The Alternate Root's first edition
Bill Hurley, managing partner of The Alternate Root, LLC, acknowledges that “It certainly does seem like a strange decision.” However, he continues, “We’re a strange bunch over here but we’re embracing new technology and going against the model of filling a magazine with 50% advertising, printing the magazine and then praying it sells.” Unlike other print publications, The Alternate Root has adopted a very “green” way of releasing a magazine. It will be published in a print-on-demand format in which the magazine is printed and shipped when it is sold.
Replete with music stories from cover to cover, advertising in the magazine, which will retail for $15.99 and include a limited edition DVD with audio and video content by artists featured in it for the first 6,600 sold, will be limited to the inside front cover, back cover and inside back cover. A free digital download will be available to those who purchase the magazine after the first 6,600 are sold, while it will also be available digitally for mobile devices on ipad and Android tablets for $4.99. The first edition’s DVD will include nine video and 19 audio tracks from the artists featured in reviews, interviews or profile stories in the magazine. There will be video from Eric Brace and Peter Cooper with Tom T. Hall, Cumberland River, Dirtfoot, JD Malone, Rebel Montez, Christine Ohlman, Spuyten Duyvil and Tedeschi Trucks Band, among others. Artists with audio tracks will include Band of Heathens, Eileen Jewell, Yarn, and more.
Noting that the interactive music magazine – which features an amalgam of traditional American roots music including Americana, alt-country, blues, rockabilly, folk, bluegrass, roots rock and traditional country — has an estimated 130,000 monthly readers, Hurley says: “We’ve opted for a steady growth built on hard work, little capital, no debt and a relentless, dedicated group.” Hurley, who also serves as the publication’s editor and graphic designer, believes The Alternate Root has struck a responsive chord because “we cater to independent musicians, the little folks that are often ignored by the bigger magazines who have built their content around advertising dollars. We have access to the American roots music industry because we care about the growth, including many of the genres that comprise the broadly defined format.”
Bill Hurley, editor of The Alternate Root
Like some other music publications, The Alternate Root has issued samplers that Hurley says have been downloaded thousands of times. The samplers have featured both emerging and more established artists. “Many of those [up-and-coming]artists, who have never been on a high-profile release, find themselves in the hands of 20,000 people,” Hurley continues. “We’re building a community, not a corporation and we’re not interested in being ‘gate-keepers.’… At the end of the day, we hope to sell music and raise awareness of the great music that’s out there that many people don’t get exposed to. If we do that, all the ancillary mechanisms will click in and we’ll be successful.”
With a stated aim to create the tools needed to advance the American Roots music format, The Alternate Root, LLC also produces a weekly American roots music program, Alternate Root TV, and publishes a Top 66 International Airplay Chart.
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