Turning the Page on a Digital Pace

On stands at bookstores and print shops (like recent Austin addition TOMO Mags), independent magazines are, once again, having a moment. Everything old is new again, and small presses are betting that eager eyes are looking for inspiration and reading material that isn’t interrupted by notifications and carries a nostalgic, analog heft. 

“I like to think that the pendulum swung so hard to the digital side, that this is more of a reset and a balance,” said TOMO Mags founder Vico Puentes, moderator for a South by Southwest panel on what long-form print publications can offer readers in a culture of short-form, quick-paced content and news. “It all boils down to people wanting to disconnect for a little bit and breathe.”

As the thoughtful shop owner brings together their magazines in the bold, blue shelves of his storefront, Puentes gathered for the conversation three strong voices in independent print: Kyle Tibbs Jones, co-founder and editor at The Bitter Southerner; Caroline Hwang, editor-in-chief and founder of Synonym magazine, and Jennifer Prohov, content strategist at Noēma.

“There’s 5,000, 7,000 word stories, so it immediately slows you down because of the length,” Jones says of The Bitter Southerner’s staunchly left-leaning cultural features. Across all three publications, distinct aesthetics play a pivotal role in storytelling, drawing readers into the worlds of their long-form journalism and personal essays. 

As independent publishers, each leader emphasized the joy of “nerding out” over design choices and having the freedom to break formats. Diaspora-documenting Synonym, for example, uses a plastic coil binding inspired by cookbooks, and The Bitter Southerner takes advantage of the press’ background in book publishing to put out a coffee table book-sized magazine telling the “the real stories of our region” three times a year. 

“We wanted to be able to grab people right away through our design and it is actually one of the very first things that everyone talks to us about when they see the magazine,” said Hwang. Jones and Prohov agreed, noting that their readers often share photos of spreads and cover images online, bringing the physical publication into the digital world. 

“Digital has taken over the world,” Prohov acknowledged. “We have to feed that beast because the beast is there,” she said, explaining that, as a transformation-centered publication documenting issues of the moment across several fields, Noẽma publishes their stories online first, before collecting a series of pieces into an annual, collectable publication. Active as they need to be, the emphasis on analog forms of communication goes beyond the page for these printers. 

“Social media feels so fleeting and feels so disconnected and we’re trying to form real relationships with people,” said Prohov. Instagram and other platforms have helped to create communities around these publications, but in-person events and a reliable, consistent voice keep an engaged readership alive.

“We’ve become very close with our readership, with our audience,” Jones said. “People really, really, really believe in what we stand for and our ethos at The Bitter Southerner.”

Despite growing interest from readers and niche dedicated followings, analog media remains a precarious economic game in the face of the internet. The three representatives were open with the audience about the different financial strategies of each publication. Bitter Southerner operates under what Jones called “rock band economics,” largely financing their journalism through merchandise sales and subscription. Noēma, Prohov said, is something of a unicorn in the space as an editorially independent nonprofit with a secure funder. For Synonym, Substack subscriptions, donations, and sponsorships all help keep the magazine alive. 

Staying true to an ethos of slow living through thoughtful design and extensive storytelling is intentional, patient work, according to these print lovers. There is pressure to be as consistently relevant and of-the-moment as online-based publications can be, Jones admitted, discussing the difficulty of striking a balance between timeless storytelling and current curiosities, especially as the publications angle to stay relevant in their readers’ lives. “It’s hard to be evergreen in an environment that we’re living in right now.”

Prohov jumped in, reminding her that analog media has a different edge than ever-relevant material: “Even if it’s not evergreen, it’s capturing this moment in time.”

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