Caroline Stuckey was the editor of the original magazine, we asked her about her experiences and reminiscences of producing the paper version in the 1990's.
The Scribe, let me remind myself about the best bits first; it was once a national magazine that could be found on sale in all major hobby games stores, was known by practically every genre of LRP the early millennium had to offer and at the height of its success there were few Live Role Players who hadn’t heard of it. It was a magazine that provided the foundations of some great triumphs, not just in LRP but in the publishing industry too, but best of all, to this day it still exists, preserved, hidden away, archived in a national vault amongst all the British publications ever to be registered with an ISBN number in the UK.
What made you create The Scribe?
Passion, perhaps persistence, definitely belief, certainly determination, maybe pride, but definitely an incredibly, ‘youthful philosophy’: that anything could be attained, nothing was impossible, everything was achievable, and there is always a way, you just have to find it. It was something that had to be done, and I did, well we did; The Scribe was not, and never could just be me, Caroline Stuckey.
The seed for its conception began at Lepracon, a national LRP convention run by Enigma around January 1998. For two years I’d served as elected editor of “The Adventurer”, a black and white magazine that had received a lot of financial backing for; including sponsorship by one generous supporter who gave something like £1000 that enabled free distribution of an issue in an attempt to increase its circulation, and another benefactor who purchased Quark Xpress, a programme I felt I needed, to bring The Adventurer up to a professional standard that I thought would encourage players to buy it. However, despite all of this investment it just wasn’t enough to bring in the readers or the advertisers. There were too many political ties and too much bad blood that had been created in the history before I’d arrived as editor. There was only one way I was going to be able to achieve what I wanted and what I thought the hobby needed, and that was to break away and start completely from scratch with a new magazine. So, you could say The Scribe was born in July 2008 as a spawn of the Adventurer.
I’d like to say it was a clean break, but given its hostile history, The Adventurer and those who founded it were not going to let me leave so smoothly; I don’t wish to delve on the past, but I think it was an important event that happened as not only did it motivate me even further, but it strengthened the support I needed. The week following my public resignation as editor at an AGM, news soon spread around the hobby of the atrocious public exit I’d been given. Very quickly event organiser, after event organiser began to call, and my rather sad exit as editor of The Adventurer, suddenly became a very fortuitous event in the birth of, The Scribe.
Tell us about some of the low points and the high points.
My biggest low in the beginning was the loss of one of my main contributors, who had stuck by me for the past two years. He was honest, he simply didn’t believe a professional LRP magazine could work, or certainly last beyond the first issue. In truth, I didn’t think he believed in me. It was quite a blow, a dent in the ego. He had always been with me, had always been there at the end of the phone, and had been one of my strongest supporters, (although he hadn’t been able to attend the AGM). When he called me to stay he was staying loyal to The Adventurer, it hurt. But, it was a low point that lasted long enough for me to realise that I had some proving wrong to do, I had to win him back, and to do that the new magazine had to be everything that, The Adventurer wasn’t and everything that The Adventurer could be. I was so determined that I turned to existing professionals. I spent a few weeks with a publishing company called, Hammerville. I had lunch with the founder, spoke extensively to the employees and within a few weeks I had the confidence to set up, Regalle Publishing, and set to work producing the first press release that would woo traders into buying advertising space, and ultimately fund the first edition of The Scribe - or The Scribble as some traders interpreted the font.
It wasn’t long before it became clear that the Traders were excited by the press release. Advertising space was quickly sold, in fact so much revenue was coming in that the magazine didn’t need to borrow any money for the first issue at all. It was exciting hearing from the advertising manager each time he’d made a sale he called, and soon we were up to and beyond our first publishing costs.
