Indie Publishing
Field Notes

We love sharing our process of making a print magazine and building a sustainable indie publishing brand. New here? Start with our list of popular posts.

Me vs. us

Posted on Oct 31 2014 in Thoughts

If you follow Offscreen’s behind-the-scenes stuff here on the blog you know that I’m big on making things personal. I don’t pretend to be bigger than I am — Offscreen is a one-man magazine.

However, one little issue I keep stumbling upon when communicating with my readers is the ‘me vs. us’ problem. In 9 out of 10 cases, writing copy from my own view works just fine, but there are occasions where it just sounds a little amateurish, in particular when talking about the magazine as a business and not just a ‘thing I do’.

For instance, on the Contact page, inviting readers and contributors (or even sponsors) to get in touch with me would make Offscreen sound like a little ‘zine’ I throw together during my lunch break. Telling my readers to contact us still appears more meaningful and simply more professional. And while I don’t usually care about standard business lingo, it does seem more mature in certain situations.

And sure, there are ways around using ‘me’ or ‘us’ altogether, but it often makes communication a lot less personal.

So I guess there are rare cases when writing about a one-person business from the perspective of a (fake) team makes sense, as much as I hate inconsistency. I’m sure I’m not the only one dealing with this little predicament. How do you handle this situation in your own one-person business? Any emails or tweets are welcome.