f12 fRoots Needs You!


Supporting fRoots means preserving a vital, central and independent resource, activist and catalyst for the whole folk, roots and world music community.


Founding editor Ian Anderson writes about why we’ve needed to relaunch our appeal for your support.


W Here’s why:


Arts Council officers have told us that because of all we do, we tick most of the boxes that they require from clients in order to support them with funding, but unfortunately the Arts Council has no scheme to support ‘commercial’ magazines, no matter how deserving and uncommercial they agree we are. And we’ve never had the luxury of a publishing house, investor or benefactor behind us.


fRoots has always operated on a shoestring and, along with most other magazines, has found times increasingly tight. Everybody has been hit by changing reading habits, the recession and subsequent austerity, the decline in the record industry and its advertising budgets, and many titles have fallen by the wayside. At the same time we’ve also seen a contraction in the amount of exposure our music gets in the national media – radio, TV, mainstream publica- tions. Yet, by general agreement, we’ve been in something of a golden age for our music in recent years which makes our role more vital than ever.


Here at fRoots, we have taken all sensible steps to cut overheads including relocating out of London, freezing or cutting wages (in my case not drawing any at all for the past year) and decentralising our hard-working staff. But without outside funding or investment we now need the support of our community more than ever if we are going to maintain this valuable role in the new realities.


e’ve flagged up our need for support in recent issues, re-launching our appeal and adding a simple way of contributing. If even the Guardian can do this, so can fRoots!


With the June issue we completed our first 37 years of publishing – every single one on time. Our October issue will be our 400th! fRoots has been one of the main inde- pendent resources for the folk, roots and world music com- munities for so long now that to younger people it has – literally – always been there! Countless readers, artists, music promoters, record labels and more have gained greatly – on all levels from pleasure to creativity to profit – from our efforts down the years.


W


e’ve always stayed connected with the grass roots from which we grew, and operated outside of the mainstream music business. We’ve often been the first to highlight


artists and musics that readers may not have been familiar with, with more attention to cultural and gender equality than most. We’ve often got involved in event promotion and media partnership as well as simply publishing a mag- azine. Down the years it has been that deliberately non- commercial, involved, activist approach that has helped give us our incredibly loyal readership for which we are so grateful. Many thanks go to you if you are already a sub- scriber, or have already responded to this appeal.


please support us by donating at frootsmag.com/content/appeal/contribute/ Here are some other easy ways to support fRoots:


® If you are in the habit of occasionally buying fRoots in a UK newsagent, please subscribe directly instead. It doesn’t cost you anything extra but makes a substantially bigger margin for us: you also get the magazine up to a week ear- lier, you get the digital editions for free as well, and if you subscribe for two years you get a free CD too.


® If you are an artist, a promoter, a record label person or one of the many others who have enjoyed support from fRoots or just seen benefit from our work in strengthening the infrastructure, why not reciprocate by subscribing or advertising if you don’t already do so? Think of our world as an ecosystem – we all help and depend on each other, but that’s a two way thing! We also really appreciate any- body who endorses the magazine and helps publicise it or sell it. Every little thing helps.


® And finally, everybody, please help spread the word. Why not persuade friends to subscribe, or start them off with gift subscriptions? We do know that once hooked, people tend to stay readers forever.


Thanks for reading this far, and for any further support that you are able to give.


And please spread the word about this appeal, espe- cially if you know any philanthropic millionaires or rock stars with a love of important music!


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