The story of Modern Ferret.
In 1994 Eric and I took money from our wedding as well as money borrowed
from Eric's mom to start Modern Ferret. We started going to ferret
shows and talking to people. Many people were wary of purchasing a
subscription because 10 years earlier there had been a ferret magazine
(American Ferret) that only put out one issue. Of course, we had nothing
to do with that magazine. We didn't even have ferrets in 1985. (Heck,
we didn't even know each other in 1985!)
Over time, people began to subscribe. The first issue came out in 1995
(February). It was very hard for us to get ads (which traditionally fund
magazines). But we continued. We were living in two rooms at the back
of my mother in law's house, so we didn't have much in the way of
overhead.
Early on we encountered all kinds of resistance from ferret groups. We
were associated with no group, yet each group claimed we were associated
with one of the others. One group even suggested that we were affiliated
with Marshall Farms because we had the same initials! Another group
refused to take an ad from us for their newsletter because they claimed
we were a competing organization (we were never a ferret organization --
we were a magazine). When they finally did accept our ad, months later,
they gave us no time to update the ad. That group made it clear to us
that they wanted to put us out of business. Why? I have no idea. I
didn't know the people, so I don't know what they had against us. We
wanted to help ferret owners; we though ferret groups would be happy
about that.
Another group published an editorial about us when we were first starting
out making claims that were simply not true. The writer said we were
anti-ferret shelter because we didn't allow pricing to be displayed in
ads we took -- never mind that when we sent this person the ad materials
we were asking her opinion of them and it said clearly on the materials
that they were not written in stone. She said we were only interested in
money. As you read the rest of this, you'll see that money had nothing
to do with it. We were trying to make a living, yes. Hopefully be able
to move out of Eric's mom's house, yes. But our mission was to get
accurate and current information to as many ferret owners as possible.
We made a lot of sacrifices to do that.
We tried to go to as many ferret shows as we could; we wanted to learn as
much about ferrets as was available because we wanted Modern Ferret to be
accurate. I have a background in medical editing and I applied the same
standards of accuracy to the articles we published in Modern Ferret (Bob
Church was quite surprised when I told him I did fact-checking even on
Dr. Williams' articles). For the most part, people at ferret shows
were cordial to us. However, one group placed our table in a virtually
invisible spot in the small exhibition hall -- a friend of ours who knew
we were there had to walk through twice before she could locate our
table. A couple of years later one of the leaders of that ferret group
complained in a letter to Eric that we never went to any of their shows.
Well, that's how invisible that particular spot in the exhibition hall
was -- one of the people in that group didn't even know we were there!
(Never mind that no one from that group ever approached us at that show
to say "hi" and no one told us that we had to be out of the hall at a
specific time, which made us have to rush in putting everything away.)
Some time early on TFH (which publishes Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine
and numerous books about animals) started up a distribution company
called Direct Sales. Until then, the only magazine distributor into
pet stores was Global Distribution Services, a company owned by Fancy
Publications (the publishers of CatFancy, DogFancy, Ferrets, Critters
Annual et al.). It was a big thing in the pet magazine industry for
independently published pet magazines (that is, not published by Fancy
Publications) to have a way to get exposure in pet store chains and
independent pet stores. As we later learned, most pet magazines are sold
in pet stores; bookstores do not sell large numbers of pet magazines.
We struck a deal with Direct Sales and Modern Ferret got into PetCo and
many, many other pet stores along with the independent magazines like
Reptile and Amphibian, Dog World, and Cats Magazine. This is what
finally made it possible for us to move out of Eric's mom's house in
1997. We couldn't buy a house (and still do not own one -- we will
likely never own one), but we rented a house. We finally had space to
put all the magazine stuff. By this time we were selling a lot of back
issues of the magazine and were trying to start-up The Ferret Trading
Post. Modern Ferret was barely making enough money for us to make ends
meet. Every month was stressful when it came to paying bills. But still
we continued. We had invested a lot of time and, by this time, money (we
took very small paychecks -- ranging from $100 to $200 a week -- the rest
went back into making Modern Ferret a better magazine).
As soon as we moved in 1997 we got health insurance; we knew something
was wrong with Eric, but we didn't know what. His lower back was
hurting him a lot, he lost a lot of weight without trying, and he would
have bone-shaking chills and spiking fevers. He started seeing a
gastroenterologist (a guy who my brother was friends with from medical
school). Eric was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in December of 1997.
He was able to manage it with steroids (prednisone). For a while...
