I thought forum members might be interested in this, our new little digital magazine which is FREE. It has features on walking and climbing in Scotland, cycling in Cyprus and Dr Andrew Murray's run from John O-Groats in Scotland to the Sahara Desert!! Plus lots of reviews of walking and climbing kit!!
In this first bumper-packed 190 PAGE 60,000 WORD issue, we have an interview with CLAUDIO VON PLANTA, famous for filming Long Way Round and Long Way Down with EWAN MCGREGOR and CHARLIE BOORMAN, where he talks about his adventures behind the camera in places like Afghanistan and Africa, and tracking down Osama Bin Laden...
We have interviews with best-selling horror novelist GUY N. SMITH, New Zealand rock-singer and recent Glastonbury performer JORDAN REYNE, ultra-marathon runner ANDREW MURRAY and top SFF artist VINCENT CHONG.
We have features on climbing in Scotland, crossing Australia on a postie’s moped, cycling in the Akamas mountains in Cyprus, making a short horror medical zombie film, and heading to Mexico in search of buried secrets.
All this, along with news, letters, competitions, the ANTI-CLARKSON column, Whackjob Jim Column and The Horror, The Horror Column, reviews of kit, motorbikes, caravans, restaurants, books, video games, albums and sports fuel, short fiction by Garry Charles, a serialised graphic novel by Martyn Pick, your favourite Grumpy Old Man -- and Ultimate Kids Adventure, something for the kids (and their parents!) to do at weekends.
• a print version, which can be purchased at www.lulu.com
Alternative digital versions are also available at Amazon, Lulu, iTunes and Barnes & Noble.
All UAMAG digital versions are FREE! We must be mad...
We hope you enjoy!
Andy Remic
Editor
Please note: NOBODY has been paid for anything in Ultimate Adventure Magazine. Every little bit has been done out of our love of biking, climbing, hiking and travel. So please please please help us by tweeting, facebooking, spreading the word to your friends and on forums – our continued existence will depend on our download figures!
Did you download it, or try and open in your browser? It's quite a large file (190 pages worth!!) so if you open in your browser it takes quite a time to download. Alternatively, right click and "save target as" to your desktop----- or another alternative, look at it online at issuu.com which is a professional magazine reader.
Grabbed this on the train home.... all 33mb of it!
Due it to its size I only really managed to skim through it. The interview with CVP was interesting as were a few of the travel articles i.e. Pom on a Postie BUT boy was it tedious having to wade through all the horror/fantasy stuff.
My thoughts are that this mag is way too big. Its pretty obvious that there are in fact 2 mags in there 1 outdoors and one horror/fantasy one. Why not have 2 separate titles?
Was at a Pro Broadcast dealer a few weeks ago chewing the fat so to speak and talk turned to how many of the large broadcasters are turning to amateurs in the form of 'citizen journalist' to do the job that was traditionally done by in-house staffers. The cost of decent equipment these days is within the grasp of most people. Thing is... just because Apple has dropped the price of FCP to a few hundred quid doesn't mean that you gain the 'eye' of a top end editor purely because you've gone from iMovie to FCPx.
So what am I saying?...... in a respectful nod to the people that produce mags like TGO, Trail etc theres a reason that they charge for what they produce. The world would be a hugely poorer place if we forget that. Whereas I'd say good luck to you I think I see more value in paying the current rate for a TGO/Trail than getting something thats 'free'
Ultimate Adventure Mag was never tyring to compete with TGO and Trail, but offer a different, alternative perspective and style. I hear what you're saying about the SFF/Horror stuff. Duly noted.
You have to admit though, at least by trialling it free you are losing.... nothing. I've bought a shedload of mags for 4 or 5 quid that are, shall we say, appalling -- very limited in content with one eye firmly on the advertisers (and the number of advertisers). Here, we tried to switch it round; lots of content, only a few adverts. I thought this would be a preferred way forward, but obviously not for you!!
Still, thanks for taking a look, and for taking the time to comment. Obviously the mag is very new, a baby in fact, and will no doubt grow and evolve with every issue.
Jappo - had a flick through but not long enough to give a valid coment but I will try & read it this holiday. I do know for my own part I enjoy mags offline - I enjoy the time away from the screen, sat back with a brew or favourite tipple. I rarely stick with anything oline that takes up a lot of time to read. I fit the mould most web-designers aim at with content!
