A Note from the Editor: Issue Ten
plus the new issue's table of contents
Welcome to Issue Ten. We begin today with a note from the editor, and new work from the issue will follow each day this week.
Please buy Issue Ten in the shop. It features one poem each from Gil & Justin Vernon only available in print. You can also pick up Archive, the first Little Engines book. Both publications are available at all stops on the Spring ‘25 Tour.
LITTLE ENGINES ISSUE TEN
Table of Contents
TODAY:
A NOTE FROM ADAM
Tuesday:
Myles Zavelo
WHAT TO DO ABOUT BRETT RICE
(AND/OR: ALL MY FRIENDS)
Wednesday:
Justin Vernon
APPOMATTOX
(THE TENEMENTS CAVED)
Justin Vernon
COULD’VE OR SHOULD’VE
Justin Vernon
MOTHER’S DAY 1990
print only
Gil Vernon
DEMENCIA
print only
Thursday:
Andrew Siegrist
PROVIDENCE
Friday:
Mike Nagel
ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
A NOTE FROM ADAM
I was packing up an order in my office when my son came in and asked what I was doing. “Someone bought a Little Engines hat,” I said.
“Oh that’s cool. You sell a lotta hats?”
“No,” I said. “Almost none.”
“Do you make money on Little Engines?”
“Never,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I mean, the magazine’s free,” I said.
“You know that Hawk Tuah Girl?” he said. “She’s a billionaire now.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said.
This was the same weekend he told us he was thinking of changing his major. Something about entrepreneurship.
Last year, the guy who does my taxes looked at the big-ass stack of receipts I wanted to write off. “Do you plan on having any income with this business?”
“Not a business,” I said.
“If we send them this, the IRS disagrees.”
“Well, there’s that $1870,” I said. “Fifty-eight people pay for the online version of the magazine, and I sold a few hats.”
“And you’re spending $147,870?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t bought a boat. I haven’t gotten super into Japanese whiskey or whatever.”
My intention was to have a ripping hobby, but I’m putting hours, brainpower, and money into this shit daily. I’m publishing online regularly, traveling to festivals and readings, and the first proper book comes out alongside this issue. There are now many spreadsheets involved.
From what I gather, selling literary magazines rather than giving them away is only a marginally better business model, but I need to make you pay for stuff now. I kept the free gag going as long as I could.
Putting a price tag on here may not end up satisfying my accountant or the government, but it should solve another annoying problem I hadn’t anticipated. People were suspect of the free thing. Instead of an easy way in, it was a barrier to entry, like I was trying to hand out my album on CD-R.
Issue Ten’s a sick album, though. Inside you’ll find an essay from magazine mascot MIKE NAGEL, new stories from ANDREW SIEGRIST and MYLES ZAVELO, and poems from father and son duo GIL and JUSTIN VERNON, both publishing for the first time. KAMI BAERGEN painted for the issue, with HADLEY HENDRIX on typesetting and design. Pretty good, yeah?
When I last charged for an issue, in 2003, it was $8. This time I’m gonna try $12, postage paid. I think a four-dollar bump for two decades of inflation is fair. I’ll do $10 if you’re buying in person.
I was thinking about the old version of the magazine. Distributors got the issues into select bookstores, I had an active online shop, and I was selling lots of copies on the road with bands. Back then, the magazine had advertising inside. I looked at an old grid where I tracked the pitches. My target list was made up of record labels, publishers, online magazines, and weird small businesses.
Fifty potential advertisers passed, 150 didn’t respond after a pitch and follow-up email, and I had 25 takers, many friends among them. Rates were $50, $75, $100, and $175 if you sprung for a full-page. I hated selling the ads, hated chasing the money, and mostly hated the way they looked in the magazine. Doing the math, I’m stunned by what I was giving up—clawing for a couple thousand dollars—but while we’re here: Copper Press, your invoice is twenty years overdue. Looks like you still owe $75. Some Records, you are also delinquent. $100, please.
If you want to advertise in the magazine now, hit me up. New rates are $5000 for a quarter-page, $8000 for a half-page, and only $12,500 for a full-pager. You can’t have the back or inside covers unless you give me 50K.
Adam Voith
Nashville, March 2025
