In 2009, Whipps Industries started as just a guy with an idea, and just a month later was thrown into complete chaos.

For those that don’t know the story, my wife and I decided to start the company in October of 2009, when she was six months pregnant. She was gainfully employed at the time, and since she had health insurance, we knew that we were covered no matter what. I began in earnest on October 3rd, with minimal pressures and a bright outlook.

On October 30, my wife was laid off. No one was going to hire a woman who was seven months pregnant, and all of a sudden I had to earn enough money to pay for not just the two of us, but our first child, and we had no idea how much that was going to cost.

But it worked, and my wife stayed home for the following 20 months so that we could both be at home with our newborn. It worked out pretty well, and although she’s back to work today, we do have plans to have another child so this could all repeat again in the future.

As for Whipps Industries, in the remaining months of 2009 and into 2010, things went pretty well, exceeding my expectations pretty early on. In 2011 the company went even further, and has even spurned some new projects that could be very cool here in the near future. But what about 2012? What’s going to happen next year?

In the next few months, Project No. 1 will be coming out, with the help of my good friend and colleague, Marie Look. Shortly thereafter, I’m hoping to work with Marie on another project, but that’s Project No. 2 and that’s still very much in the planning stages, so it’s way too early to announce anything. Then, Project No. 3, well that’s a real passion project for me, and something I really want to get going. In 2012, that will happen, even if it’s just planting the seeds.

Now I hate being cryptic about all this, but there are big things planned for this coming year, and I want all of you in on it. Feel free to follow us on twitter @whippsind, and check us out on Facebook as well.

Thanks for all of your support these past few years. Here’s to many more.

1999 was arguably the worst year in my life. I had made some mistakes and in the process lost every one of my friends and had no hope of any of them ever returning. It was a very dark time for me, but it led to a life changing event that put me where I am today. And it’s all thanks to the man pictured to the left, Courtney Halowell, a man I looked up to for most of my life.

When I first started getting into custom cars and trucks, I drew my inspiration from the pages of Mini Truckin’ magazine, where Courtney was a writer. I didn’t know it at the time, but he also wrote under the pen name Wyatt Strange, and his tales of truck runs and driving in San Diego made me really feel like I was there with him in the passenger seat. But more than that, it made me want to be as good a writer as he was, because he knew how to craft a story that was captivating. Those stories were the reason I kept coming back to the magazine, and it was a big reason why I became so enamored with the scene.

Flash to 1999, and I was almost done with my first major project, a 1996 Honda Civic that I named the Bad Apple. I owned a shop at the time, and after struggling all night to get the car ready for the Severed Ties show, we got the car there and everything was perfect, even though it still reeked of upholstery glue and was riding on borrowed wheels. I was exhausted, so instead of promoting the shop I passed out in the back of someone’s truck to catch up on some sleep.

Courtney was covering the event for a new magazine he was a part of named Street Trucks, and was also on the lookout for cool cars for another book. He saw the Civic, and approached my business partner about it. I’m not sure exactly what he said, but from what I gathered later, it was the potential cover car for the first issue of another new publication, Import Racer! magazine. My partner took Courtney’s card, and when I woke up I got the good news.

A few days later I was sitting at my desk, twirling that business card idly in my hand. I had the phone number of the guy who wrote all of those great articles, and I had no idea what to say to him. It was like picking up the phone and calling Tom Cruise, you know, just to see if I was worthy enough to hang out with. I was scared out of my mind.

I decided to call and ask about advertising, since we needed to get things going at the shop, but the only real ice breaker that I had was that I was the guy with the green Civic. So that’s what I said.

“Hi Courtney, you don’t know me, but my name is Kevin Whipps and I’m the guy with the green Civic from the Severed Ties show.”

“Hey Kevin. Yeah, that thing was badass! You know, the editor of Import Racer! is in Phoenix right now, and he could probably shoot that thing. I think it’s a cover car for sure. Let me call him real quick and get that done, cool?”

