Hello, hello, dear friends, the time has come again to share with you some thoughts about what‘s going on behind the curtain of what is known as Rubber Axe webzine.
Well, so far – so good, I‘d say. You‘ve probably noticed our new template, which we will use from now on (at least for some time), it did cost money (they say that best things in life are free, but don‘t believe the hype, you only get as much quality as you pay for), but it also did simplify some things for the website, so we can‘t complain. OK, there are still some areas to explore, but we‘ll get there when necessary.
New WordPress is here, finally, now in the 5.0 version and bringing with it a new text editor called Gutenberg, we‘ve switched to it, especially when WP team announced they will only support this one in the future. Well, all said and done, it seems that the classic WP editor will still be available and maintained and I‘ve encountered at least one issue with re-formatting the old article written in the classic editor into the Gutenberg editor. It kinda pissed me off, cos‘ I wanted to add some images to the article I‘ve published previous to the switch, but hey…whatever. It shouldn‘t be a problem anymore, as the staff will use just Gutenberg. I’ll still think they shouldn’t fix what wasn’t broken in the first place, but I’m not in charge, so let’s just go with the flow.
One more thing I‘d like to share with you is the inclusion of adverts on the site. I, as the editor-in-chief and the owner of Rubber Axe webzine, have been contemplating advertising from the very beginning, although I have to admit I couldn‘t determine 100 per cent to go with ads or not at all. Let‘s be honest, we all have enough ads through the day on various websites, social media, TV etc. not to have any more else unless absolutely necessary. That‘s my feeling too.
On the other hand, nobody can argue what‘s little the ad revenue could bring (if anything at all, obviously) can help running the site, help us getting more stuff to review etc.
So in the end I‘ve decided to test run the ad section, but I‘d like to show only relevant ads – that means, ads for various labels, publishers, movie producers, distros etc., related to what we cover. Well, I believe in supporting the underground and action speaks louder than words, doesn‘t it? And because I am fully aware what advertising budgets little distros or labels operate with (which is in most cases zero or very close to it), it would be ridiculous to ask for money to run those ads. Well, we sure as hell will (probably) run some monetized ads (although it‘s not 100 per cent), but in case you‘re a zine publisher, label, distro, band, clothing company and you‘d like to get your stuff promoted here, on Rubber Axe website, get in touch with us and we would work something out, that‘s for sure.