I think The Scribe was very lucky, it happened at a time when there was a lot of excitement in the hobby as a lot of changes came about. Gaffa weapons had almost completely been replaced by latex, and then new shining varnishes appeared, and highly detailed shading arrived, and players just couldn’t get enough of the new designs. Suddenly, some Traders who had been making weapons as a hobby were now leaving the dole queue, graduating from university, or even changing their careers having found excitement with new experiments with Isoflex and injection moulds, and what they needed most was somewhere to raise their profile, advertise, sell their wares outside of events. On the other side, some event organisers were going professional too. Chimera Leisure spawned out of Dummnoni Chronicles, Curious Pastimes had broken away from the Lorien Trust, Labyrinth had been bought by a new owner, and even Vampire Masquerade had been hit with a break away group, Camarilla. It was a time when there were a lot of uncertainties, there was new blood, and with it came motivation, competition was high, and everyone wanted to reach out to the players. People looked to The Scribe, they needed something that would provide them with a platform where they could build or rebuild a reputation that was credible. The last two years of the 90’s LRP was buzzing, it was alive with change, everyone I met seemed to be fuelled by excitement the hobby itself was at a high point.
With any highs there will inevitably follow lows, and I didn’t have to wait long. The first issue of The Scribe came off the press in June 1998. It was timed to coincide with the European event, the Benelux Convention. Peter Howe, who back then ran with the title Advertising Manager, had done so well with the advertising and negotiating deals with distributors, convinced me we should reach out to the European market and head over to Belgium. It was all going so superbly well in the UK, why on earth would Europe not love it to! Well, they wouldn’t, and they didn’t. By the end of the first day at Benelux, it was clear that the amount of profit that The Scribe had made from sales and the sheer lack of interest from anyone in advertising space, it was a massive wake up call, it was not going to be the easy ride that the UK had led us to believe. I remember the weekend dragged painfully, and this was the launch, the UK hadn’t even seen it yet. But no one even wanted to buy it. For a whole day I slogged around in my Xena outfit, just creating awareness, raising the profile, but generating zero revenue. That was until, a business owner, who maybe saw me working so hard to get sales, that he wanted to join in, or maybe he just took pity on me. Regardless, he shouted out a deal to his audience, and there were many, “Anyone who buys a Scribe gets a discount on a rare magic card!” It was like a swarm of honey bees, suddenly everyone wanted a copy of The Scribe. They were magic players, they probably had no idea or interest in LRP whatsoever, but at last the European sales were happening! I have no idea how valuable those magic cards were, but it was an event that I would never forget. I returned to the UK quite humbled by it all, Europe was not an easy market, and in truth it was probably not ready yet.
The first UK event I took The Scribe to was at the Leeds University Mountain hut. After the Benelux convention I had become a little somewhat subdued, but here I was about to have my faith restored. I had been warned on the way up that an error had been discovered whereby an advertisement that had been booked had failed to make it into the first edition. That proprietor was James Morris of Kin Cheap, and he was going to be at the event. All I remember is standing outside the building as James so passionately poured out his frustration, his disappointment, the damage it had done to his business because his advert had not appeared; in truth I was being told off, but it was the best telling off I ever had, because this amount of passion was the first feedback that I’d had which helped me to believe that what had been produced was the professional magazine that, well, at least Kin Cheap had been waiting for.
Between 1998 and 2001, there were many other highs, the phone call from an excited reader when they saw The Scribe on sale in, “Orcs Nest” was one; I had no idea where this shop was, but I revelled in his excitement. I think part of me secretly enjoyed the fame, too. There were some events where my presence seemed to create an air of nerves you’d expect celebrities to receive. Being “radio’ed” in at the big events, “Lady from the Scribe is here” and being asked to go to the VIP tent made me chuckle. Another time I was driving around the country visiting all the August Bank Holiday events, so much so that I arrived quite late to the Fools and Heroes event, and awoke in my car to find myself in the middle of a ritual circle, with players already in action! Then there was the Vampire event where the player clasped my arm as I was passing and said, “Level five attraction” or something along those lines, at which point my chaperone replied, “she’s not playing mate, she’s here from The Scribe”, to which he replied, “can I do it anyway”, to which the chaperone said, ”no you can not!”
There were also some great moments with the reactions players had over articles in The Scribe. The magazine could always count on Alex Taggert or John Curry to bring up some controversial issue. Players would ask, “Why do you print their articles?”, and secretly I would smile - they were printed because these articles drove people to respond, engage in discussion, talk about the magazine, and I revelled in hearing people talk about The Scribe. However, perhaps one of the finest hours came, when it became clear that the age old Adventurer magazine, was never going to make another appearance, and then I got my favourite contributor, JB, back.