I was shocked, but in agreement. An hour later I met the editor, and the next day my car was shot for the cover of the magazine. A framed copy of the spread is hanging in my office right now for two reasons: It was my first feature ever, and it was also the first article I ever had printed, and it was all because of Courtney.

I’d get to meet him a few months later when I was in California for an event that Import Racer! wanted me for. I walked into the offices and there he was, big smile on his face and a hand outstretched. “Hi, I’m Courtney,” he said, but he really needed no introduction. It was like I was standing in front of a celebrity, and I was very, very nervous. He gave me a quick tour of the office, I got a box full of magazines with my car on the cover, and that’s when he said, “You want to come with me over to Nissan? I’ve got to take this Frontier back that I used as a demo.” I don’t even remember if I said anything, but I do know that I loaded into that Frontier and we headed onto the freeway.

As we’re driving, Courtney is telling me about how great airbags can handle with sway bars as he’s taking a sharp corner to get onto the freeway, but my head was somewhere else. It sounds so stupid to me now, 10 years later, but back then I really was in awe of the man. I had barely written 4,000 words in my semi-professional career at that point, but back then, I looked at Courtney as the man I wanted to become. He was an editor. He got to play with cars and trucks every day. He had the perfect life.

I was still shaking a little bit after we returned.

*     *     *     *     *

I’m not sure what year it was, but I remember a specific phone call that I made to Courtney a few years back.

When Courtney had his stroke, I was afraid that it was going to be the end of his life. Fortunately, he bounced back and for a while, things seemed like they were going well. My sister was not so fortunate.

My sister passed in 2007, and we believe that she had a stroke because of the heart problems she had throughout her life. The way she was positioned when she died indicated that she may have been dead before she hit the floor, something which my family heard was common for some stroke victims. It completely changed my family dynamic, and it rocked my world. I needed help, and I turned to the one person who I knew had first-hand experience with the potential killer.

I wasn’t close to Courtney in a friend sense — we were more business associates then anything — and I was worried that having a conversation about something so personal would cross a boundary that he didn’t want to step over. My fears where nullified almost immediately after we talked for just a minute, and we spent the next 20-30 talking about how a stroke works, what he knew about it and what my sister may have gone through. There were no tears or anything on my part during the call, but afterwards I broke down feeling both grief and relief all at the same time. He had no reason to talk to me about anything, much less for such a long time, but he knew my pain first hand and helped me through it.

Not too many people know that story. I wish he knew how much it meant to me.

*     *     *     *     *

The last time I saw Courtney was back in October, and that too was another life changing moment, but for a completely different reason.

My buddy Chad is in Negative Camber, Courtney’s car club, and he dropped off his ’51 Ford with Courtney to get some tech work done for World of Rods magazine. I was the copilot in Chad’s Tahoe as we drove out west with an empty trailer to pick up his newly lowered car. When we got there, Courtney gave us a warm welcome and we hung out with him and Bill Hancock for a bit, talking shop. I wandered around his garage, which was just this great building on a really cool property that looked like it held millions of memories. He had just finished cutting up his GMC Sonoma, a truck from the 1990s that stuck in my head, and was using that as a frame for his AD Chevy truck. Laying casually in the back of his old Ford was his camera bag and a tripod, and as I ran my hand across the back of the Ford’s tailgate I thought about all of the images that camera had taken. The things that tripod had seen. Amazing.

We head inside and I sit down on the couch with Chad and Bill to watch some football while Courtney sits on a stool and pops open this old looking laptop. I turned and looked, and that’s when I realized what it was. Courtney had a 12-inch PowerBook, an Apple computer that I lusted after for years, and had recently started wanting again. I chatted with him about it, talking about what a great workhorse it must be, and he agreed. The latch had long since failed, so it needed a coaster to keep the lid shut, and it was a little beat up from all of the years of travel and abuse. But it still did Facebook and the web, and Courtney used it all the time.

