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Hi I'm Chris Force and I'm the Publisher and
Editor of ALARM Magazine.

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One of my goals with ALARM magazine is really
to foster a great dialogue between independent

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musicians and artists and the people that
support them.

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ALARM doesn't write about one specific genre
but more so we find artists that are really

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passionate about what they do.

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The transition of ALARM from kind of a hobby
to a business started when I graduated school

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and I really had to think about what I wanted
to do and it kind of clicked to me that ALARM

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is really an opportunity for a business.

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One of the first things I did was turn to
the Chicago Public Library for resources on

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how to do that.

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And, you know, they asked me all about what
I was trying to do and what the main challenges

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are, and how to start working with bigger,
national companies.

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It's hard to call some giant company to say
"hey, I'd like to sell you an ad, who do I

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talk to?"

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You know, you don't get very far with a conversation
like that.

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The librarians there helped me find a book
called "How to Start a Magazine."

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It just kind of sparked just a zillion ideas.

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We found out about this really great database
called Hoovers, which lists out the contact

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information and background to a lot of the
big companies.

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That's really expensive to buy individually
but it's available to you completely free

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of cost at the Chicago Public Library.

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So when we first started contacting these
companies, we already came armed with all

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of this knowledge about what they were working
on, what their initiatives were.

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You know, no one works in a total bubble,
and so everyone needs that support to be able

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to keep moving.

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So small businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent
musicians or artists running to the library,

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getting a librarian's input, having that resource
just down the street is definitely instrumental

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in helping me transition the thought of making
ALARM into a real business.