FUEL TANK Digital: Volume One

Adapt or die. It’s a strong statement for sure. But, it’s a statement that seems very relevant in these strange and daunting times. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic over the last weeks and months has highlighted many traits of the human race, some of them questionable, many of them inspiring. What’s caught my attention is how many small businesses have tackled the situation, tweaking their business models swiftly and efficiently in their best efforts to survive this unprecedented time. 

There’s nothing ingenious about putting out a digital magazine, but right now it’s our attempt to push through, delivering content just like we always have, but in a way that fits the current climate. 

Fuel Magazine issue 27 went into production in late March. Things were getting strange with the pandemic, but we stuck to the plan and cracked on with the design and layout. It was all looking good and pretty much wrapped up, but at the 11th hour, we pulled the pin and decided that we couldn’t justify the print run. Our publications thrive through the Australian newsagency and shop distribution that we’ve been using for the last twelve years.

View the magazine below using the arrows to navigate:

But right now, during the global lockdown, there’s nobody out there, walking into those newsagents to buy magazines. We’re a small, independent, family-run and owned business. The risks of printing a magazine issue at this time are just too high for us. For that reason, we had to quickly take a step back and look at some options. 

After some late nights, thinking carefully about how we could still deliver our carefully crafted content out to the world, we settled on a digital magazine issue. However, I’m still as passionate as our customers are about the print experience through our Fuel Magazine and Tank Moto products. For that reason, the decision was made to put this out as the first volume of ‘Fuel Tank’. The tactile print credentials of Fuel Magazine remain intact, but we can still publish a high-quality product, albeit in a somewhat different format. We felt that this was the right decision, so here we are. 

It’s still our intention to keep publishing issues of Fuel Magazine and Tank Moto in print, but how that can happen in the future depends on how things pan out post-pandemic. At the time of writing this, nobody really knows what the world is going to look like when we come out of all this at the other end and we’re a part of that unknown. Just like many of you, we’re a small business, trying to survive and adapt to things as we go. 

I hope you like what we’ve done. Please be assured that just as much love and passion has been put into this magazine as into any of our print issues over the last twelve years. If you have made the decision to buy this issue or any of our other products, I very much appreciate your support for what we do.

If you’d like to indulge in more of our content now and going forwards, I’d like to invite you to browse this blog and our YouTube channel at youtube.com/fueltanktv, both of which are being updated regularly. 

Stay safe and well. 

Luke Ray.

Director, Fuel Press.