Huck: A Pioneer of Indie Publishing
Huck Magazine stands as a leader for the world of indie publishing. But is the industry sustainable?
Alex sat in his London office sipping tea, fidgeting incessantly. Alex’s relationship with Huck started some ten years ago.
Vince Medeiros, the publisher of Huck magazine and a director of Latin American cinema came to speak to Alex’s university film society. “We got chatting and as well as directing the movie, he was the publisher of Huck and Little White Lies magazine. To cut a long story short we stayed in touch, and he offered me an internship at Little White Lies.” Sadly, Little White Lies, who is also published by the Church of London Publishing Group, the same publishing house which produces Huck, didn’t get back to him. But Alex ran into Vince again a little way down the line. “Vince asked if I wanted to do an internship with Huck. I fell in love with it, I thought it was the most interesting place to work bringing together politics and culture and skateboarding and activism. It really aligned with how I saw the world. It connected so many dots.” Here we are now, “Ten years later after leaving and working freelance in Greece I am back in London and working as the senior editor”.
Who as a professional is Alex King?
Up until January this year I was a freelancer based in Greece and working a lot in Ukraine. I still really love going out and finding stories. Discovering sort of communities, whether that be queer, techno ravers in Kiev or Indian body builders. I love getting out on the road, I love talking to people, I love collaborating with good photographers, reporting on stories together. Following things and discovering what’s the best way to tell them. That’s the core of me as a journalist and I guess as me as a person as well. That’s the thing that really brings me joy.
In those ten years since your first experience of Huck, has the way Huck creates content changed, or is the ethos still the same as when it started?
The soul of the publication has changed very little. The things that made an exciting Huck character back then hasn’t really changed. The DNA of the magazine is still very much intact. The way people engage with Huck has changed. How publication is commercially has changed a lot. In 2012 the whole media industry was still coming to terms with the 2008 crisis and the rise of social media and the internet really. The internet was still relatively new for publishing. A lot of publications that were print only, people were like awkwardly making the transition back then. Which seems insane to think now where there is so much social first content. At that point a lot of publications were trying to survive and adapt to deal with the loss of advertising revenue. Huck transitioned from sleepy magazine operation to really switched on digital newsroom. And that’s where we are at now.
What’s the reason behind Huck focusing on Culture, Activism, Photography and Outdoor?
Those pillars have shifted. I am in one of the meeting rooms and we have some of the old Hucks with the mast edits at the top. Back in the day it used to be surf, skate, snow, travel, music, film, art and fashion. So, it’s not that dissimilar to what we’ve got now really, it’s within the same world. I guess the world has changed and things have shifted, people are less interested in that core skate mag kind of energy.
What’s the size of Huck’s team?
The global network is mainly comprised of freelancers but there is the main team at Huck. We have a digital editor, we have a print editor, we have a senior editor, we have social editor, and we have some people that work across Huck and the agency side, employed by the parent company which is TCO London. We have a much wider network of freelancers many of whom are quite regular. A Sort of extended family, but we are also open to pitches. From anyone around the world, we consciously try to cultivate that global network.
What does the future look like for the world of indie publishing?
It’s hard for me to say. It seems were in a trough. Hopefully we will have another peak. There is still very much a hunger for the kinds of stories we tell. There’s a lot of need for alternative independent voices. I think everyone is seeing how poorly mainstream media has managed to rise to the challenge with things like Covid and the sort of political crises the UK has experienced since Brexit. On a more global level mainstream media isn’t up to the task of really educating informing, entertaining. I think there is a need for platforms like Huck and I certainly think there is a desire for it. Audiences have never been more engaged with what we are doing, we’re still growing it in terms of the people that read the site every day and there is a healthy readership of the magazine as well but the financials backing that up are not as sturdy as they have been in previous years but of course that is cyclical. I think most indie publishers would have gone through a few boom-and-bust cycles and sadly this time we are seeing some really awesome publications close. We are just trying to see it through and hoping that the financial situation will allow us and others like us to sort of carry on doing what we are doing, as the audience is there. The sort of need for better storytelling and more critical voices is certainly still alive and well.
This conversation with Alex was an extremely valuable insight into the world of alternative indie publishing and how Huck fits within that. There are clear struggles which the industry is facing. But if there is anything to say about alternative creatives it is that they are beyond resilient. Their resilience means that these publications may rise and fall but there will always be an audience for these kinds of stories, and there will always be extremely creative and driven individuals like Alex to hold the mantel of responsibility when it comes to telling these rather weird and wonderful stories. This specific print and digital world isn’t going anywhere.