The Scribe was a full time job where I would spend practically every weekend going up and down the country, making new acquaintances and renewing old. Then during the week it would be developing the 35ml films I’d shot, scanning in the photographs and then writing articles to go with the prints. It didn’t stop when the camping season ended either, it continued with Vampire weekends and Laser Tag, and then LRP moved into youth hostel events and of course the Christmas banquets. It was hard keeping on top of them all, and the trouble was organisers were always seemed eager for me to go to their events, some complained when I didn't, and I wanted to be there, it was hard saying no. When I got to the events it was a great feeling seeing so many eager players wanting their photograph to appear in The Scribe. There were certainly a lot of films to develop back then. Then there were the articles needed to go with them, and the artwork, I worked with some amazing artists who would very quickly produce something every time. The editing was always a challenge. I got very irritated by mistakes, so much so that I remember dismantling my P200 MMX and regularly heading off the final weekend before publication to one of the editorial team. It was a real hard effort to rid the magazine of all typos and gremlins before it got to print. The Scribe had a great team, which I don’t think ever got together as a group, we were perhaps an early version of an online editorial group. They were very patient, I wanted perfection, I didn’t want typos, and I would go to great lengths and travel far, through the streets of London to get it, and they tried so very hard to achieve this aim. I don’t think it was reached until Issue 13, the final edition.
Did you achieve all you wanted?
I probably did, otherwise I’d still be doing it. I don’t think I was business savvy enough to take it to the next step, which was a big one. In the beginning I had successful business advisors behind me, once I was up and running they left me alone. I needed to get into WH Smiths, to do that I needed to appeal to a wider audience, and I had started to widen the content to include Murder Mystery and Re-enactment, but I was a sole trader not a limited company, also I wasn’t VAT registered, but the turnover (not profit) was getting to a point where I would have to be, but I liked my accounts the way there were, simple.
What are your proudest moments?
My proudest moments are what came after The Scribe. When I heard that Jon Hodgson, a regular contributor with his artwork in The Scribe, had turned professional and had crowds lining up for his autograph at Role Play conventions, that made me proud. Cavalry Design, who gave up their jobs and used The Scribe to start their own business, are almost in their sixteenth year of business, that makes me proud. And knowing where I am today and all that I achieved in the years following the magazine, I am very proud of The Scribe, as it opened up so many doors for me. Most importantly though, whenever life gets tough, I can usually pick myself up with some great recollections from my days with The Scribe.
What made you call it a day?
I was offered a full time post at the BBC sometime after Issue 13 came out. A few months earlier I’d gone to a live broadcast for Tomorrow’s World and appeared in the audience on the show with a copy of The Scribe. I met two producers who had bought a copy from the store, Orc’s nest, and somehow I found myself in Newcastle auditioning for the role as presenter. I then became a researcher on the programme and moved to London, with the hope of become the next Phillipa Forrester - of course I never did. You can actually see me in one of the issues in the news section holding a copy of The Scribe whilst on the programme. It hadn’t occurred to me that I would stop producing The Scribe when I accepted the offer at the BBC, I genuinely thought I would be able to do the two jobs. I could never have done both. Thankfully I never tried. The decision was out of my hands when the BBC contract came through, along with a clause forbidding me to carry out any other work whilst in their employment.
Without a doubt, it has probably been the most demanding and time consuming job I have ever had, but it was probably the most satisfying. I recently moved back into the house where the Scribe was first published. In fact, if you open up the loft hatch my desk is still in there along with pictures of The Scribe and post it notes relating to this bygone era. It’s like The Scribe is sitting there in mid production, just like the Marie Celeste, just waiting, waiting for Issue 14.
Special thanks to: Neil McCallum-Deighton, Corin Warr, Steve Barnes, Peter Howe, Matt Kneeshaw, Jon Hodgson, Mark Hadlett, JB, Jim Thomson, James Morris, Mark Gilbert, Jim King, Mark Roberts, James Bloodworth, John Curry, Steven Somerfield, Rob Hopper, Josh Smith, Paescod, Brian Wells, Andy Leach, Kylie Tilford, Steve Emmott, Sam Goldsmith, Mark Dollar and to Liz Cable and to everyone who contributed in any way to made it happen.