By this time, Fancy Publications had launched Ferrets magazine. At
first, it didn't affect us too much. We were in PetCo and we were
holding our own. To backtrack -- just as Fancy was launching Ferrets,
the owner of Fancy Publications, Norman Ridker, invited Eric and me to
dinner. We went, curious to see what he was really interested in. He
told us his life story, how he started Fancy Publications and slowly but
surely grew it and bought up a bunch of the independent magazines. He
was looking to buy Modern Ferret. Maybe we should have sold it to him
then, but we knew Modern Ferret was not just another magazine in a line
of carbon-copies. We knew we really cared about what went into Modern
Ferret -- and we thought it would be letting down our readers if we sold
it. Mr. Ridker wasn't very happy about that, but he was cordial. I
still remember my shock when he kissed my cheek when we left the
restaurant. Creepy.
With Eric's Crohn's Disease under control, for the most part, we
continued on our merry way. We weren't really making enough money to
move forward, but the money from Direct Sales was keeping us afloat.
It was about $50,000 a year. Now, keep in mind that each issue of the
magazine cost us about $20,000. We were living month to month, week
to week.
Several of the people in the ferret groups that had given us such a hard
time early on immediately jumped at the chance to write for Fancy's
Ferrets magazine. Several wrote articles or columns for them (one person
even wrote an article for Ferrets that Eric had initially worked up with
her for Modern Ferret). Advertisers who we had been friends with (or we
thought), were spending more money with Fancy than they ever did with us.
When we tried to raise our ad rates (this particular company was still
paying 1995 rates in 1998 even though our readership through distribution
and subscriptions had increased to about 15,000 or more), they balked and
pulled their ads from us, saying it was "business." Meanwhile, they'd
been very chummy with us for all the years that we didn't raise their
rates. I didn't know friendship had a monetary value.
At the end of 1999 Direct Sales went out of business. We received a fax
in December telling us that they were ceasing distribution in January
2000. A fax. Modern Ferret had been one of their top selling magazines,
getting a whopping 70%-80% sell-through (frame of reference: a magazine
is considered successful and profitable if the sell-through is 50%). Now
the only distributor into pet stores was Global Distribution Services,
owned by Fancy Publications. They offered us a deal: we would pay them
$25 per store (a one-time fee) and they would put Modern Ferret into pet
stores. If Modern Ferret didn't sell well, they would drop it (stop
distributing it). They said that they would refund the $25 per store if
they dropped Modern Ferret soon after picking it up, but they refused to
put that in writing. How would we know if Modern Ferret was selling well
or poorly? They would tell us. They would NOT provide any proof of the
sales (for example, an affidavit, which is what our distributors into
book stores gave us). It would just be them telling us Modern Ferret was
or wasn't selling well. They would pay us based on what they said our
sales were -- again, no proof one way or another. Just their word. Now,
maybe Global Distribution Services' word is as good as gold, but we were
not willing to put Modern Ferret in the hands of a company owned by our
direct competitor magazine. Thus, we had NO distribution into pet
stores. We suddenly had lost $50,000 a year.
But we didn't stop. We had readers who relied on us. Unfortunately, the
stress of all of this caused Eric to have a terrible flare up of Crohn's
Disease. He wad bedridden. His lower back was so inflamed he could
barely walk. He was on stronger and stronger pain medications, which
made his Crohn's worse. He was in physical therapy. They tried new
medications on him. One of them caused him to vomit a lot. They thought
he had pancreatitis. No. Back on the medication. It still made him
sick. Back on prednisone and other meds. He was spiking fevers even
after taking two extra-strength Tylenol and ibuprofen. His doctor
finally had him admitted to the hospital in August. He was put on mega
doses of prednisone, which finally stopped his back pain. He gained a
lot of weight.
Things with Modern Ferret were going from bad to worse. We had a huge
gap in publishing while Eric was sick. We borrowed money from his mom
(again) and got out Issue #27. We had thought years before of starting
a mail-order company, The Ferret Trading Post. We struck a deal with
The Ferret Store to fulfill the orders. I'm not really sure when this
happened. By the summer of 2000 I was at the beginning of a bout of
depression (I've had problems with mild depression since I was a child,
my first major depression occurred when I was about 13 or 14, a few years
after my mom died), so some of these events may be a little off as far as
when they exactly happened. The deal with The Ferret Store helped us out
a bit, but it never made all that much money for us. We finally decided
that selling ferret products wasn't profitable for us and stopped selling
them a few months ago. The products we sell now are through affiliates,
we never even touch the orders.
We continued to lose money. We nearly got evicted. But we pressed on.
We got out Issues #28, #29, and #30. We started doing give-aways through
The Ferret Store and some other companies. We were trying to reach more
people. That was always the thing: Trying to replace the distribution
we'd lost when Direct Sales went out of business.
