Launching a new queer publication is easy. It's surviving more than a few issues that's tough.

Publisher Michael Aaron's Salt Lake Metro is in its second year as a newsprint tabloid, printing some 10,000 copies every two weeks. Aaron wasn't a fan of the local tab The Pillar, a monthly that he calls more of a community newsletter.

He wanted instead something "more professional and more timely," and filled a niche with a news-focused paper. Aaron has a full-time editor and pays about a dozen freelancers (10 cents a word, which he said is the local going rate; six columnists are paid anywhere from $25 to $125 per contribution).

Aaron won't say how much the paper has cost him: "I mortgaged my house to the hilt. I borrowed. We are only a year and three months into it, and we are already paying back other [investors]. Soon, my business partner and I will be able to pay ourselves back. I don't take a paycheck right now. I do what I do because I believe in it."

Distribution was an issue. The largest pick-up points are gay bars, Borders and Barnes & Noble stores, and two gay-owned coffeehouses.

Supportive churches also wanted to make the newspaper available, but some of the ads were a concern. Earlier this year Aaron spun out bar- and adult-themed advertising into a separate section, called Magazine M. Salt Lake Metro is distributed in seven churches, while Magazine M is building its own identity as "Utah's hottest guide to gay and lesbian night life." It's distributed in places where there is largely an adult clientele.

Aaron said the separation helped with sales, and that conservative businesses, like banks, are now more apt to advertise in the main newspaper. "It's been a good marketing move all around."

Aaron claimed that Metro runs between two and three times as much ad space as the competition. "We also have two full-time ad sales representatives, which has given us the edge on that market." (The Salt Lake Pillar's owner and editor, Todd Dayley, said his monthly is essentially a one-man operation - he has a day job as an art director - with volunteers helping out. He said he's never compared ad sales between the two publications, but that his 12-year tabloid breaks even: "The ads pay for the paper. We really do have the market for bars and clubs." He added that the papers are not in direct competition: The Pillar focuses more on features and community groups. And Dayley noted that The Pillar has outlived half a dozen local GLBT publications.)

Another newspaper created to fill a niche is INSIDEOUT, a bimonthly based in New Paltz, N.Y., and distributed throughout the state's Hudson Valley. Publisher Linda Boyd Kavars describes her year-old publication (8-and-a-half inches square) as "upscale," using high-end silk paper, lots of color, and a glossy cover.

She and partner Hilary Kramer threw parties to find support in - and raise money directly from - the community. And although they didn't plan it that way, New Paltz Mayor Jason West caught the attention of the national media by marrying same-sex couples in March 2004. That drew attention to the March launch of the magazine, and the pair capitalized on that notoriety, holding a launch party at a local dance club and honoring many of the couples West married (almost $8,000 was raised, which was used to set up an office). This year's anniversary shebang was attended by more than 700 people, including local politicians.

Although INSIDEOUT had distribution problems in the beginning, "We seem to have figured it out," said Kavars. "We have about five distributors, and we ship some copies to remote areas. They go so quickly that we are hard-pressed to increase the circulation." The two women did distribution runs themselves, tracking issues and calculating leftovers, so that issues could be moved to a route where more were needed. "Like everything, it has been trial and error."

Jack M. Tesorero, who already had experience as the publisher and owner of the Phoenix-based IONAZ Magazine, had a different set of challenges when he decided last year to launch a second gay publication, 'N Touch News. Since IONAZ (pronounced eye-on-A-Z) is a glossy entertainment digest, Tesorero believed that its ad rates were out of range for some.

"So launching 'N Touch seemed like the natural evolution of my company," said Tesorero. "I needed a lower-cost advertising medium to offer businesses, so it had to be printed on a lower-cost paper and [we needed to] keep it black and white." A one-time insertion of a black-and-white ad in IONAZ measuring 2 3/8' x 1 3/4' is US$200. A similarly sized ad in 'N Touch is $50.

"I also wanted to gain respect in the community," Tesorero said. IONAZ wasn't taken seriously by some because of its lifestyle and bar focus, but news confers respectability.

