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Published: 1 October, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

A RADICAL bookshop in Islington is launching a campaign to save Britain’s struggling small independent printed magazines.

Titles including The Ecologist, Pink Paper, Lobster and most recently a short story magazine, Smoke: a London Peculiar, have disappeared from shelves, giving up on print and publishing solely online.

Now Housmans, in King’s Cross, is to hold magazine evenings where readers, publishers and distributors can meet to discuss ways of supporting printed periodicals.

Housmans bookseller Nik Górecki believes that a lack of advertising is a factor in the decline of many small radical periodicals, and that many are now only appearing online.

He says this is despite a recent Ipsos survey which showed that 63 per cent of people preferred reading printed copies of newspapers as opposed to 11 per cent who prefer digital versions.

Mr Górecki added: “The closure of bookshop chain Borders, including the store at the N1 Centre at the Angel which specialised in stocking hundreds of magazines, has sounded the death knell for many of the small, independent publications.”

Housmans, in Caledonian Road, prides itself on being one of the few bookshops in Britain that still stock a wide variety of radical magazines, pamphlets and newsletters, including Tribune, Peace News, Socialist Worker, and the intermittently published anarchist magazine Class War.

However, the loss to the shelves of mainstream environmental magazine The Ecologist, The Pink Paper (reporting on gay affairs), and Lobster, which specialised in investigation journalism, has been a huge blow.

Mr Górecki said of magazines that are still available in print: “Titles such as vegetarian magazine Off The Hoof and arts journal After All can’t boast the same volumes of readership as some of the more mainstream publications. But they have enjoyed a well-established, loyal base of readers, and play a vital role in preserving the richness of our cultural landscape.”

Nevertheless, he said, the fight for survival is becoming intense. “The electronic world of e-readers and iPads beckons, but despite technology allowing us to read just about anything from a screen, there is still an unquestionable demand for ‘hard copy’ periodicals.”

Sasha Simic from Central Books, a leading specialist magazine distributor, admits that “things are still very tough. As distributors, we’re much more cautious about offering a new title a distribution deal. It’s much harder to build credible standing orders for a new title than it was this time last year. 

“But things are never so tough that we’d turn down a good title.”

• Anyone interested in attending magazine events at Housmans can email  nik@housmans.com or call 020 7837 4473

Housmans bookseller Nik Górecki’s 10 most popular small magazines, in no particular order:

• Peace News – Long-running newspaper produced in offices above Housmans
• Dodgem Logic – A new underground magazine from Alan Moore (of Watchmen and V for Vendetta fame)
• Mslexia: for women who write – Journal of women’s writing
• Adbusters – Diligently deconstructing the corporate gloss on the world
• Radical Philosophy – Journal of socialist and feminist philosophy
• Red Pepper – Highly accessible  “red, green and radical” magazine
• Tribune – Latest news and views from a democratic socialist perspective
• Sight & Sound – Leading film industry title
• New Humanist – Ever-popular magazine for “godless people”
• Wire – One of the best music publications available
• And Nik’s personal favourite? Woofah – “A beautifully-produced and lovingly-written fanzine, focussing on reggae, dubstep and grime.”