In the spring of 2001 we had to cancel our health insurance. We were way
behind on all our bills and that was just something we couldn't afford
anymore. Eric was maintained on prednisone, which is cheap. We were
working on Issue #31. It was going to be a big deal. We were going to
get publicity. By some stroke of luck, author Tama Janowitz decided she
loved Modern Ferret and she wrote an article for us and committed herself
to helping us get lots of publicity. She also got Todd Oldham to do our
cover and centerfold photos -- for free. Todd Oldham is a big animal
lover and he was happy to help out.
That July of 2001 our car was repossessed. It seemed like we were fast
heading for a new label: White Trash. It's not what I ever imagined
when I was in college, getting awards for my poetry. Not what Eric had
imagined when he was studying at RPI. If it hadn't been for Eric's mom,
we'd be living on the street now. Eric's mom paid for us to get our car
back. We had to drive several hours into another state to get it back.
I do not recommend getting your car repossessed.
Eric starting having a pain on his upper right side radiating through to
his back. Eric's doctor saw him for free (being that he was friends with
my brother). He thought it might be an enlarged liver. Eric's blood
sugar was dangerously high from the prednisone. If he didn't get off the
prednisone and change his diet, he would become diabetic.
In case I forgot to mention this: Crohn's Disease flare-ups are triggered
by stress.
Our printer (the company that printed Modern Ferret) did a work slow-down
on Issue #31. It took them several weeks longer than planned to print
the issue. This was August 2001. We were behind in paying them, and
I'm sure that's what the problem was, though they didn't bother to tell
us that. The issue finally mailed at the end of August. We owed our
printer for part of Issue #30 and for Issue #31. We had already sent
them the materials for Issue #32.
Then it was September 11th and the whole world changed. It triggered
Eric's Crohn's even further and it sent me -- finally -- into the
suicidal depths of major depression. On September 12th, our printer
called us and told us they would not print anything else from us until
they'd been paid. This phone call was in the worst possible taste, after
all, we were only about 50 miles from New York City -- for all they knew
we could have lost family members in the attacks! (Fortunately, we did
not.) I still can't believe their timing.
Then there was the anthrax in the mail scare. Several large magazines
went out of business. Advertisers in all magazines pulled ads. Issue
#31 generated no publicity and no sales. We waited to send out renewal
notices because no one was opening their mail ... and because we felt it
was really tacky to ask people to buy things in the wake of 9-11.
Our sales rep from our printer told us if we paid off Issue #30, they'd
print #32 for us. She didn't tell us that this was moot if we didn't pay
the total #31 bill by October. We sent them $3,000 -- half of what we
still owed them on #30. When we called to set up a schedule for printing
#32, she told us we'd have to pay the more than $10,000 we owed before
they would print for us. They had all our Issue #32 materials. We were
screwed.
In December 2001, I started on medication for my depression. My aunt (a
nurse practitioner) helped Eric and me apply for Medicaid so Eric could
get treatment for his worsening pain. An ultrasound had shown that Eric
had an enlarged liver from the prednisone. He was coming off the pred,
but his Crohn's was flaring up. Fevers, chills, pain.
We found a new printer and Eric's mom -- yet again -- helped us pay for
printing Issue #32. By some stroke of luck someone at our previous
printing company sent us back all our materials for Issue #32. We still
owe our previous printer more than $10,000. In early 2002 Eric was an
emergency admission to the hospital. They did a CAT scan and found a
huge abscess in the muscle on lower left of his back. They drained a
liter and a half of crap from that abscess. He had a drainage tube and
a bag hanging out of the abscess when he left the hospital a week later.
He also had a midline venous access so I could give him IV antibiotics
several times a day at home. He would end up in the hospital two more
times before having the drainage bag removed in summer of 2002.
Fortunately, we were eligible for Medicaid, so Eric could get medical
treatment. He also applied for Social Security Disability (SSD), which
he got.
During this time we had vet bills, too. Eric was so sick when Sabrina --
our very first ferret -- died that I had to take her to be cremated
by myself. It was very sad. Bosco had lymphoma. Knuks had
hemangiosarcoma. Cauliflower had lymphosarcoma. They all died. We
were down to Trixie, Balthazar, Koosh and Gabby.
In the meantime, we had interviewed Richard Bach for Issue #33 of Modern
Ferret. Eric has been a huge fan of Mr. Bach for most of his life. It
was a high point for Eric to be able to talk with him. We pressed on,
believing that this might be the thing that finally got Modern Ferret
back on its feet again. Where we used to have a renewal rate of near 80%
(again, unheard of in the magazine industry), we were barely getting any
renewals. I can't blame anyone for not wanting to renew. We didn't know
what was going to happen, but we were still committed to creating Modern
Ferret.
