Printing Zines is an Act of Revolt

Dear readers: we need your help. After twenty years with our nose to the grindstone, many of the large outdoor companies that supported us ten years ago won’t even return our calls anymore. When they do pick up the phone it’s always the same story: “Our budget for print advertising has been cut to zero. This is coming from the top. I love reading ASJ but my hands are tied. Sorry…”.

We are a free resource to the outdoor community of California and Nevada, by far the two most epic states for adventure recreation activities like climbing, biking, surfing, and snow sports. There is nothing online that captures the experience of reading an issue of ASJ in print. You can go to our website right now and see what I mean. Sure we have our content archived at our website, but I have a hard time getting excited about an article on my phone screen. It’s just not the same experience.

I won’t beat around the bush: we are hanging by a thread. Sure we have lots of loyal readers and advertisers, but looks can be deceiving. Because of our large, broad and targeted distribution It costs between $18K and $20K to  produce, print and distribute each edition of ASJ. 

As outdoor companies adopt a “digital only” marketing policy, Adventure Sports Journal is withering on the vine. We’ve been serving the outdoor industry for 20 years, and we would like to continue. 

Please help us save this printed resource for the CA/NV outdoor community by becoming a member. We need reader support to help us meet our overhead. If our print rag dies we are done. We won’t be jumping on the digital bandwagon. 

We refuse to reinvent ourselves as an invasive digital data collection machine that serves up clickbait articles to a bored audience on Facebook and Instagram. Other once proud outdoor magazines have sold their souls, but not us. Going fully digital is antithetical to everything we believe in. Not only do we hate promoting the toxic smartphone addiction epidemic, we also don’t see any financial opportunity in a saturated digital environment that already demands too much of everyone’s time.

If you agree, help us save this free printed resource that has been cherished by the California outdoor community for decades. We are not asking you to ditch your Facebook feed, just please help us make sure that Facebook and Instagram aren’t the only way to share the stoke and magic of the outdoor adventure lifestyle.

Memberships start at $5 per month and include a subscription, so you are guaranteed to not miss an issue of ASJ. (CLICK HERE) Other membership levels and perks are also available. 

If you want to help us, please go to adventuresportsjournal.com and click on the membership tab. Without help from readers like you we simply cannot exist.

Any ideas to help us survive the digital apocalypse? I’d love to hear from you. Shoot me an email. We appreciate your feedback and ideas.

— Matt Niswonger

matt@adventuresportsjournal.com