Indiecon: An Independent Publishing Festival

By Natalie Klinkenberg, Chloë Marshall, Frankie Harnett and Mishelle Kennady

Independent publishing doesn’t only consist of books but also magazines, newspapers, fanzines and even social media channels. Founded in 2014, Indiecon is a free festival that shows no bias towards a specific form of independent publishing. Hosted in Oberhafen in Hamburg, Germany, Indiecon has a program full of workshops, roundtables and talks hosted by speakers involved in specific areas of the independent publishing space. This means there is something for every creative looking to learn something new or strengthen their skillset. Indiecon’s website states that they “see independent publishing as a culture rather than a market.” To share the best practices, collaborating instead of competing allows for independent publishing to flourish.

The festival is funded by creative cooperative brueder, whose connections in digital and print publishing allow for Indiecon’s global outreach to be vast. This year’s lineup will exhibit work from over 140 publishers from 30 countries, such as South Korea, Japan, USA and Peru. For independent publishers and creative industries, this makes Indiecon an annual destination. This festival allows creatives to come together with an eclectic group of like-minded people from all around the globe, broaden their horizons from the loud and eccentric to the quiet and poetic and come together for the love of sharing written and spoken word.

The spoken word is as essential as the written word in the business and culture of independent publishing. Promoting the sharing of experience, advice and enjoyment through talks and roundtables is one way that Indiecon encourages its dispersed community to come together. 2024’s edition of the festival will see no shortage of interesting contributions, the following of which are but a small sample.

The Trip from Zine to Magazine: New York Review of Architecture

This talk will be given by Nicolas Kemper, the Publisher of New York Review of Architecture, a magazine which reviews architecture in New York as well as other places – and not just architecture. Kemper will discuss the growth of the magazine and “the often complex connections between audience and community…and rats.”

Sustainable and Regenerative Practices in Publishing

Neue Narrative, a tri-annual magazine dedicated to the modern workplace, functions quite differently from its peers: with no Editor-in-Chief, it avoids placing “responsibility in individual people.” That’s far from the only innovative aspect of their company, which aims for the most sustainable business model possible to combat the problem of waste in publishing – the subject of their talk at Indiecon.

Let’s Talk Pricing, Commerciality and Advertising – All Things Business in Indie Magazine Publishing

Pricing, commerciality and advertising: three words which are often avoided but which can’t be ignored in independent publishing. The team at Playground magazine will hold a roundtable discussion to pick apart the financial implications of running and selling an independent magazine, without dodging any tricky questions.

Collaboration is at the heart of Indiecon. The festival was built around the community coming together to support and appreciate each other, and nothing reflects this better than their workshop program. The program is varied, offering experimental classes on sound, zine making, origami and riso printing and even a sandpit poetry workshop for children. A full list of the workshops is available in the programme here.

One of the top workshops to look out for is A Tropical Goth Writing/Publishing Workshop. This session is based on the teachings of the legendary Paul Thek, an artist of the sixties and seventies who, according to Pace Gallery’s CEO Marc Glimcher, “posed radical questions about what art can be” and was one of the most legendary artists of the post-1960s generation. Consequently, the workshop encourages participants to explore their creativity by producing drawings and writing inspired by randomly assigned questions posed by Thek’s lecture notes. The final works of the class will be edited together into a collection, Gótico Tropical: Lecture Notes, as a lasting testament to the workshop.

Another wildly creative workshop embracing multimedia is Sound Jam: Infomercials from the Future. Participants will experiment with writing, doodling and sound recording, culminating in the creation of a short radio commercial. Hosted by Ål Nik, an internationally beloved illustrator who works with Nomadways designing artistic educational workshops, this session promises fun, exploration and industry-level skills development.

Indiecon is providing an opportunity for mainstream success to smaller establishments. The opportunity to visit and see various types of publications from every corner of the world can be inspiring for aspiring hopefuls and longtime professionals alike. Indiecon will allow for passionate creatives to gather and exchange “perspectives on building communities, and self-organizing for a common cause.”

For anyone wanting to get in touch with the festival’s funder, brueder, you can do so here. Indiecon is free for everyone, but there is a trade visitor’s ticket available for purchase if you would like additional benefits, like expert talks and roundtables. Indiecon is taking place 6-8 September 2024 in Oberhafen, Hamburg, Germany.