Tesorero added, however, that the competition - Phoenix has seven LGBT publications - is an ongoing challenge. "Others try to launch new magazines or try to saturate the market. It's very cut-throat," and he complained about a lack of ethics in others, though wouldn't give details.

Starting a second publication, with the infrastructure for the first already in place (accounting, distribution, a good printer, and some shared staff) made the second launch much easier. "And because IONAZ was paying the bills for the company at that point, 'N Touch was profitable from day one."

Of course, one way of curbing costs is by publishing solely on the Web. Take Ambiente Magazine, a monthly Hispanic publication based in Miami, Fla.

Saving money was not the primary reason for avoiding paper. "We wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible," said Herb Rosa, editor in chief of the three-year-old bilingual (English and Spanish) Ambiente. "Plus, electronic publishing is the future. Yes, it has been more cost-effective to not publish on paper, but it was merely an unexpected benefit, not the driving force behind the decision."

Ambiente claims to have 30,000 monthly readers. Rosa said readership has been boosted with the publicity given by a weekly, volunteer-run cable access program called Ambiente TV, the first and now only national television program targeting the gay Latino community. It runs in 172 cities in 17 states across the country. (The program can also be viewed on the Web.)

"As advertising revenue grows, so will the possibility of salaries," says Rosa. "However, there is a great  dynamic when people do something like this as a labor of love for a cause they believe in."

In order to get its name out, Ambiente sponsors groups, sets up booths at events like AIDS Walk Miami, and sends e-mail to subscribers.

Staff also work closely with the local police department. "They now not only speak to us, but call on us for issues concerning the Latino/Hispanic LGBT community. Recently, City of Miami police informed us that within hours of our e-mail blast regarding a transgender murder victim, they received an extremely high number of leads."

Rosa said Ambiente turns away more ads than it accepts. "We want our publication to be about empowerment, to show that there is more to the community than just sex," said Rosa. "So there are no personal ads, no sex-related ads, no strip joints.... Plus, we sleep better at night knowing that we are standing by our principles."

He added that their advertisers are fans of the Internet: "They understand that... the ability to link to their website from their ad on our website" gives them more options.

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This is the first in an occasional series that will look at the challenges facing publishers at different times in a publication's life cycle.

U.S. REGULATION LEADS TO LAWSUIT AND A MAGAZINE'S CLOSURE. Stricter U.S. federal regulations governing sexually explicit online content took effect June 23, leading Gay.com to cut off access to all photographs in adult personal ads for about 24 hours.

By then, a negotiated reprieve from the U.S. department of Justice offered members of an adult industry advocacy group called the Free Speech Coalition (which includes Gay.com) a break until the end of the summer.

Title 18 U.S. Code 2257 states that producers must maintain records proving that all persons depicted in sexually explicit images are at least 18 years old. The law covers the Internet (including blogs and dating advertisements), print, and film, and is retroactive to July 1995. Content providers that fail to comply face federal prison sentences.

When photo access was reinstated June 24, Gay.com posted a statement reading: "We bent over backwards to defend your right to view and share photos of guys bending over." (Also of concern are pictures of people sticking their hands down their pants, or naked people touching their genitalia, or nudes in groups of two or more, or a nude person posing with a pet.)

Said Gay.com Vice President Donna Gibbs: "[T]he privacy concerns and free speech concerns of adults are completely ignored in this new set of requirements."

At least one publication, the 18-year-old New York-based Bound & Gagged, shut down completely. "The problem is, to conform to the new requirements would require the complete repackaging of all our products, at a huge expense," said Bob Wingate, publisher of the gay fetish magazine. That, along with the May 16 death of editor Robert Davolt and the loss of the magazine's credit card service, led Wingate to pull the plug on June 22. Bound & Gagged put out six issues a year, and went online in April 1988, publishing those same issues on the Web, plus an extra six Internet-only editions annually. Wingate said print sales totaled some 8,000 per issue, and the magazine had some 3,000 online subscribers.

