Storied is a high quality glossy magazine in print as well as digital editions. It was set up by a resident of Kyoto, British born Rachel Davies, and thanks to Tina deBellegarde WiK was able to host her for a Zoom session on Sept 12.

The concept behind the magazine is to promote lesser known tourist places and facets of Japan in a way that is sustainable and responsible. Each issue is themed, and the first which focussed on Kyoto came out in the summer. Rather than the usual suspects, the magazine looked to steer potential tourists to off the beaten places and crafts in Kyotango and Keihoku. Volume 2 features Islands, which will be followed by Volume 3 on Cedar and Volume 4 on Water.

Rachel has a background in PR marketing as well as doing freelance travel tourism. Frustrated by the focus among foreign media on only the well-known aspects of Japan, she found a business partner, and having laid out the details of how they wanted to proceed they turned to Kickstarter to raise funds for their venture. Thanks to their preparation it proved an unexpected success, reaching their target in the first three hours!

With the money they raised they were able to go about producing a print magazine. Though they realised they would have to have a digital version too, the print magazine was their priority. They also saw the need for social media, and thanks to quality photographs they have run up 12,000 followers on Instagram.

As far as outlets are concerned, most of the sales and retails are overseas. In Kyoto they have just three outlets, and interestingly none of them are bookshops. Instead they are using niche outlets such as art galleries and event spaces.

What has Rachel learnt from undertaking the project so far? ‘Everything takes much longer than expected.’ There have been a lot of delays, and each delay can have a knock-on effect. Also she learnt the wisdom in the old adage that you only get what you pay for. At first she and her partner tried to save money with a cut-rate printer, but the quality was so poor they had to reject the shipment. Instead they turned to more expensive printers who clearly love their job (it turned out to be the same printer as used by Kyoto Journal).

These are difficult times for print, and Covid-19 has made anything connected with tourism a daunting challenge. So it is refreshing and heartening to hear of a new high-quality product run by young entrepreneurs with optimism and a vision fr the future. Aware of the problems of overtourism, they are hoping to help with the expected surge that will follow when the great pandemic comes to an end by steering readers to the great wealth of experiences to be had off the beaten tracks.

Writers in Kyoto wishes them well and we look forward to future cooperation.

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With thanks to Tina deBellegarde for organising the event, and to Lisa Wilcut for running the Zoom session. To see the video of the event, please click here.

To see the Storied website, please check out https://storiedmag.com/
If you are a WiK member and would like a copy of the media kit for contributors, please send an email to John Dougill.