Suspect – doubtlessly – this is an actual attempt to raise funds. What I learned is sometimes you can simply be too authentic. But then what’s the point? – JDW
1995 GREGORY KOLOVAKOS SEED GRANT AWARD APPLICATION
1. The editorial focus or mission of WILD DOG.
Literary empowerment. A credible platform for artists.
WILD DOG is produced by two professional writers, with contributions from many other professional artists. We make a living as writers. We noticed our best writing never saw the light of day. Numerous markets exist for fluffy personality profiles or non-fiction features on the latest exercise trends, small business brochures, annual reports or golf tournament programs.
But try to place a short story with a message and a happy ending, ha!, forget it. Oregon enjoys a reputation as a writers’ paradise. True, there are many of us here and we are warmly supportive of one another, but the opportunity to publish the artistic, the idiosyncratic, the raw is virtually nonexistent. Except for WILD DOG. Real writing by real writers.
Our mission is spelled out by The Code of Wild Dog.
DOGGONE IT! DEFY THE ODDS. BREAK LOOSE. ADAPT YOUR GAME.
DO THE WORK. ACT NOW. AMAZE YOURSELF. ASSIST THE VICTIMS.
BECOME YOUR OWN HERO.
We call ourselves WILD DOG after a favorite Austrian folk tale about the dog who, having known captivity, escapes to enjoy freedom in the wild. Such an animal is more dangerous and more cunning, we learn, than wolves who have never known submissive domesticity. He remembers the chains. Something like that.
Words happen. That’s life.
And happy endings. Always happy endings.
2. How we plan to use award and how award will help us fulfill our mission.
We currently have a completed editorial package in hand to produce our seventh issue; we continue to seek the funds to print that edition. We have in hand original unpublished work by Clyde Rice, nonagenarian author of A Heaven In The Eye, Western Book Award winner. Walt Curtis, author of Mal Noche, Gus Van Zant’s first film. Cynthia Heimel.
Much much more. We have the original art work, stunning art work, to illustrate a portion of our next issue in color; additional print costs for color processing is estimated at a thousand dollars.
WILD DOG is ready for a national distributor, but the necessary costs are a gamble we are hesitant to make. We have never advertised, promotion has been entirely word-of-mouth.
The purpose of seed money is growth, so WILD DOG would use the Kolovakos award to produce a four-color publication. WILD DOG would take the gamble with a national distributor. The enhanced visual package would be greatly more appealing to a distributor, more obviously worth the retail purchase price. Finally, WILD DOG would place advertisements in national publications, e.g., Utne Reader. I believe we can achieve all this with the Kolovakos Grant.
To tell you the truth, we hope someday soon to enjoy the wherewithal to compensate such estimable contributors as Ann Rule, Robin Cody, Katherine Dunn, cartoonist John Callahan, Elizabeth George, Larry Leonard, leanne grabel for their work. We personally acquainted with many, many talented artists.
3. Specific audience(s) WILD DOG reaches or will reach.
Writers. Animal lovers. Hippy grandparents. Generation X slackers without a grudge. Lesbian musicians. Top people at Nike, adidas, Brooks and Reebok. Retired psychics. The running community’s literati. Retired psychos. People who appreciate the judicious use of white space. Fun seekers. Rich friends. Not enough of the latter. Contributors. Poets. Non-smokers. Vegetarians. Those who would become their own heroes. Monkeys who seek taller branches.
WILD DOG is unique among literary magazines. The literary motif of the feral canine gives us a hook few, if any, other literary magazines attempt. We are trying to create a publication of literature and art which can be marketed as a vertical specialty magazine.
Co-creator of WILD DOG, Jack D. Welch co-founded the acclaimed and successful RUNNING, which eventually reached an audience of tens of thousands. RUNNING published original work by Ken Kesey, Edward Abbey, Jim Fixx, Hunter Thompson. Take a look at Dr. Thompson’s Curse of Lono. RUNNING was created with $100 and history department’s mimeograph machine.
I digress, perhaps. But I wonder. I ask myself, Why can’t we create a vertical specialty magazine about becoming your own hero or heroine? The tool is great writing, the logo is a great wolf. WILD DOG is sufficiently strange to become something truly special. A popular literary magazine. Worth a try.
Imagine a world where the writer is atop the food chain.
That’s WILD DOG.
Low growl builds.
Triumphant howl.
4. Strategies we plan to implement to market WILD DOG.
Harder work. Crisper focus. Funding itself would give us some time to market. Grant money. Funding prints the next issue, destined to be our finest to date. WILD DOG #7 in hand would be our best marketing tool.
WILD DOG’s specialty is the freedom to view the glass half-full. What if we look at writing as a sport and entertainment? What if we target poetry as a hobby?
Word of mouth. Rolling Thunder. Buzz. The Kolovakos Grant is more than money, the grant is an endorsement, promotable credentials. National publicity. Locally, in Oregon, that is, WILD DOG has enjoyed quite a bit of favorable response from the local press. Select clips enclosed.
Buy a few thousand names, direct mail samples.
More performances, more public readings. Electronic media. Public access cable. Internet. Advertising. We might even finish our novels.
Road trip. Open new retail outlets. The four-color improvement should make a major impact at the store level.
Our initial strategy of marketing has been to avoid all obvious marketing strategies. In a world of ten million dollar giveaways by Publishers’ Clearinghouse, blooper videos and swimsuit calendars, we have sought to be discovered.
A slow process, this waiting to be discovered.
5. Channels by which WILD DOG reaches its market.
WILD DOG is “a damn fine literary magazine,” according to one Portland alternative weekly. That’s our reputation. We need to broaden that reputation’s dissemination. Increase vastly the distance and frequency, while retaining the inherent credibility.
Some people get it.
And then they tell their friends.
Family. We started as a letter home to our relatives and loved ones. Direct mail to twenty years of rolodexes.
We have received some sparkling print exposure in various and numerous publications.
“WELCH IS A SPRIGHTLY FELLOW WITH (A) SPUNKY MIND,” WHO “BRINGS A CRITICAL EYE AND A FRESH VOICE.” – The Washington Post.
Our contributors promote us like crazy. As payment, we typically give contributors as many as ten free copies. They typically share their extra copies with friends and acquaintances who are likely to subscribe. Our contributors are often other writers who admire our gumption but question our sanity.
There’s a New Age temple in Yachats on the Pacific coast selling WILD DOG.
And Conant & Conant, a superb independent book store in downtown Portland, Oregon. At Powell’s, the gargantuan independent megastore, it’s big, WILD DOG has been rejected, ahem, “for space reasons” by the small press, magazine and pet departments.
Typically, we distribute gratis say forty percent of a normal press run to prospective subscribers and promotional possiblities. We support the arts and the artists.
We are just starting out. We have evolved by spurts and lunges with each of our six issues, stumbling for some structure.
WILD DOG #7 in color is what we need to come alive on the market.
That’s what we would do with the 1995 Gregory Kolovakos Seed Grant Award.
Thank you. Mean it.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS by CARLA PERRY