Later that night, I went into the kitchen and grabbed a drink of water. As I sat there in the quiet house, I looked at the PowerBook again, taking note of the many scratches and dings that marred its surface. I wondered where those marks had come from, and what the story was behind each of them. What stories he must have typed out on that thing, and how many states it had been to. Then it hit me.

This was Hemmingway’s typewriter.

For most people, the camera Courtney held was his most important tool, and he was a truly great photographer. Although I loved his photography, for me, Courtney was the skilled writer that I always aspired to become. This beat up old laptop was the tool that brought those words to life.

Before I left, I joked around to Courtney that if he ever decided to get rid of the laptop, to let me know. He could wipe the hard drive and get rid of it all, I really didn’t care. I just wanted to put it up on a shelf somewhere and retire it, or maybe continue the legacy by typing out my own work on its tiny keys. Either way, I didn’t want to see that laptop end up in a landfill somewhere, it was just too valuable a relic.

*     *     *     *     *

Others remember Courtney as Tito, the fun loving car guy, but for me, he was a hero. He was a man who selfishly gave of himself to help out some kid in Phoenix who had a bad reputation for being an ass. Not only did he not care, but he went above and beyond to help me succeed. And today, as I sit here typing these words on a keyboard not much larger than the one he wrote on, I think about what we’ve lost as a community and how much more he could have done.

Since I never got the chance to say it out loud, I’ll say it now. Courtney, thank you for everything you did for me. I’ll never forget you or what you selflessly did. You were, and are, my hero.

Thank you.

I had a few meetings yesterday, and at one of them a good friend of mine reminded me that although my personal sites were kept very up to date, the Whipps Industries blog has been silent. Dead silent. For that, I give you my apologies.

Of course, there’s a reason for that. I’ve been pretty busy recently, what with moving homes and offices and all that. As if the physical move wasn’t complicated enough, my wife got a job recently so we also had to adjust to putting our child in daycare, something that was a bit difficult for both of us to adjust to. It’s been rough, but we’ll get through it.

So what have I been so busy with? Two months ago, I sold one of my project vehicles and that afforded me some extra time to catch up on projects that I had been neglecting in one way or another. Along the way, I decided that I needed to pick up some additional clients, and diversify my company a bit more. I started applying to some ads, and a few days later I was in an office in Scottsdale, applying for a copy editor position. Four hours later, I was offered a job as the editor in chief of the magazine.

In addition, I also was offered a position at another publication, where I would be in charge of one of their divisions of their website. It was car oriented, so I was super excited about that, because writing more technical things about cars is a challenge I haven’t had yet.

As if that wasn’t enough, I was offered yet another position as the editor of one of the sites I was working for already. I loved (and still love) the company, so accepting for me was a no-brainer.

Although to some people these may all seem like three full-time jobs, that really wasn’t the case. Each individual employer told me that I’d work between 10-15 hours per gig, so doing some quick math I realized that I’d be working from 30-45 hours per week. Since I was working 60 at the time, I figured this was a good option to not only save some time but make some additional funds, so I took all three jobs.

Unfortunately, one of the jobs didn’t work out, and we had to part ways. It was probably for the best anyways, because now I have a bit more time to pick up either another daily writing job or to work on my custom car work, which can take up a good chunk of my time.

So where does that leave me? I’m currently the editor in chief at Jetset magazine, and I’m working on my first full issue, which should come out on September 1st. I’m also the editor of iPhone.AppStorm.net, an iPhone app review site that I’ve been working at for at least a year or so now. Other than that, I’m still writing and shooting for several of the car and truck magazines, and I’m also looking at other options for web work as well.

And believe it or not, after all this I’m still doing less work and being more effective than I was six months ago. Sure, there are still a few things I need to catch up on, but right now I’m feeling pretty good about the place I’m in. Six months from now, everything could go to the wayside and I could be working with completely different clients, But right now, the company is growing, and there’s still more on the horizon. 2010 was a very good, yet very tough year for me both personally and professionally. So far, 2011 is on track to be much better.

