Bakotopia, one of Bakersfield’s local culture and arts magazines, has taken a break from print publication and has returned focus to the Web site that started it all.
The magazine, which was based on citizen-submitted material, began publishing over two years ago. It was launched as an addition to the growing Web site Bakotopia.com, which is now operating in its fifth year online, according to Logan Molen, chief operating officer for the Bakersfield Californian’s interactive media division and Bakersfield.com which oversees Bakotopia magazine and Bakotopia.com.
Bakotopia, however, is owned by a company called Mercado Nuevo, which is a subsidiary of the Californian. Mercado Nuevo also owns MAS Magazine and The Bakersfield Voice, two other local publications.
In late 2009, Molen and the team at Bakotopia and the Californian decided to end Bakotopia Magazine’s print run, citing insufficient income from advertisers that wasn’t meeting the costs to print and produce the magazine.
“We just never made enough money to cover the costs, and when the economy went south last year, we just couldn’t afford to keep on subsidizing the costs. So we spent a lot of time looking at alternatives and crunching numbers before we came to the conclusion in December to put the print edition on hold,” Molen said. “We haven’t completely eliminated the idea of print magazine, but the time just wasn’t right now to keep it going.”
Bakotopia is not ending altogether though. In fact, a restructuring of the Web site is in progress which will include offering a downloadable version of Bakotopia magazine.
The online version of the magazine will be created using a program called “Printcasting,” that will allow readers a better experience in reading the magazine online and the option to print it out in its entirety, according to Molen. Readers will also be able to access the new Bakotopia Magazine through the use of RSS feeds.
“We’re looking at using those tools to create a digital version of Bakotopia, so it’ll be a magazine, it just won’t be exactly like what we had with the printed product,” said Molen.
Bakotopia.com and Bakotopia Magazine editor Matt Munoz is continuing in his contributions to Bakotopia and has recently started Bakotopia Radio with co-host Miranda Whitworth airing Sunday nights on KRAB Radio from 9-10 p.m. The show spotlights local artists and musicians and includes live performances in the studio by their guests.
“So we’re kind of continuing to create Bakotopia stuff, it’s just not in this print product that costs money to produce,” said Molen.
According to Molen, the website’s redesign is scheduled to be finished in the second quarter of 2010, while the Printcasting component for the online magazine edition should be finished in a couple of months.
“There’s a test version on the Web site right now that’s not very polished. It was built with first generation tools, but we just rolled out a software upgrade last week so we should have a more polished version up in a month or two,” said Molen.
Reproducing a print version of Bakotopia in the future is not out of the question yet either, however, they would like to continue keeping it a free publication supported by advertisers and not have to pass any of the costs on to the consumers.
“We don’t have any plans to charge for it. The advertising has to be there ’cause it’s really, really hard to charge for a printed publication to cover your costs without the advertising. The advertising has to cover the majority of the cost, otherwise you’d end up having to charge $10 for an issue of Bakotopia, and that’s not going to happen,” Molen said.
In the meantime, readers can still look forward to getting their Bakotopia content via the web and its other forms available soon.
“We’re still committed to Bakotopia and the Web site and the radio show and the different versions of it, so stopping the print publication is just another part of the evolution,” said Molen. “I mean, we didn’t start it with a print magazine, so it’s not like we were pulling the plug on the core of the product. The core has always been the Web site.”
Bakotopia Magazine printed 70 issues with the first issue going into print May 1, 2007, and the last issue printing Dec. 24, 2009.