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description: Volume 15 of The Climbing Zine. The story only version for Kindle. For the photos please find our print version and subscribe. Here's a look at our Introduction: Welcome to The Climbing Zine Volume 15. Who wouldve thought wed make it this far? I certainly didnt. As Ive written before The Zine was intended to be a one-and-done sort of thing. Sometimes the best things in life take hold of you and create a life of their own and youre in for a wild ride. Though The Zine has been successful beyond my wildest dreams there have certainly been some cruxes. In the beginning it was how to pay for the damn thing (and how to pay our crew of freelancers). After we had a solid base of subscribers and sponsors the next crux was how to grow in the way we wanted to grow. There were some missteps and lessons learned but starting this year our circulation per issue has grown to 10000 copies. Thats a long way from our original print runs of one hundred stapled-together black-and-white issues! Even though Im starting to feel like a veteran editor each and every issue creates moments of panic and fear. I always want every zine to be filled with unique well-written stories. I want to produce stories from different voices not make everything polished and sounding the same. But theres always a moment a moment of panic; it usually happens in the middle of the nightI start to worry. Will great ideas and stories come my way this issue? What if they dont? What do I have so far? Would so-and-so write a piece for me if Im in a pinch? Is my story any good? Normally Im a fantastic sleeper so when these moments happen I just try to talk myself off the proverbial ledge. I think of the good stories I already havetheres almost always a few in the hopperand I tell myself the stories will always arrive. Theres something healthy in my panic I think that I care so much about the quality of stories that it will keep me up at night. And that the climbing community has my back. Oftentimes the perfect story lands in my inbox at the perfect time. Im continually amazed by that and Im grateful that there are so many passionate and articulate climbing writers out there. One final shout-out I want to give here is to our sponsors. They vary from mom-and-pop shops to publicly traded companies but each sponsor sees something unique in what were doing and they provide the backbone for what were able to do with The Zine. We are grateful for your support. Its hard to overstate how important goals are in climbingand in business. My goal now is to grow this zine to be the most read of all the climbing publications. Weve still got a long hard climb ahead but I think were well on our way. Part of growing the zine is taking our own turn to be a sponsoreach year we send thousands of zines to events across the countryand if you are planning an event and youd like some zines please contact me at the email below. Lastly the best way for readers to support The Zine is to subscribe which you can do at our site. If youre on the road or tend to move frequently you can choose the Dirtbag Treatment option and well check in before each issue. If youre subscribing outside of the United States please inquire via email for our rates. On that note I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Word. Luke Mehall Publisher Author of The Desert and American Climber 
language: None
title: The Climbing Zine Volume 15
publisher: Benighted Publications