October/November Combined = Issue #25
URGENT BREAKING WOAH NELLY NEWS!
The next issue of Blue Skies Mag to hit your mailbox will be in mid-October. No reason to be alarmed, we’re simply changing our annual combined issue from Jan/Feb to Oct/Nov.
What does it all mean?
We had combined the Jan/Feb issue to give us all a break at the holidays, but the schedule this year would have done the opposite - we’d have had a working week right in the worst part of Christmas/New Year’s. We have new ideas, so we figured now is the time to get all of it started! What are those fabulous new ideas? We’re glad you asked! They include:
* A new mission (well, our first mission since we had none before):
“Blue Skies Magazine creates conversations that contribute to the skydiving and human flight community in print, on the web, in apparel and through get-togethers.” That version is mostly for the tax man and bankers, but the short version is -
Blue Skies Mag: We’re in the business of conversation creation. Let’s talk – to the point, silly or serious, but always honest. What’s on your mind?
* Customer database – so you can update your address online and see when your subscription runs out. Right now that’s all done manually. And by manually, I mean by Kolla.
* Better integration of the magazine and online goodies
* Easier feedback and submissions. We want more letters to the editor, opinion pieces and photos!
* Issue planning – we’ll have more cohesive themes for each issue and publish those ahead of time
Most of this work is behind the scenes stuff, but you’ll see more and more new stuff coming out of the Blue Skies Mag factory in the coming months 
Feel free to drop by and fuel the machine with beer and/or chocolate.
Going Postal
The number one biggest problem we face as a magazine publisher is physically delivering the damn things to you. Postal services around the world are…less than reliable. Or competent, in some cases. We present Exhibit A:
Mis-sent to where now?
Evidently Vietnam and New Caledonia (yes, we have a New Caledonian subscriber) are easily confused by postal services.
So, if you’ve ever experienced the glorious postal system in your country, please share your tales of woe with us. And don’t hesitate to contact us if you don’t get your magazine on time, it’s ripped, or your postman thinks you should really be living in Vietnam. We’ll put up a post here every month to announce what’s new in this issue – if you don’t get that issue after 2 weeks, let us know and we’ll do our best to track it down.
Blog drought
U
m yeah. Updating our blog has fallen a little bit by the wayside as all three Blue Skies Mag workers managed to overbook their schedules at the same time. Phew. But now that we are done with some awesome side projects (some of which you can feast your eyes up on at the PIA symposium), done running from Miami to Key West on a pretty much all-skydiver-relay-team, sorted out some plans for 2011, attended a holiday boogie or two and crossed off a million tasks on the never-ending to-do list, it’s time to hit the blog updates hard again.
So ladies and gentlemen…. start up your RSS readers or flex those refresh-button-fingers and get ready to feast your eyes on words, pictures and videos from Blue Skies Mag throughout all of 2011. It’s gonna be good.
June/July Cover
A sneak peek of what’s about to hit your mailbox.
We're a big kid now. | photo by Justin Carmody
IF you are smart/lucky/with it enough to be a Blue Skies Mag subscriber.
Local jumpers Jen and Lauren posed for the talented Mr. Carmody one very hot Florida day (you should have seen the sweat). Yes, they’re real, live, current jumpers. Yes, that’s all their own gear. Yes, we will have more photos online, plus a lovely centerfold in the June/July issue of Blue Skies Mag.
Want any more reasons to SUBSCRIBE NOW?
Okay, how about some quality time with SkyGod, a new freeflyer’s progression using the new Skydive U DVDs, a word from The Fuckin’ Pilot, another insightful Melanie Curtis column, an overview of all the crazy association/brotherhoods out there (Who are the Rodriguez Brothers?), the Top Ten Most Expensive Orthopedic Injuries with plenty of x-ray broken goodness, Project XRW and a Jumpin’ Mama?
If that doesn’t make you want to send a measly couple of bucks our way to get this printed amazingness, well then…
. 
Blue Skies Magazine Is Turning 1!
That’s right, this July will mark the one-year anniversary of the first issue of Blue Skies Magazine. Thank you for reading our little magazine this year. To our charter subscribers and advertisers, an extra special thank you for taking a chance on a new, completely unproven company, idea, philosophy, everything.
It’s no surprise that we’ve struggled to get each month’s issue out on a predictable schedule and for that, we apologize and thank you for sticking with us and being patient. Without going into whiny-baby territory, it’s been a challenging year professionally and personally for all of us. We’re still working towards quitting our various other jobs and putting 100% of our energy in Blue Skies Mag.
Towards our goal of getting back onto a reliable, mid-month delivery schedule, we’re combining the June and July issues into one mega celebratory issue, with some good little surprises sprinkled in. Because you’ve paid for 11 issues per year, we’re automatically extending everyone’s subscription one month.
The June/July issue is set to hit mailboxes July 15, August on August 15 and so on. Most of you get at least one other skydiving magazine around the first of each month, so we’re spreading the magazine love to the sad, forgotten middle of the month.
In addition to our super mega one-year birthday issue, look for a Blue Skies Mag boogie schedule, revamped website and shwag from Blue Skies Mag soon!
Kolla, Lara & Pierre
Blue Skies Magazine
PS – Take a few minutes to cast your votes in our first (annual?) Best of/Worst of Drop Zone poll!
Run This Town
Crap, who is going to run this town tonight?
It’s a very odd thing to work in the skydiving industry. On one hand, you are a professional who goes to work every day and produces something people purchase with the fruits of their own labor. On the other hand—it’s skydiving, for f’s sake! We’re supposed to be ridiculously irresponsible and leave all our cares and worries to the DZO. Someone else runs this town, not us.
But, here we are, about to professionally communicate with our customers our plan for 2010, issue a Publication Schedule and just generally attempt to run a professional, responsible small business. Basically—we’re going to run this town tonight.
Anyway, enough with my hip hop-fueled analogies, and on to the business at hand. Please hold off on booby-trapping your mailbox because it’s apparent that your mailman has stolen your January issue of Blue Skies Mag. The postal service has nothing to do with the fact that your mailbox is silently crying out to be filled with our assemblage of paper and ink; instead, we planned to do a January/February combined issue that will come out mid-February.
This issue won’t be bigger than any other, but it will have a cool little surprise that we hope you’ll like. We decided to do a combined issue for a few reasons. First, skydiving activity (and, subsequently, advertising) typically is at its lowest in January. There just isn’t a whole lot going on—besides drama, which we’ll have plenty of in the March issue. Second, we are a small business and have been going at it pretty much non-stop since May; we built in a holiday break so we could show our relatives that we do, in fact, still exist.
The next order of business is our print schedule. Some bright mind suggested that your mailboxes would be happier if we spread the joy of skydiving publications throughout the month. Parachutist and other mags come out around the first, so we’ll let you enjoy that, and get our issue to you mid-month.
So, to recap: Jan/Feb issue mid-February, March issue mid-March, and on and on and on. With boobs* and beer, naturally.
*PS—We can’t print pictures you want to see if you don’t send us pictures of things you want to look at! Send them to pierre@blueskiesmag.com.
PPS—Kolla wanted me to say that we also want pictures of hot, shirtless men. We don’t discriminate when it comes to boobs. She has an excellent point. Here is an example of what we would like:
yes, please
And that’s how we run our town.
experience