Hi I'm Chris Force and I'm the Publisher and Editor of ALARM Magazine.
One of my goals with ALARM magazine is really to foster a great dialogue between independent
musicians and artists and the people that support them.
ALARM doesn't write about one specific genre but more so we find artists that are really
passionate about what they do.
The transition of ALARM from kind of a hobby to a business started when I graduated school
and I really had to think about what I wanted to do and it kind of clicked to me that ALARM
is really an opportunity for a business.
One of the first things I did was turn to the Chicago Public Library for resources on
how to do that.
And, you know, they asked me all about what I was trying to do and what the main challenges
are, and how to start working with bigger, national companies.
It's hard to call some giant company to say "hey, I'd like to sell you an ad, who do I
talk to?"
You know, you don't get very far with a conversation like that.
The librarians there helped me find a book called "How to Start a Magazine."
It just kind of sparked just a zillion ideas.
We found out about this really great database called Hoovers, which lists out the contact
information and background to a lot of the big companies.
That's really expensive to buy individually but it's available to you completely free
of cost at the Chicago Public Library.
So when we first started contacting these companies, we already came armed with all
of this knowledge about what they were working on, what their initiatives were.
You know, no one works in a total bubble, and so everyone needs that support to be able
to keep moving.
So small businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent musicians or artists running to the library,
getting a librarian's input, having that resource just down the street is definitely instrumental
in helping me transition the thought of making ALARM into a real business.