternative press
By Nicole Cohen
Briarpatch Magazine
June/July 2007

“I don’t recall the exact moment I became skeptical of the term labour of love, but I do remember the day it began feeling like an inappropriate descriptor for Shameless, the independent, feminist magazine for teens I co-founded in 2003 and edited until recently.
[. . .]
While it is critical for media activists to talk seriously about the business of producing alternative media and to find innovative ways to boost circulation, it is dangerous to believe that the only way to become commercially viable is to make content more mainstream. Alternative media exist to disseminate an oppositional or radical stance, and the development of creative, sustainable business models should centre on strengthening that goal, not abandoning it.”

Read the rest of the article HERE, with Cohen’s assessment as well as advice for small, independents who wish to remain alternative.