When Stack started in 2008, it was sort of a business, but also really just a hobby. As the years have gone by it has grown and I’ve devoted more time to it, and while it’s still a lot of fun, these days Stack is absolutely a business.

And it’s a business with great potential for growth: The independent magazine market has exploded in the last seven years and Stack has had the good fortune to grow along with it, but it was only when I went full-time on Stack last year that the business really started to expand beyond my own expectations.

In this presentation I’ll demonstrate some of the things that Stack has done over the last 12 months to help distribute and promote some of the world’s most extraordinary magazines. And I’ll also look ahead to the future and ask what needs to happen for this incredible boom in creativity to turn into a financially sustainable independent publishing industry.

Because we can’t let this moment go to waste. We’re living through an unprecedented democratisation of all media, but whereas music, film and other forms have found new ways to reach audiences, print magazines are still struggling to work within 20th-century structures that need to be re-energised and optimised for the 21st-century reader.