Bye bye, Unicorn/Dream magazine
| When beautiful things end |
Bye Bye Unicorn/Dream magazine. From now on we will no longer blog on http://www.unicorndreammagazine.com. There won’t be another issue of Unicorn/Dream magazine. We’ll shut down the successful Flickr group. You can’t submit any new photographs anymore. This is the end. I will continue on this blog, https://www.nonimay.com.
| Love for the Unicorn/Dream magazine community |
I’ve always worked very hard on my own to build u/d. It gave me a lovely, international team and even lovelier readers. Thank you so much for all the support and love! All the thousands of photographs, poems and crafts you’ve send me, both digital and in the mail. I can’t thank you enough. It gave me strength and power to go on. To spread the Unicorn/Dream love. The knowledge that there are people out there who are as dreamy as I can be. To get to know new artists and stay inspired week after week, year after year. The thing I’m the most sad about is the fact that we can’t reunite anymore. That I won’t meet strangers with the same passion anymore. The same dreams, the same taste in art and creativity.
| Why I needed to quit in order to grow |
In the end the curating became too much. From the launch on, I received about a 100 emails each days with love letters, suggestions and submissions. It was overwhelming. Of course I didn’t make much money with the project, as I had other businesses on the side, like my freelance photography and writing. I refused to sell my soul to make a lot of money with the blog and magazine. I think I could, the traffic was overwhelming. The first issue was read by over half a million (!!) people in the first week alone! I was also still studying at the time, so keeping up was very hard and I was (still am) always busy. With almost a 1000 pending images each time I logged in to the Flickr Group, it was just too much to curate. I wanted to go on holiday, work on my travel journalism and take some weekends off every now and then. But I couldn’t. I also had other blogs on the side and it was hard to find a dedicated designer to design the magazine. There were enough photographers and writers, it was just that designers had a totally different idea of design…
So that was when I decided I couldn’t create the magazine anymore. Of course, I could have run an Crowdfunding campaign to raise money, become really professional and make it my only business – and focus- , but I couldn’t. I loved my other hobbies, work and interests too much. Just blogging was fine by me, I ran an ad every now and then to cover the costs of the blog and I just loved getting to know you all. But now, after I got back from my world trip I decided: It’s been enough. I realised I really need to focus on one thing before I turn 30 in a few years. My whole life I’ve done so many different things at once. I should really try to focus. Keeping up with everything wasn’t fun anymore. It created less time for the creative stuff, the stuff why I initially started. So I really hope I can spread the love in the future via my newest project, this blog.
|New Beginnings |
Hopefully this will help me find some peace. I always had stuff to do because I had to do everything alone, run several blogs and build a community. Oh and make money to pay for my rent. Blogging regularly (which I didn’t in the end!) and social media (which I didn’t updated in the end!) are the two most important things for growth. I didn’t do both of them, so I knew the end was near. It didn’t made me happy anymore. It just made me super stressed, as there was always stuff to do like accepting pending submissions, reply to emails (I was always behind) and writing articles. I’m happy now that I can focus on one blog – this blog. (Okay, and I still have two other blogs but at least it’s one less). I just launched (in beta!) and it’s so nice to combine all my different loves in to one blog. I can focus on my business blogging and working for others too on really cool projects. Building strong connections with brands for my blog. Shooting cool campaigns and building a large following in one place. Doing the inspiring stuff again. With a massive smile and new energy.
| Why I decided to quit my successful blog after 5 years and use Pinterest in stead |
Lately I’m a little bit Pinterest crazy, and I must say, I was an early user, but I never really made a cool, personal account. So what happend? Recently they announced to roll out buyable pins. That was a reason for me to create a personal account and spend all my free time on pinning all those beautiful things. Because with buyable pins I cannot only buy all the beautiful stuff I see, I can also try to sell stuff myself (more about that further in this post). I also created a Unicorn/Dream magazine board where I’ll be pinning all beautiful, dreamy things. Both things make me happy again and inspire me in ways I haven’t felt in a long way. I think Pinterest has proven in the past and it already did for this blog, that it’s a great resource for traffic. But also the other way around; to discover new great blogs and artists. I love all things visual and Pinterest is the best way to collect all inspiring things from the big world wide web. I bet most of you are addicted to Pinterest too, so show some love and follow me there to stay inspired! For me, Pinterest is one of the great ways to share new found artists, and it’s way quicker that writing a blog posts about it. Who has time to read anyways in 2015? The internet focusses on quick, readable content these days, so for me, swapping the blog for a Pinterest board is just a natural thing to do.
| Hopefully you’ll join me on my new journey! |
I love the Unicorn/Dream magazine community. I’ve met so many of you from all over the world and you’ve written me so many kind words. I’ve made so many great friends all over the world and I’d like to continue to connect with all of you! Hopefully you’ll follow me on Pinterest and follow the Unicorn/Dream board. If you’d like to participate to the board, comment on a pin and I’ll let you in!
Follow Noni May | ‘s board Unicorn/Dream magazine on Pinterest.
I invite you all to keep this great community alive on my personal blog and on Pinterest by pinning your favourite posts of half a decade to the Unicorn/Dream magazine website. Follow me on your favourite social medium and stay connected!
- Bloglovin’
- Subscribe to my newsletter > check the pop up!
And your e-mails are still welcome! Just e-mail me at mail@nonimay.com! I won’t read my noni@unicorndreammagazine.com email from now on!
| The next step |
My next step? Getting the word out for my new personal blog. Delete all social media channels of Unicorn/Dream magazine, cancel my hosting plan etc. So much to do, but the most important thing I wanted to do first was letting all of you know what’s up. I’m not really sure if I’ll change the U/D accounts into one for N/M or if I’ll just delete them. Suggestions are always welcome!
I’ll still collaborate, interview and write about my favourite, dreamy artists. I’ll still share DIY’s and Poems. I created a category on this blog called Unicorn/Dream magazine, where you’ll find the collection of all things beautiful. We’re all unicorns deep down, we can’t hide it! I’ll launch a few Unicorn/Dream magazine related products soon, on this blog, so keep updated and follow me! I know all of you will LOVE them, and it’s unfortunate that I decided to quit the blog before the launch. But I’ll still continue working and creating dreamy things, so don’t worry! Do you wanna work with me? Drop me an email! > nm at nonimay dot com!
| Love forever, hope we can still connect online! Don’t forget me, I won’t forget you! |
xNoni May
Photography sources | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4.