About
Buffalo Black Book is a 9x12 full color, limited advertisement print and digital magazine, dedicated to people going to extraordinary lengths to be who they are and do what they do with unadulterated flare and glamour.
My name is Elizabeth Siematkowski and I created the magazine while living in the rust belt city of Buffalo New York. I moved to the city for graduate school and then worked at a university in the area for nearly five years. During that time I began to notice something happening in the city. People, against all odds were finding ways to pursue their heart's deepest dream. I started meeting people, sometimes literally on the street, “hey what’s your story you seem cool” and for some reason they would tell me. I created hundreds of these little tiny handmade zines and scattered them around the city in coffee shops, that kind of thing.
No name, just an email. And people started to actually email me. Poems, tips, underground art shows in corn fields, I mean it was wild. A burgeoning community among the rust, driving a renaissance of reigniting the place historically known as the city of light. Buffalo as a city is kind of like the underdog and I will be rooting for the underdog until the day I die.
I started to feel like this could be something. So I left my job at the university a year and a half ago and gave myself a chance. Coming from a psychology background, being a kid of the 90s, digital anything was like a no go. So I started reading and learning. I read a book a day, Youtube became my best friend, I learned Adobe InDesign, my sister lent me her camera the first of the Canon Rebel series, I found a print shop and three issues later I still believe in this dream.
To me what makes a story great is the same thing that makes a person great ~ authenticity. To see someone being themselves, doing their thing with wild abandon, man that is what I live for. There is great vulnerability in being yourself, creating what you feel you are called to do. Living your truth. All of it.
And that is what Buffalo Black Book is about it’s about being a real person. And when that happens a dreamy glamour is birthed, highlighting the truest most radiant version of that person and that is what the magazine is out to capture.
It is just enough imagination and reality for any person at any point in their life to sit down and think, wow this is something that may be within my grasp. I mean I drink coffee, I get nervous, I have a blast, I get freaky, I get wild, I get weird I mean whatever it is whoever you are, you’re in. The magazine is a place where no person and no topic is off limits.
We are currently in all five Iconic Magazine locations in NYC, McNally Jackson Independent Bookshop in SoHo, Spoonbill Books in Brooklyn, several boutiques in Buffalo, NY and have both national and international sales through our website. I am launching this kickstarter because I want to see the fourth and fifth issues go to print. I am launching this kickstarter because I believe in the project, and that is because I believe in people.
The fourth issue reaches beyond the city of Buffalo casting light on all kinds of amazing people in all kinds of places. A film artist in the British Columbia, a half Danish half French watercolor artist focusing on visual erotic empowerment, Australia’s premiere sexologist, a classic all-American band archiving their experience on the road and capturing every questionably operative motel along the way, a makeup artist out of Buffalo using her craft to capture movements in social history including the evolution of the black woman and a dreamy psychedelic photo series by a skater chick in the Philippines, to name a few. I mean it’s going to be stunner. I would love to be able to hire a distribution company, print the next two issues, hire someone to help me with the website and layout of the magazine, glean some additional resource for film shoots and promotion by way of events and advertisements. As much as it’s been an incredible journey being a one person show, I also understand the “it takes a village” sentiment. So what do you say if I build it … will you come ?
The following chart outlines the breakdown of our pledge goal, $30,000.
The following series outline/detail our rewards for you!!
THANK YOU! xo ~~ Also a special thanks to Molly and Cory Williams for creating this beautiful Kickstarter Video. Learn more about them and see their stunning works at: millennialcurrency.com
Risks and challenges
Our strengths lie in our print magazine. We understand that there is a lot that goes into getting the print magazine into someone’s hands. A challenge we face is channeling energy into digital, web and our social media platforms so we can build awareness, credibility and enough intrigue/ passion so individuals take it a step further and order the magazine. Both digital and print are equally time fulfilling. One of our goals as outlined in our graph and message is to be able to bring more individuals on to help with each of these aspects. Therefore, rather than risk either being compromised, the digital and print lives of the magazine are both balanced.
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Funding period
- (30 days)