The death of glossies? I don't think so!

With all of the newspaper layoffs at The LA Times, NYT and others, and Conde Nast publications having fallen significantly in ad revenue this first half, it appears it's a sign of the times that print is all moving to the cheaper online distribution practices and out of your mailbox, whether you want it or not. Bad for staff writers, sort-of great for freelancers...although many writers still love the print, it's sexier, it's comforting, it's some writer's milk and honey, writers love the print.

Are we watching the death of print? Will we wake up and discover in the very near future that Ray Bradbury was a modern-day Job? Or did someone just need to come up with a brilliant solution for all the overstock magazines laying around....

In an article on Foliomag.com, Dylan Stableford writes "If you can make a PDF, you can now publish a magazine," talking about Derek Powazek's genius brainchild MagCloud, a print-on-demand magazine publishing solution that is currently in beta. If you are a freelance writer who has always wanted to publish your own magazine but were afraid of the stacks and stacks of undistributed copies or high printing costs with no financial backing, then this may be the solution for you. Powazek wrote in an e-mail to FOLIO:. “MagCloud wants to be the people's printing press.” Not only that, but all you have to do is upload your magazine, MagCloud handles the rest as stated on Foliomag.com: "printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.”

So you can basically kick back and focus on marketing your mag and leave all the after-design grunt work to Powazek and MagCloud. Genius.

Click here for Derek Powazek's Blog Post Announcement
Click here for a Foliomag.com interview: An Interview with the Dudes Behind MagCloud