For the fifth issue of Berm, we chose the theme "Joy." For artists, and creatives broadly, joy is sometimes difficult to talk about, especially when so much of art tends to be pushing and pulling between things like funding, promotion, and the process of creation itself. In this issue, we published works from: Nia Musiba, Michelle Fromme (with support from Elbow Room), Emily Jones & Hannah Krafcik, Azha Ayanna Luckman, Roya Amirsoleymani, Jasmine Wood, and Kiki Flora (with photography by Gianna Basile).
Issue 5 was released to the public on June 14, 2024 and our very first release party was held at Hi Books here in Portland.
Budget
Issue 5 of Berm was entirely funded by the Arts3C Grant from RACC. Below is the full budget sheet for this issue. In the end, we had a $395 surplus in the budget, which went directly into the budget for Issue 6 and operations fees (like website maintenance and administration costs). Also noted in the budget sheet below, as part of the grant process we were required to pay ourselves as the creators of the magazine. We both donated these funds back to the Berm account to get ahead on the Issue 6 budget and to help pay for contributor materials.
| Description | Details | Amount |
| Printing Fee, Brown Printing | Brown Printing | -$1,090.00 |
| New Work 6 page | New, 6-page photo essay | -$780.00 |
| New Work 4 page | Comissioned New, 4-pages | -$1,000.00 |
| New Work 2 page | New, 2 page | -$315.00 |
| Small Writing 1 | 400 words, 2-pages | -$150.00 |
| Medium Writing 1 | 600-800 words, 3.5-pages | -$300.00 |
| Medium Writing 3 | 600-800 words, 3.5-pages | -$300.00 |
| Large Writing 1 | 800-1k words, 5-pages | -$375.00 |
| Marketing photographer fee | -$500.00 | |
| Shipping packaging and materials, postal fees | Zine sleeves $12, Postage Fees are $3.19 X 60 = $192, packaging for shipping $0.72 x 60 = 43.20 ==247 | -$247.00 |
| In-house Design Cost | Donated in-kind | -$239.00 |
| In-house Editorial Cost | Donated in-kind | -$239.00 |
| Issue 4 Sales | Expected sales | $360.00 |
| Patreon Current | Current: 6 month | $570.00 |
| RACC Arts3C Grant | Awarded for Issue 5 | $5,000.00 |
Tracked Time
For each issue, we try our best to track the time we spend on the admin, organization, and meetings that go into producing the magazine. For Issue 5, we collectively logged 61 Hours to the time tracking software. We also try our best to consider the time spent at events, like book fairs and launch events for other magazines, where some of the less visible work of promoting and talking to others about the magazine comes into play.
What Worked Well?
This issue came together, for us, pretty quickly. It was easy to organize and nearly every contributor we spoke to was immediately interested in the subject. Money, which was our previous issue's theme, had been met with a bit more caution. But for Joy, the ideas seemed to generate faster for people we spoke to. This, we think, may be due to a general uptick in conversations around art and joy in the broader arts world, specifically around black joy and the ways in which marginalized communities feel tied to produce stories that are primarily about trauma and hardships.
We also had a grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council for this issue, which entirely funded the production and covered all of the contributor fees. This is the largest grant we have received to date and, frankly, the issue was better for it. There were fewer stress points around things like an extra line item for materials for contributors, or organizing our first release party for the magazine, because we had the freedom of having a well-sized and planned budget.
In this issue, we also had a wider diversity of article types – more pieces that had photography specifically – not to mention a longform interview with accompanying photography. We worked with Elbow Room for the first time, who allowed us to access their archives and select art work from Michelle Fromme to be included in the magazine. This aspect came together fairly naturally, but is something that we would like to try to continue to do.
Joy is our fastest selling issue to date. The magazine was released in June of 2024 and currently (as of November 2024) we have only two copies remaining in stock out of the one hundred copies we printed. That's pretty amazing! We also had our first release party for this issue at Hi Books here in Portland, thanks to the insistence of Azha Ayanna Luckman. It was great to see previous issue contributors and meet folks who we had sometimes only interacted with via email.
What Was Challenging?
One thing that came up during the production of this issue, which we were surprised had not come up before, was the need for additional funds for materials to create new work. Specifically, in this case, film and film processing fees were the requested materials. This makes total sense! Film process, and film itself, is sometimes very expensive. This is especially true when you are working at a professional, artistic level of photography. We do not want contributors to have to sacrifice their earned fee (or the time it allows) to instead have to worry about material costs.
In addition, we feel that communication with contributors has slipped a bit in this issue (and the current one in production). In previous issues, there was a much more frequent schedule of communication between editors and contributors that helped to keep people up to date on where we were in the process of creating the magazine. This is a high standard for us, which we have modeled based on some of the first feedback we received in our early issues, and something we will continue to improve on as we plan production for new issues going forward.
What Did We Learn
Building in material support for contributors in the early stages of the budget will be important to not only prepare ourselves for the request, but also to let contributors know that they should request it in the first place. This improvement has already been implemented for the sixth issue of Berm and has provided some good opportunities for us to request more specific funding in the grant application process.
Release parties are an important aspect of gathering the community of contributors and audience around the magazine. We had always wanted to have a release party, but were nervous to plan one as a stated part of the production lifecycle for the magazine. But it was really cool! We will continue to do this, and expand the different types of community events, for future releases, and build them into the schedule.
Lastly, we would like to continue to push ourselves to explore different and experimental ways of interacting with printed materials. This issue looks fantastic and was a big boost in our excitement around the kinds of spaces we can provide within the magazine for contributors to explore with their pieces.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to, or picked up a copy of, Berm's fifth Issue! Issue Six will be out December 13, 2024 and we will be having a release party at Chess Club here in Portland that evening starting at 6pm.
The Editors