FOLIO reports that over $250,000 in donations have saved Decatur-based Paste Magazine from folding.  And according to an email from publisher Nick Purdy, things are looking up.

“We’ve published two issues since the campaign began, sent a third to the printer and are seeing advertising pick up for the fall and expect to be around for a long time,” publisher Nick Purdy wrote in an e-mail to FOLIO:. The campaign officially closes this month, he said.

Wow…is it just me or is $250,000 an incredible amount of money to have raised?

Great news!  Keep on keepin’ on Paste.

h/t: InDecatur

In this morning’s AJC, fellow Decatur resident and recent not-just-a-food-writer, John Kessler, sits down with Paste’s editor Josh Jackson for an in-depth look at the “Save Paste” campaign.

In the article, Kessler discusses Paste’s long-standing mission, the not quite success of the Pay-What-You-Want campaign, their ties to Decatur, and throws out a few key numbers:

• 1 million uniques a month for PasteMagazine.com:

• 205,000 people subscribe to the print version of Paste

• The company has raised $240,000 of $300,000 needed to stay afloat

Kessler even gets some response from the Atlanta music community on Paste’s move to ask for money: Stomp and Stammer’s publisher is opposed (saying the effort “comprises you what you do”), while the owner of Criminal Records supports it.

Here in Decatur, we’ve been around this block before.  First it was Wordsmiths Books that asked for donations to stay afloat (though ultimately folded) and now Paste.  And though editor Nick Purdy informed me that Wordsmiths’ decision didn’t influence Paste’s fundraising idea, it seems more than mere coincidence that this idea is only being pursued here.

Why?  It might just be that community effectively blurs the idea of “charity” and removes it from it’s black-and-white context in the stark global economy.  As Wendell Berry wrote in 2001,

In a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood. This practice must be, in part, charitable, but it must also be economic, and the economic part must be equitable; there is a significant charity in just prices.

Good luck fellas.  In addition to much the music world, Decatur is behind you.

Fresh Loaf has a press release from Paste Magazine announcing that it has reached the halfway point in a campaign to raise $300,000 to keep the music magazine afloat.

So far we have raised $148,000! That was the minimum that we needed to keep us going into the summer; we never expected to hit this goal so quickly. Thank you! We have the most amazing readers in the world, and we now know—in a very real way—that we hold this thing called Paste in trust for you and will work diligently to honor that.

We still have a ways to go. Most of our debt will be paid out of revenues when the economy starts to rebound and advertisers return, but we need $300,000 to take care of bills that spiraled up during the ad slump. We’re halfway to that goal and more confident than ever that Paste will make it.

As a way of saying thanks for donating, Paste is giving charitible readers access to over 120 tracks in the Paste Station Download Vault…and the list of artists seems to just keep growing!  Click here to donate.

As reported in this morning’s AJC, the Save Paste website is now up.

All donors will get access to 70 mp3 downloads and those that give more than $350 will get a complementary lifetime membership to the mag.

And a slight aside:  The AJC article not only mentions Drive a Faster Car where the story broke, AND provides a link, but also quotes anonymous commenters from the site.

Was someone listening?

Drive a Faster Car reports that Paste Magazine is in serious financial trouble and is “trying to scrounge up enough money to put out the next issue.”

According to DaFC, Paste will launch a “Save Paste” campaign later today offering exclusive music in exchange for donations.

Very sad news.  If Paste folds, we’ll lose a venerable “New Decatur” institution.

Thanks to Lump for tipping me off to this.

Looking to sample the new Dylan album, Together Through Life, before purchasing?

Well then you’ll be happy to hear that Paste Magazine has posted the album in its entirety on its website! Listen here.  And for Paste’s full review, click here.

The mag has given their entire site over to Dylan for the day – kinda – with all sorts of Dylan polls, rankings and videos available for your clicking pleasure.  Personally, I recommend checking out the “Top 50 Dylan Covers” list.  Its pretty intense…and quite debatable.

h/t: InDecatur

In addition to this weekend’s Sweetwater and Dogwood Fests, tomorrow is also Record Store Day across this great nation.

Decatur’s Paste Magazine has brought back its “Pay What You Want” offer for a year’s subscription (minimum $1) to celebrate, while Decatur CD plans a seductive offer of its own: universal discounts and free alcohol.

All the details are on Decatur CD’s blog.  But here’s a taste…

Sale!
First and foremost, 10% off EVERYTHING. Compact discs, slabs of vinyls, books, box sets, anything that can’t be tied down. If you can purchase it at Decatur CD, you can purchase it on Record Store Day for 10% off the usual price.

Beer!
We’ll have some. Probably a lot. You know the drill. Nice stuff, in bottles, on ice, in that good old trusty giant white cooler. We hope you’ll drink it and that it’ll convince you to hang around and chat with us about music and independent/local business and drinking and Saturdays and good times.

Are you a fan of Aimee Mann?  Are you itching to subscribe to Paste Magazine?   Then you are in luck!

Carl writes in with word that the Paste “Pay What You Want” promotion is back after a successful run last year…this time for Aimee Mann fans.  But it looks like anyone can click the link…so head on over and sign up or renew for a minimum of $1.

This is a great deal…especially for those that want to try out Paste for the first time.  But if renewing, keep in mind that Paste is a Decatur business and perhaps shell out a little more than the minimum to help support one of our greatest local startups.

Here’s the rundown for Night 1 of Wordsmiths’ fundraiser to save itself from extinction…

Additionally, InDecatur notes that a blurb was published in Publishers Weekly regarding the campaign. Also an AJC posting says that the rent at the Old Post Office on Trinity was three times that of the store’s current location. (THREE times!? umm…why?)

Full release after the jump… Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent MediaWeek article, which heralded the return of Paste’s co-founder Nick Purdy to the Publisher role, Purdy discussed the success of their “Pay What You Deal” where subscribers could pay a minimum of $1 for a year of Paste.

Here are the details as reported by MediaWeek…

In a Radiohead-inspired move, Paste last fall offered people the chance to name their price for a one-year subscription, usually $20 for 11 issues.

Purdy said the offer netted Paste (which guarantees a rate base of 180,000) north of 31,000 new subscribers who paid an average price of $4. He called the experiment a success, given that its cost was minimal compared with the $1.5 million he estimated it would cost to enlist that many subscribers via direct mail, assuming a response rate of 1 percent and per-piece cost of 50 cents.

Purdy said the offer benefited from its novelty and no doubt wouldn’t be as successful the second time around. Still, he said the results were good enough to warrant repeating it, adding, “the proof will be in the pudding on conversion.”