In July of 2002 our landlord raised our rent to $1,800 a month (up from
$1,500). Our parents and siblings had been paying rent for us for a
while; this had to end. Eric's mom has a rental property with a huge,
unattached garage. Eric's stepdad and his friend converted it into a
living space for us. We moved from a four-bedroom house to this
converted garage in October 2002. We had to throw away or otherwise get
rid of much of our belongings. My parents paid to have a garage full of
back issues of Modern Ferret moved to one of the barns on their property.
We continued to be committed to publishing Modern Ferret. Just before we
moved into the garage, we mailed out Issue #33 with an interview with
Richard Bach.
Eric was extremely debilitated from his 8 months of being hooked up to a
drainage bag and an IV pole. He couldn't climb stairs. He tired easily.
It would be a full year before he was steady on his feet again. Of
course, living here, we do not pay rent. But we had to reapply for
Medicaid because we're in a different county. As of today (March 1),
Eric finally has Medicare (which means that his doctor will finally get
paid again). He is still receiving SSD. That is basically all the
income we have. We haven't had the money to put out another issue of
Modern Ferret. We still have to borrow money every month to pay all our
bills. We stopped processing new subscriptions at the end of May 2003
(and we stopped processing multiple-year subscriptions before that),
because we had no idea when we were going to get another issue of Modern
Ferret out. I have a stack of online subscription orders that were never
processed. I stopped cashing checks for renewals and subscriptions. I
have continued processing and fulfilling orders for products like back
issues and books. Like I said, we have thousands of copies of back
issues of Modern Ferret at my parents' house.
Unfortunately, I'm not much better off than Eric is. Although I'm not
on disability, it's really only because of the business. I've had four
episodes of major depression in my life, this most recent one being the
worst. I've had dysthymia (chronic, mild depression) since I was a
child. With all that has happened with Modern Ferret, Eric's illness,
losing ferrets, and other personal issues, I'm functioning at about 60%
to 70% of my potential -- despite medication and therapy. I'm just not
the girl I used to be. When I've tried to arrange for job interviews,
I've simply broken down. Certainly I hope to be able to get a "real" job
(that is, a job outside the home) at some point in the future, but it's
not going to happen anytime soon.
We started an free online newsletter (ferretnews.com) so we could
continue to help educate ferret owners. We advertise things that we
can still fulfill: items sold through Cafe Press, items sold through
affiliate links (both are order types we never even touch), back issue
and book sales. In the last couple of months we've bounced a bunch of
the the checks we've written. I've had a couple of people e-mail me
asking for refunds. The money's just not here. We have nothing but
a bunch of books and back issues. We owe our vet over $2,000 for the
surgeries and care of Koosh and Trixie, who both died despite our
efforts.
I'm not looking for sympathy. Eric and I chose to publish Modern Ferret
and to continue publishing even when everything turned against us, when
we were ill or broke or when various ferret groups attacked us for things
we hadn't even done. We were committed to getting accurate information
out to ferret owners. Until the last month or so, we fully intended to
continue publishing. I have a half-done Issue #34 on my computer.
But the bottom line is, we can't afford to publish. We need to make a
living. We need to be able to pay our bills. We need to be able to
live. We need to stop having all this stress, because it's literally
killing us. We have never failed to ship merchandise to people (though
there may have been a couple of times when we were working with The
Ferret Store where an item in an order was missed, which we corrected
as soon as we were notified). As soon as we realized there was going
to be a huge gap between issues, we stopped processing subscriptions
and renewals. I've always done the best I could do with what I have.
I now have nothing. Still, I'm committed to helping educate ferret
owners through our free online newsletter. I could crawl under a rock
and not comment on the "What happened to Modern Ferret?" topic. Surely
plenty of people in the ferret community have disappeared that way. But
there's no compensation that can rival the feeling that you've helped
someone or their ferret. I intend to continue reaping that reward for
as long as I can still write (which is hopefully the rest of my life).
All I can say to those who subscribed to Modern Ferret and only got a
couple (or one) issue is this: I'm sorry. I've done everything I could
possibly do to continue publishing Modern Ferret. It was never our
intention to "steal" people's money; we always operated on the up-and-up,
from day one. I wish I had money to pay you back. But I don't. I'm
sorry. I don't think anyone can fathom how I feel about this.
Note to Mr. Ridker (because I know there are employees of Fancy
Publications on the FML and I hope they'll forward this to him): You
may be able to play a part in destroying what I've created; but you
can't lay a hand on my spirit.
--Mary & The Fuzz
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mary R. Shefferman and
Gabby, The Lone Modern Ferret
Depression Info: http://www.depressionplace.com
Read my blog! http://www.modernferretblog.com/mary
Read my other blog! http://blog.depressionplace.com
[Posted in FML issue 4438]
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