Love and independent magazines

At the end of October we ran a promotion asking our followers to nominate somebody who should receive a free Stack subscription. We’ve never done anything like that before, and we weren’t entirely sure what would happen, but the whole experience has turned out to be unexpectedly lovely. First, though, it was predictably depressing.

We launched the promotion on Monday 28 October, posting the details on our blog, and on Instagram, X and Facebook. We made a simple Google Form, and we asked people to tell us who they are, who they’re nominating, and why they think their nominee should receive the free subscription. And then nothing happened.

Or almost nothing – in the first three days of the promotion, one person nominated somebody to receive the subscription. Of course we don’t expect social media to do much these days, but even by those massively diminished standards, one person is rubbish. Thankfully, email still seems to function – on Thursday 31st we included the promotion in our monthly newsletter, and the floodgates opened.

We’d thought that we might get lots of people nominating themselves – in the end only one person did that and we decided to disqualify them because it didn’t feel like requesting something for yourself is in the spirit of the promotion. We knew we’d also get people nominating somebody they live with, and we’d talked about disqualifying them too, since that’s pretty similar to requesting something for yourself. But in the event, the stories changed our minds: We heard from a couple who had been Stack subscribers until one of them fell ill and had to stop work; there was a mum who needed cheering up because she had been made redundant at the end of her maternity leave; and lots of people talked about providing inspiration and direction for their loved ones.

The majority of entries fell perfectly into what we’d hoped to receive – people who were asking for the subscriptions to go to somebody else because they thought they either really deserved them, or would appreciate them. There were far too many to share them all here, but I wanted to pick out a few that were particularly vivid and lovely. For example:

“Because she is a marvel. She works round the clock as a social worker at a children’s hospital, dealing with extremely difficult and emotional challenges every day. But then still makes so much time for friends and family. She’s passionate about fashion, art, music and culture. And given she is about to move into a new flat, I think a Stack subscription would give her a wonderful and deserved surprise each month.”

There were lots of stories of people separated and wanting to remain in contact:

“My little sister is a very talented art and illustration student who has been inheriting some of my old Stack magazines, as they are a fantastic source of inspiration for her. She will forever be a teenager in my eyes, but she is a grown-up now, and I would love for her to have her own subscription to Stack since, unfortunately, we don’t live in the same country.”

And similarly:

“Because Alicia is an artist who lives at the end of the Earth but is miraculously still the coolest person I know. I would love her to receive these marvellous magazines to her wind and rainswept bungalow on the Isle of Lewis. It would warm my heart knowing how delighted she’d be receiving the brown envelopes and devouring all their mindblowing content.”

And little glimpses into people’s lives and relationships:

“This is my little sister and we both grew up in Wisconsin together. I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to college, which gave me the opportunity to see and travel the world through my studies. I now live in New York City, and I feel as though I’m seeing so much more of the world than my family ever has. My younger sister is still in Wisconsin, attending community college to become an esthetician. I think she’s such a bright individual who hasn’t had the chance to see the world just yet. I think the magazines that Stack could send her would inspire her, would open her up to the idea of exploration and all the possibilities life holds for her. I want her to leave Wisconsin and come see where the art and the idea and the color truly exists in this world, and maybe a new magazine could be the start.”

The point of this whole promotion was to put the magazines in front of people who will appreciate them. As I said in the original post, Stack is an odd business – we ask people to pay in advance for magazines they haven’t seen before, and which are absolutely not based on the things they like. It requires a certain open-mindedness, and a willingness to be surprised, and judging by the responses we received I think we’ve done a good job of that.

But of course we always need to do more, so if you know somebody who would enjoy receiving our magazines, please drop them a line and let them know about what we do. Or even better, head over to our Christmas page, where you can buy a three-month, six-month, or one-year
subscription to give them as a gift. We’ve got some superb magazines lined up for the first few months of next year, and we’d love to put them in front of as many readers as possible.