The Online Photographer is Relaunching Next Monday

I'll be taking a short (working) vacation over the next few days, and then a (slightly) new version of The Online Photographer will launch next Monday, October 4th, at 7:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. Time.

It'll look the same and still be right here. Only the schedule will be changing. I'm going to be publishing three posts a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so I can give myself a little time for other writing.

The relaunch
"Relaunch" is a term from the magazine world, as far as I know. I've loved magazines all my life, although I've had a relationship with only five. Four were photography magazines—two American and two British. First came Darkroom Photography, published in L.A. and notoriously owned by the pornographer Larry Flynt—the Editor sometimes called me from the pay phone in the building lobby because she feared her phone was bugged; Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques, its main competitor from the staid Midwest, founded by Seaton T. Preston Jr. and owned, when I was its Editor, by S. Tinsley Preston III; Darkroom User, heroically put together in the pantry of an ancient stone cottage in rural Wales by Ed Buziak, about whose life tales could be written; and the British Black & White Photography under its founding Editor Ailsa McWhinnie, of Brighton. (You can tell from those titles where my technical expertise lay.) The fifth was Model Railroader, where I was, briefly, a deeply unpopular Senior Editor (reason: I was not a model railroading hobbyist, which the entrenched staff took as an affront. Their beef was really with management, but they did not want me around). Ailsa's replacement at B&WP was the Assistant Editor whose responsibility it had been to nag me about my deadlines, and as soon as she took the reins of power I was promptly sacked. By that time I had written 80+ columns for them and was out of things to say anyway. That was right around the time TOP began earning enough to sustain me and my son entirely. I had few expenses and we were used to frugal living.

So my last B&WP column 13 years ago was my last gig working for anyone but myself. But I like all parts of the workings and the lore of magazines, and have always been glad I got to work for a few. TOP is not "published," per se, but I sometimes refer to it—with a dollop of grandiosity—as a "vertical photography magazine."

The relaunch of any magazine is a big deal for its publisher. It is usually considered that a relaunch is as perilous as an initial launch, or mostly so. I don't actually know much about relaunches, apart from what I learned from my mentor at Preston Publications, Thea Berg. We changed the name from Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques to Photo Techniques along with a revamped logo and a new graphic design. That was a real relaunch, especially considering that a considerable percentage of our circulation was newsstand sales. Thea, the Publishing Director, taught me most of what I know about publishing.

The Online Photographer relaunched once already, in 2007. I started the blog in 2005 on Blogger, a CMS service owned by Google. In 2007 I woke one morning to find I had been locked out of my own blog because some Google bot somewhere suspected TOP of being a "spam blog," whatever that is. Blogger had no customer service, and I could not get in touch with a human there. I panicked, thinking I would swiftly lose my hard-won audience, and stayed up two nights in a row relaunching the site on TypePad, which has responsive and helpful CS. Michael Reichmann of The Luminous-Landscape, along with Steve Sanders of Steve's Digicams and Bob Atkins of Photo.net, bless them all, helped spread the word to my abruptly alienated audience as to where I had gone. Blogger eventually reinstated me, and I was surprised to learn that my readers were all still there. I did later get a letter written by an actual human apologizing for the lockout and inviting me to return to Blogger, but the the deed was done by then.

This is a very minor relaunch, and probably doesn't deserve the name, but I think it will help me to have a formal launch date.

Accordingly, on Monday, October 4th, TOP will relaunch as a three-times-per-week blog with new content appearing every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

If all goes as planned, I'm going to restructure my writing hours to give each post a little settling time, so I can go over them twice with a night's sleep in between. That's something I have almost never done that in the 15 years and 10 months I've been doing this: I just compose and Publish Now, compose and Publish Now, like typing and sending emails. It's really not the best way to write well, although I think it's been good training. Not too different from writing for a newspaper.

If I manage to do that, then the posts can be published on a time schedule. The plan is for them to appear on Mon./Wed./Fri. at:

7:00 a.m. in New York, which is
12 noon in London, and
9 p.m. in Sydney.

Comments and Featured Comments will appear the following day, except for Fridays, when the comments will appear on Sunday. (I try to take Saturdays off.)

Telling tales
The reason for this is to give myself time for other writing. After well over 9,000 blog posts I'd really like to try some longer-form writing in addition to what I do here. It seems a good time for it. I have some ideas, and some stories to tell. What else do I have to contribute to others, other than that? How else can I do any good in the world?

I've paid my dues. When I was 19, Saul Bellow told me at a brunch at Dartmouth that if I wanted to be a writer the first thing I had to do was get through the first three million words. I was crestfallen, but I got to work on it that afternoon. I passed three million words long ago.

So see you here next Monday morning, for more of the same ol' TOP, but also, in a small way, a new start.

—Mike

Comments

[Bruce Bordner]

If you run short of M-W-F subjects, you could always paste in an excerpt from the book. Maybe get some free editing. How can you lose?
I am used to checking here several times a day, but I can be retrained. You got this. Most importantly, have fun or it won't work. Too much angst sometimes.

[Grant]

Mon./Wed./Fri. only? That means on Tue./Thur./Sat. and Sun. I will have to get up from the computer and engage with my family.
Oh, the horrors!

[Eric Rose]

I look forward to seeing/reading some of your long form writing. I love a good story!

