Update, January 2018: Volume 2 is now out, featuring a history of Aulsebrook’s and Eskimo Pies, a treatise on folk artist Jane Brenkley’s work, and the real deal on Pineapple Lumps – as well as other tasty tidbits. If you’re interested in the 4 volume subscription, Just leave a comment (no need to put your email address) and I’ll be in touch with you.
Hi there,
Some of you may already know who I am, and some of you don’t know me except as the writer here. I’m Darian Zam (yes, it’s my real name, before you ask) and I’m the founder of the Longwhitekid blog, and the History Always Repeats page which is another creation of mine – now with over 8,500 members and growing rapidly by the week.
You’ll probably have noticed that posting stories at this site tapered off around last March, excepting occasional themed posts around special events. So although it is true I have been busier than ever, there was something else afoot as well, which brought about this change.
Since a few people have been really curious what happened, I’ll cover it briefly, but it’s really not that thrilling – well, it wasn’t for me. A reader alerted me to the fact that a business in the U.K. named Print Express was reproducing my stuff. I approached them to sort it out and by ‘sort it out’ I asked them to stop doing it – and requested the net profit they had accrued from illegally taking my work and on-selling it. They very professionally told me I could go >insert< myself. Those were their words. It was particularly enraging because being on the other side of the world with different territorial law there was little I could realistically do about it and thought it was never going to be resolved.
I filed the paperwork for copyright infringement and at the same time notified other businesses and licensees that it was being done to them as well (power in numbers, I reckoned). It took many months before they were finally put out of business – which was probably, in reality pretty quick, actually.
Sadly it’s not an uncommon problem that, when you put your stuff ‘out there’ for people to enjoy, someone is going to take advantage of it. I’ll just say it was disappointing as well as very frustrating – and the final thing for me in a string of similar issues over a couple of years in which I’ve seen my work taken and used by TV shows and greeting card companies. Basically it’s made me reluctant to post any original material publicly because of the incident.
What was borne of that frustration was an idea. I decided I wanted control back – and that in order to have more control over distribution of my content, I had two choices. I could give up completely or – I could try a subscription based method. So instead of quitting, I kept researching and writing – and started laying out the first edition. Maybe it was an inevitable next step – I’ve always wanted to do a magazine!
So I made the decision that after five years here, it was high time for a change anyway – and I’d start publishing Longwhitekid as an e-journal, four times a year. In order to receive it you can get them individually, or take a year’s subscription at a discount.
Issue one (April-June) will be ready to roll in a couple of weeks. So I thought I’d sound out what kind of enthusiasm there is in yearly subscriptions to figure if there is enough interest to make it a worthwhile project. If you are interested in subscribing, please notify me below and I’ll contact you with more information (comments show an email address, but only to me as administrator).
So this is unfortunately end of an era, being my last post ever. But I really hope you’ll all join me in this exciting new stage.
Best regards,
Darian Zam
Social historian
longwhitekid 