I enjoy the small bytes/bites of a forum & also struggle with blogs/podcasts for the same reasons as above. They can be totally relevant to my interests but don't hold my attention. A few snaps handed around a pub - great, but masses on a blog & it reminds of the family slide shows of holidays I've endured in the past (also guilty!). To be fair most seem to be more for the bloggers benefit than the public & as they are online maybe family & friends.
I enjoyed a recent OMers blog entry on pulks as a one-off but the related bushcraft forum thread behind the project was of greater interest as it was smaller chunks of many contributors knowledge towards a common idea.
Sorry I've gone on a bit but I'm a big advovate of the forum format & feel it's under threat from the likes of Facebook & blogs as folks go 'solo'.
Back to magazines - anyone remember Footloose? That's a mag I'd love to see still going - multi discipline & great content. I still read the back-issues now.
The idea behind the mag originally was to dump it down to your iPad. We did look into print costs but WHSmith et al take the urine with their "hire shelf space" policy. Anyway, it's fuelled by fun and enjoyment. And it don't cost you no beans, bruvva
What's Footloose? I had a look for it, but couldn't locate what you were talking about.
And feel free to go on as much as you want That's the beauty of forums!!
Footloose is long gone dude! I didn't even have a computer when it finished! But it was fairly broad spectrum magazine - bike, canoe, hike, ski unlike the Trail/TGO format. I've seen the odd quarterly mag pop up over the years in a similar vien but them never quite cut-it. Cameron McNeish & Chris Townsend were editors early in their journalistic careers & the owner a lovable maverick I know a few people on here know.
What's an ipad? Joking - I know what you mean! I'll likely drop it on my netbook for coffee break reading when I'm on the road. I'm all for free - especially online (free as in free, not pirated/stolen). I do wish you the best of luck with it.
Footloose sounds cool. Very much like what we're doing. And we're doing it cos we love it. And with a very definite f*** the establishment sensibility, although keeping it just about family friendly. I suppose if you read one of my books you'd understand (I'm a novelist by trade-- www.andyremic.com). I'm just a misunderstood early days mountainbiker, haha.
Rosswm, I also meant to say, there's a very honest review of the iPad2 in the latest issue of Ultimate Adventure Magazine- if you're not sure what one is (heh), and now an "enhanced content" version of the mag for Kindle.
I've had a quick flick through so far and it's a fairly eclectic mix, but I like eclectic, with a little bit of everything, taking me in directions I wouldn't normally go in. As for the horror fantasy thing I don't have a problem with that, I would class myself having read more than the odd fantasy novel, but never really considered myself a fan until, I read the article about guy smith and remembered reading them as a teenager.
I liked the idea of an independent magazine as I have a bit of an "anti" attitude and the mix of interviews with not massively known personalities was really good.
Went to see I'df I could dig out my old copy of crabs, couldnt find it but did come across some Neil Gaiman titles I think I'll give them another read.
Good luck and I look forward to finishing this edition and getting the next, BTW where will I go to get it
I do acknowledge that at the moment there is a little bit too much of a horror/SFF slant, but that's because that's the industry I write novels in -- and thus at the start of the magazine, that's where ALL my contacts lay. However, with the first release I've made so many more new contacts it's unbelievable!!
Just hit 1000 downloads as well, so that's super-cool
Some good reading in there, but I agree with previous comments about it being a bit of a mish mash of topics. A wide variety of info/articles etc. is good, but I think you really need to focus on a particular market. Personally, I'd focus on 'BIKING | CLIMBING | HIKING | TRAVEL | CAMPING | ADVENTURE' as this is listed as the contents of the magazine. I'd remove all the horror/gore stuff. It's obviously a personal interest, but it doesn't fit in with the rest of the mag
Something else I think you seriously need to consider is a different format. Navigation is key to an online/digital magazine, and scrolling through 190 pages of a PDF document is tedious at the best of times. There are many options available to create a digital online magazine, usually with the use of javascript. Here's a good example of one that I sometimes read: http://www.igizmo.co.uk/signup Not only would it improve the navigation, but it also allows for the introduction of videos/sound and other interactive things that are one of the main benefits of online magazines. There are quite a few services available that will create this sort of format for you at a cost. Might be a bit more expensive, but I think it would definitely entice more readers. Failing that, just some other way of navigating, anchored links in the contents page perhaps. Not too sure what can be done with PDF
Also, might be an idea to work on the design of the magazine a bit more. Perhaps have some kind of standard look and feel that people get used to. Seems a bit of a random mix of colours etc. at the moment.
Having said that, it's a free magazine and I'd probably have a flick through it. But the navigation would really prevent me from reading large chunks.