Although I’ve lived in Tempe for about three years now, most of the time I’ve returned to my old haunts for photo shoots. My old home was close to the mountains, which provided a perfect backdrop for many of the cars that sat in front of my lens. But the spots eventually grew tired, and I had to find something different, plus the drive up north got to be a drag. Time to find something urban.

I’ve found a few cool spots here and there, but it wasn’t until recently that I stumbled upon a beautiful building buried in downtown Tempe that was not only perfect for a backdrop, but perfect for me. I wanted it. Bad. It was lust at first sight.

Tempe has been around for a long time in Arizona standards, and this building looks like it was an old factory or something like that 50 years ago. But since then, someone has come along and modernized it, using steel i-beams to make window frames and corrugated metal to create the walls. Everything was left in its natural state though, giving this beautiful patina and rust that looks awesome. It’s just enormous too, with easily 10,000 square feet under roof, all of which I could find some kind of use for. Frankly, I wanted to convince the wife that it would make a great new home, but even I know when I’m facing a losing battle.

Tonight, I shot Chad’s ’50 Ford there. Chad and I have been friends for about 6 years now, and he was the best man at my wedding. We’ve built many a car and truck together, and his latest project is one that he traded for, and he came out ahead. The paint is faded, and the trim isn’t perfect, but it’s a great start for what he’s looking for and that’s all that matters. It looked pretty good against the bare and galvanized steel backdrop of the building, and soon I’ll have some shots up on the site for sale.

The picture above is one of my favorite shots from the night. It was one of the last things I shot, and I wasn’t really sure it was going to turn out the way I wanted, since I was using a much longer lens than I normally would in that situation and I wasn’t sure if the detail would pop out. But it did, and I really like the result.

Although I won’t get that building, I am looking for space. Whipps Industries is expanding next year, and I’m going to do some bigger and better things with the company, as well as another venture I have going. It’s all a bit hush-hush for now, but soon, hopefully, I’ll have that building I’ve been lusting for.

Phoenix is a fairly new city, one that’s moving around all the time and is constantly changing and evolving. Take my parent’s house, for example. When we moved there in 1987 there was nothing east of their house other than a small subdevelopment and a few condos — oh, and Talliesen West. Frank Lloyd Wright built the legendary home in the mountains back there, and it’s been told that he used to drive all over the desert with no one around him but cacti. Now, the whole area is developed with new homes and golf courses, with no real historic flair to any of them.

As a result, we don’t have a lot of “old” buildings here in town. Sure, there are some 50-year-old brick complexes here and there, but to find something more than 100 years old isn’t very common. To find one that would work as a good backdrop for an automotive photo shoot is even less so.

I’ve felt like I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut recently, because most of my shoots have been in desert locations with the mountains in the background. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve wanted to get into something different that has more of a rustic feel to it, yet not get shot when I drive into the neighborhood. Last weekend I found a spot that was a little rustic, and a little ghetto, but it worked out pretty well.

I shot the ’64 C-10 pictured on the left, owned by my buddy Erik. It’s bagged on Supremes with a flat paintjob and scallops, with an old-school cool flavor that I really appreciate. The truck isn’t perfect by any means, but it sure does look cool riding down the road.

While driving back from that shoot, I found another spot that would be perfect for an older vehicle. The legality of the space might be a bit dicey, and I’d have to shoot across a road that gets some traffic, but the results would be amazing. The building is for sale too, something which made me wish that I both needed the space and that I had the cash.

But I don’t want to wear out those two spots either, so I’m going to continue my pursuit of finding new/old spots to shoot, ones that push my boundaries as a photographer and get some cool results. I may have a few flops in the meantime, but I’m optimistic that with a little practice I’ll get that much better.

To some, it may seem like I have the perfect situation. I work from home, I get to see my son every day (he’s almost one now) and I get to take pictures of some of the greatest vehicles ever built. And that is true, even though it seems that lately shooting pictures of trucks and cars has been just a small part of my daily workload. In reality, I’ve been spreading out my writing and photography among all sorts of different venues, because it’s important to diversify. Just last week I was out on a farm, taking pictures for a cooking magazine, something I never would have dreamed of doing a year ago. Yet now, I’m excited about doing work like that because it’s so out of my comfort zone that it feels good to flex my skills doing something different.

