I recently had a row with Eulogy magazine. They were slow to pay me for an article I wrote for them. It’s never a good idea to smash up a contact. I had no beef with the editor, Alfred Tong, who seemed nice, bright and funny. It was the accounts dept where my rancour lay. I considered all that and went ahead anyway. I was cross.
It looks as though I might have caught them at a very bad time. Alfred Tong has issued a extraordinary press release announcing nothing less than a relaunch of Eulogy after what appears to have been period of teeth-gnashing, uproarious lunacy and the departure of some of the original partners. It must have put years on him. Here’s what he says:
“Thankfully, the people we started off with are no longer involved. Their departure has given the remaining members of the editorial and publishing team some time to reflect on where we went wrong and the changes we needed to make.”
He is aware of terrible mistakes: “just before the July 2010 launch came the declaration in the advertising trade’s weekly newspaper, Campaign, that Eulogy would be, ‘the world’s first grief brand.’ Since when did an emotion become a brand?”
Read his remarkable, wither-wringing account of what went on here: The Life and Near Death of a Magazine
Alfred’s vision for the relaunched magazine could make it a formidable player. I hope that will happen and I wish him and his team every good fortune. The vision for the magazine is this:
1. Eulogymagazine.co.uk will be a forum for charities, support networks, and organisations that do the valuable work of helping people cope with bereavement and those facing death through terminal illness. Eulogymagazine.co.uk will assist these organisations in their fundraising and promotional drives.
2. Eulogymagazine.co.uk will be a place where the extraordinary nature of ordinary people’s lives can be celebrated. To that end there will be a significant amount of space for reader-submitted eulogies, stories, podcasts and videos.
3. Eulogymagazine.co.uk will offer advice for readers, as well as a range of other blog, comment and multimedia content designed to be thought-provoking, comforting, and helpful. It will also host content, which promises a much-needed laugh, when you need it most.
Thanks for the update Charles.
Personally I’m glad that Eulogy has risen from the grave. Reading Alfred Tong’s account it feels like them still being here is primarily due to a positive motivation to help to improve people’s lives. Though I’m still not convinced by their business model I wish them the best of luck.
I’m inclined to back them, too, Jon. There are good brains working here. Heck of a difficult thing to pull off, but I would love to see them triumph over misgivings because, as you say, it would do people a lot of good.