[Ben]

Cheers! Looking forward to it!

[Rusty]

Terrific Mike, keep typing, we will keep reading

[John Krumm]

I don't publish a blog, but I do write "composed" emails maybe twice a week to around 650 people as part of my duties as secretary to an organization. They always take more time and effort than people realize. I have to test each link. Sometimes clean up attached documents. Prepare graphics. Occasionally contact someone for additional details or verification. Then send it through the Mailchimp process, and send a test email to myself for a final read (skipping this invariably leads to problems). I always end up tired, like it's actual work, even though I'm not paid. So I understand how you need to pace yourself. I suspect the three day a week approach is a good idea, if you can get used to it.

The truth is, there are people with Substack newsletters now asking for $5 a month for much less content. Eventually, perhaps after the book is published, you might want to launch an "exclusive" essay once a week or so, just for your supporters. I prefer the idea of free access, but I also like my writers to eat and pay bills...

[darlene]

Here's to the next chapter in your life. ✍

[Richard Alan Fox]

Mike
Always a pleasure to read your writing.
Good work and good luck.

[Sharon]

Looking forward to the new blog and book!

Sharon

[Rob de Loe]

Good call Mike. Do what you have to do to keep the lights on.

[Alec Myers]

If you're going to relaunch I strongly recommend a new site design. The "header and three columns" format was old in 2004, and it looks dated and silly on a modern screen width.

There are some really beautifully designed photography blogs out there - very few of whose content comes close in quality to yours. There's no reason to hide your light under such a biblically sized bushel.

[Lenya]

Wait, Mike, what are we supposed to do on Tuesday and Thursday? Do you expect us just to work all day not checking TOP every hour?

[hugh crawford]

What about the 37th frame? That’s where I first encountered you back when it was a limited circulation samizdat like publication.

[Roger Bradbury]

Sounds good to me, as you might have guessed from my comment on your previous post. Like you, I've found TypePad's customer service to be good.

Onwards and (vertically) upwards!

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

The only constant is change, and we need to keep adapting in order to keep on keeping on.

All the best with the change in direction, and hope it goes well with the book.

I don’t know if it’s viable or not, would it be option to digitally publish the book a chapter at a time, once you’re a few chapters in and getting through the editing process? And then publish the whole book once done. Might help to keep a schedule going. I saw it done via Patreon, but it was for fiction. I don’t know if applicable to other genres, or if a publisher would accept it for printing if it’s already out there in the wild.

[Mike Chisholm]

I don't think it's widely known that the publisher of that outstanding British photo-magazine "Creative Camera" was called the Coo Press because Colin Osman (founding editor) was also a racing pigeon fancier, and had worked for "Racing Pigeon Weekly".

I believe tales can be written about Colin's roguish life, too. After he died, his wife Grace put out a list of his photo-books for sale, and I grabbed quite a few, most of which turned out to be inscribed ("To Colin, love from Fay", that sort of thing...). According to Grace, the outstanding Czech photographer Marketa Luskacova was their babysitter.

Mike

[steve jacobs]

There is one stylistic change I'd suggest. If you click on the top of the page it doesn't lead you to the blog but rather a 'welcome page.' For those of us who read the page regularly that is an occasional irritation.

[Scott Abbey]

Suggestion: publish a (very) short post at the top of the blog with a link to the newly released comments.

[Graeme Scott]

Good luck & has been said, keep it fun.

[Richard Parkin]

Yes, as steve jacobs says, clicking on the header should take you to the “Main” page not to an annoying link to it! Two steps instead of one :(.

But I’ve always like the 3 column page design, it only takes a moment to ‘stretch’ the text to fill the page. One can use the “Reader” view in Safari etc but that doesn’t show the comments.

[Fred Haynes]

I’m glad to hear that your still writing the book! You had been somewhat quiet about it, and I thought you might have put the book idea aside.
Frankly, I see you as similar to Bill Bryson, with your ironic sense of humor,, and careful researching. I see a few books coming from you, all related to photography. And I know you’d make them interesting, and highly readable.
If you do make revisions the your blog page, as some have suggested, please don’t make the text any smaller. That’s one of my ‘pet peeves’, dealing with small and hard to read copy!
I’ve been a reader for a long time, I think from 2007, and I’m not going anywhere. We all get old, retire at some point, or consider doing something different. I wish you well with your new schedule, as long as I get my daily dose of TOP, whether original posts, or smart, intelligent comments, I’m happy. 😁👍
Fred

[Richard John Tugwell]

I wish you well with the relaunch, Mike. But to be honest although I like your writing, as a photography blog you need a better site

[Dillan]

I am very happy that you will continue to publish this blog. I will continue to read!

[Patrick]

Interesting isn't it that you are more writer who writes about photography than photographer who writes about photography. Someday you might want to do a post on how that transition came about.

[C.R. Marshall]

We are guests on this journey, not customers. I fully support Mike doing whatever needs to be done to keep the journey moving forward.

Tip for others: I have a link in my Firefox Toolbar labeled AmazonTop (https://www.amazon.com/?tag=theonlinephot-20) which keeps my purchases sending money to Mike. I would encourage you to do the same.

[longviewer]

My wife and my sister are honored that you should choose their birthday for this auspicious relaunch. I may even inform them of their honor! :^)

[Well I certainly hope you do. I did it just for them! —Mike]