Thing is, sometimes I don’t see the forest for the trees. Occasionally, I just think about how much nicer it would be if I just clocked in at an office every day, collected a reliable paycheck and had options for good health benefits like the rest of the world.

But every so often, I get an assignment and it gives me pause. It makes me reflect on my roots in the custom car field, where I’ve been and where I hope to be in the coming years. Tonight was one of those nights.

I was on assignment for a magazine, out to do a shop tour. In this case, the shop was The Interior Shop, owned by my friend Todd Jubert, a guy I’ve known since I owned a purple Toyota and he had a blue fullsize Chevy with an unfortunately shaped alien head on the tailgate. We needed some trucks for the shoot, so Todd rounded up some of the coolest trucks ever produced, and I was quickly humbled by what I saw. It was a collection of the history of custom trucks in Arizona, and although I kept my composure, on the inside I was in awe of what was in front of me.

First, there’s Ryan’s Toyota, the one on the far left. It’s titled “Reheat” because this truck has been passed around from owner to owner out here in Arizona, and he’s just the latest one to own it. Being that I’ve been in the Arizona custom scene for years, I remember the truck from back when it was first built, and I loved it back then like I love it now. My first custom vehicle was a 1994 Toyota, just like Ryan’s, and just looking at the truck brings me back to the day I drove the truck off the lot and the years of fun that followed. Ryan took a truck that needed some finishing details, and made it his own. I love that thing.

Then there’s Tim’s Dakota, a truck which I was fortunate enough to shoot a few months back. The level of detail in this truck is just unreal. From the custom machined parts to the lights in the stereo and everywhere in between, the Dodge is just so amazing that I can’t believe that I walked past it at shows so many times. Frankly, Tim built the most underrated vehicle out there. It’s one of the few custom trucks I could realistically see competing at a high level against hot rods and frame-off restos and keeping up with the pack. I can’t wait to see this thing go into print, and I only hope my photos did it justice.

Finally, there’s the Time Machine. First built by Charles “The Kid” Armstrong at least 10 years ago, this truck redefined the mini truckin’ scene as a whole. The frame is detailed with heiroglyphics. There is a billet aluminum spine that runs across the inside of the bed, connecting the two halves of the bridge notch. There’s a stained glass window with the club logo and graphics running through it. This truck changed the game and today, people work just to come close to what Armstrong accomplished. Now it’s owned by a guy named Fester, a gentleman who’s collecting these classic mini trucks and restoring them to their original glory. I applaud what he’s doing, because without someone like him, these trucks would fade into the mist like the thousands of minis before them.

My personal truck projects have been sitting for the past year, with more progress going backwards than forwards, unfortunately. But seeing this group of trucks made me hope that someday I’ll get back into the swing of things. I’ll find the time to really work on what I love to do, and get those projects back on the road. The feeling of driving a custom truck an inch off the ground gives me goosebumps. I miss it.

I took my time tonight. I spent more time than usual taking these shots because I really wanted to be sure I got the best possible outcome for the shoot, and that each truck got the respect it deserves. Each one is an important step in history, each with their own challenges and triumphs. It may sound like I’m overstating things a bit, but to me, tonight I got to do one of the coolest things I’ve done yet. I’m grateful that my editor assigned me the story. I’m grateful that Todd got the crew together. And I’m grateful that this really is my life, and that I can get do things like this while supporting my family. That makes it all worth it.

When I’m not writing, I do a lot of reading, particularly on freelancing websites. It seems like every other day I come across a story about writer’s block, and how it can completely cripple your day. So in the interest of helping others (and knowing full well that this will most likely jinx me), I bring you my way to work through writer’s block.

I write.

No seriously, that’s it. Don’t believe me? How about an example.