Legal experts warn that Free Speech Coalition members who violate the new regulations after June 23 can still be prosecuted when the reprieve expires Sept. 1, and non members get no grace period at all. The coalition lawsuit argues that the rules are unconstitutional and overly burdensome, and jeopardize the privacy of models, who must provide their legal names and addresses. "The expanded record-keeping regulations of 2257 are impossible for website owners to comply with," said National Coalition for Sexual Freedom spokeswoman Susan Wright. "They are simply another way for the Bush administration to try to prevent sexually explicit material from being made available on the Internet."

The stricter rules could have a disproportionate impact on the LGBT community, Will Doherty of the Online Policy Group told Press Pass Q, because the U.S. Department of Justice tends to go after material officials consider more "deviant" first.

The new regulations also mean extra roadblocks for foreign-based websites and American sites that use foreign models, since all models must have U.S. government-issued identification. In addition, the expanded rules clash with stricter Canadian and European Union privacy laws.

- Liz Highleyman

PROTESTER THROWS OUT GAY PAPERS. Five Ohio residents, including a politician, have demanded the removal of two queer Ohio publications, the Gay People's Chronicle and Outlook Weekly, from the lobbies of Upper Arlington's three public libraries.

Tim Rankin, an Upper Arlington city councilor and president of the Columbus suburb's Republican club, also advocated removing all materials from the library that he called sexually oriented, including Maxim men's magazine and the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.

"I would feel the same way about a woman and man kissing," the Columbus Dispatch reported him saying last month. "This material is a ticking time bomb - there is no one standing around it, watching who picks it up."

Library director Ann Moore said current rules mandate equal access to all publications, so the library would not be able to pull one and leave others on display. "I think we would have a lot of angry people if we said, 'We're going to get rid of all of these papers.'"

Another protester, Mark Bloom, told the Dispatch that he was not homophobic, but that photos of same-sex couples kissing (on the cover of the Cleveland-based weekly Chronicle), and of a shirtless man in a leather harness (on the front of the Columbus Outlook Weekly), were inappropriate in an area where children could see them.

Bloom also admitted to the Dispatch that he'd thrown out stacks of the newspapers, and said he had his small children help him. Bloom said that since they are free publications, the action is legal. However, both papers have statements in their mastheads restricting people to taking limited numbers of copies for the purpose of reading them, and declaring that what Bloom did is theft.

Outlook Weekly reported that its publisher, Malcolm Riggle, has filed a complaint with police against Bloom, and the publication's lawyer, Tom Addesa, has asked the Upper Arlington city attorney to look into the matter.

Edele Passalacqua, an attorney who works with the Gay People's Chronicle, is unsure about criminal action against Bloom, but believes civil action is appropriate. "Certainly, we can sue him for damages, and so can the advertisers," she said. "They are paying to be in the publication, and he is preventing it from getting to their target market."

"We can get an injunction against him doing it again," she also noted.

- Anthony Glassman, with files
A version of this story first ran in the Gay People's Chronicle, and is reprinted with the permission of the author

COVERING WACKO JACKO. Only a handful of queer media mentioned Michael Jackson's June acquittal on sex charges related to a young boy.

In Detroit, Between The Lines columnist Sean Kosofsky tackled the issue on June 16: "I think homosexuality was on trial here, and America's fears about adult queer men being around adolescent and pre-pubescent boys.... The sex-phobic society we live in makes honest discussion of sex, sexuality and especially youth sexuality very difficult without some kind of panic....

"With compassion we may see what really happened and open our hearts to a man whose main crime is not fitting in. Assimilationists take note."

PlanetOut's Shana Krochmal looked at pedophilia in a June 13 piece headlined "Michael Jackson and the specter of the gay boogeyman." She cited a collection of recent mainstream media stories reporting allegations that gay men abuse children: "Simply put, while the reporters rarely said, 'Gay men are pedophiles,' they failed to debunk the myth. And with the preponderance of right-wing 'think tanks' and 'peer-reviewed' journals cranking out anti-gay research -- usually based on small, specious, out-of-context studies -- it's easier than ever to find someone willing to offer unreliable statistics about the lavender menace."

Bob Hoven, publisher of the Palm Springs bimonthly, Mega Scene, wrote a "final comment" asking, "Case closed, but will Jackson change his ways?" In another Palm Springs publication, The Bottom Line, James Quinlan winced at the prosecution forcing "the lost boys" to relive every Jackson incident. He also used the case to discuss the sexuality of boys: "The emphasis in adolescent sex education is on abstinence. Boys are expected to ignore their erections and just say no!"

For others, the Jackson verdict was the stuff of gossip. Dallas Voice popped in a mention on June 17, with the item sharing space with "L Word" tattle and actor Hugh Jackman's "X-Men" movies. The Southern Voice (Atlanta) paired it with sister Janet Jackson's acceptance of a Human Rights Campaign award.

Other publications covered the issue before the verdict. In "A Stranger in Neverland," in the June 7 issue of the national glossy the Advocate, Q. Allan Brocka wrote, "[A]s I researched the case, I found it difficult to get facts free of editorial. Trusted news organizations peppered words like 'weird' and 'wacko' throughout their coverage and took knocks at his looks, voice, and manner. The jabs at his race and gender reminded me how far we have to go in acceptance not only of sexuality but of racial and gender diversity.

"I reexamined my initial hunch. Why had I thought he was 'probably guilty'? Honestly? Because I thought he was a closeted gay man. And then -- snap! I had made the leap from closeted gay to pedophile all on my very own. It is one of the most fundamental lies used to perpetuate homophobia, and on some level I fell for it."

- Eleanor Brown

NEW YORK PAPER'S OLYMPIC DEAL. New York City lost its bid for the 2012 Olympic Games earlier this month, but the effort marked what may well be the first partnership between an LGBT publication and the world's most prestigious sports event.

The NYC 2012 officials approached the publishing company Community Media, LLC two years ago because of its two geographically-based community publications, Downtown Express and The Villager. But they also discovered a third product, the weekly Gay City News. Jorge Montalvo, the New York bid's coordinator of local partnerships and volunteerism, said he jumped at the chance to add a gay component to the mix. "Not having a partner [in the queer community] would have been a detriment," he said.

GCN associate publisher Troy Masters said the agreement involved a mix of networking help, queer community news and intelligence, and some publicity.

In exchange for a full-page advertisement in each of the last two Pride issues of GCN, the Olympic bid committee paid a chunk of the annual issue's expanded print run and provided some 20 volunteers to help with extra distribution. For this year's June 23 Pride issue, for example, a regular print run of 25,000 was upped to 47,500, said Masters. The bid committee paid the extra printing costs. (Neither Masters nor Montalvo could give a total billing amount.)

No editorial coverage was involved in the deal.

Masters called the connection an important one for the community. "This means we're not dirty anymore."

- Eleanor Brown

A PURCHASE IN COLORADO. Jeff Balk has bought the Denver entertainment biweekly H ink in order to add a Mountain version to his Midwest and Mid-Atlantic EXP magazines.

Balk is the majority shareholder in J & J Publishing Inc., which took possession of the 12-year-old Colorado entertainment biweekly H ink last month. Said Balk: "Denver has always been a market of interest to me. I know most of the bar owners and managers.... They have always been very friendly and welcoming to me when I visited. The magazine has great potential in the area as well."

Balk would not divulge the purchase price. H ink's former co-owner, Greg Crowson, did not respond to queries from Press Pass Q. He now works for J & J in ad sales and has a minority stake in the publishing company.

Balk's plans include shrinking the Colorado magazine's size by about an inch in height and width to "allow us to use the existing templates from the other EXP Magazines." Its cover will display the H ink logo for at least six months in tandem with its new title, EXP Magazine - Mountain Edition.

He added that H ink's 3,500 print run will go up to 10,000 within the year. Distribution will be expanded to Colorado Springs, Ft. Collins, Grand Junction, and Pueblo, Colo. Balk also said H ink editor Louis Sisneros had been offered a writing position.

- Eleanor Brown