The other day, I was working on a story for an editor that I had never worked for before. I really wanted to impress them, but I had 500 words to do it, which can be a bit constraining. The topic itself could’ve been a 2,000 word story, which means that I needed to get creative to cram it all in. I sat down at my computer, looked at the screen and thought, “Now what?”

Instead of working the concept over and over again in my head, I decided that I should just go for it. I started writing what was possibly the worst introductory paragraph I’ve written since the sixth grade, then I stopped.

I could’ve deleted it all and started over, but I didn’t. Instead, I hit enter twice (signifying to me that the paragraph in question needed work), and started over again. Then again, and then one more time. When I was done, I realized that there were aspects of each paragraph that I liked, so all I had to do was create a new paragraph with the highlights culled from the other four. 10 minutes later, I had a great intro.

Now this may sound like im oversimplifying the process, but I’m not. I used to sit in front of a keyboard for hours, pondering how to create the next great article, but not progressing anywhere. Not only was it frustrating, but it stopped me from doing the important thing: writing. Had I just hammered something — anything — on the keyboard, I would’ve been gaining forward momentum, and that’s the key. It may not be perfect, but there could be a little bit of perfection in there that inspires you onward.

Going back to the article, paragraph two, three and four also had a few stumbling blocks here and there, so I pushed forward to tip No. 2 in stopping writer’s block: Walking away.

Whether I have a block or not, one technique I use with my work is to take some time away from the work to let my head settle. In this case, I wrote my first draft, including all of those crappy intro paragraphs, then I saved it and walked away. The general rule is not to touch the piece for 24 hours, or at least until the next day. If I’m under a serious deadline crunch, I still put down the piece, I just shorten the amount of time.

This space lets me clear my head. I force myself to get out of whatever rut I happened to be in at the time, and I can then look at it with fresh eyes. More often than not, this leads me to find mistakes that I missed the first time, and address issues with choppy sentences or paragraphs that need reworking. It’s not perfect, but it does help me tremendously.

Finally, there’s one last writer’s block technique I use occasionally, which sometimes helps to knock out the cobwebs. I ask a friend.

I know quite a few writers, and most of them are quite harsh with their suggestions. When I have a problem, I take it to them for an opinion. I did that with this same article, in fact. Once I was done, I polished it up and sent it to my friend and fellow writer Marie Look, who gave it a quick read. She liked the piece, made a few comments, and passed it back to me. I’ve also contacted other writers when I’m in the thick of it, trying to get that proverbial pen to paper, just so I can get a second opinion. “Hey Bob, I’m having trouble cementing my thoughts for this article. What is interesting to you about A, B and C? Which one would get you to read the piece?” Sometimes it helps to step out of my own little cave and get that other perspective.

Writing has always come naturally for me, so maybe my approach wont work for everybody. But so far, it’s helped me work through some of the toughest stories I’ve ever written, and hopefully, made me a better writer in the process. Just remember, nobody gets better at writing by staring at a blank screen. You just have to do it.

Oh, and that article? The editor told was happy with the piece, and then hired me to do some photography for the article as well. But the best part? I’m happy with the resulting piece, and I can’t wait to see it in print. That kind of satisfaction makes working through writer’s block worth it every time.

This site is in need of a refresh.

One of the blessings of being very busy is that you never have time to take on the little things. It’s the “plumber has leaky pipes” story all over again, and that’s my problem right now. Although I am taking on new clients, I do keep myself fairly busy and sometimes things slip through the cracks. Unfortunately, this site has been one of them in the past year, so in the next month, I’m going to change that.

You may have noticed that the top of the page has a new navigation menu. That’s because I’ve added a page where you can purchase prints of my work, at the appropriately titled Shop page. I took some advice from a fellow photographer and established an account at SmugMug, where I can hawk my wares. The problem originally was that I didn’t know which photos to choose; After all, I have a decade worth of prints and photos floating around my servers, and it can be time consuming to choose the right ones.

But eventually, I got to it, and so far I’ve uploaded quite a few pics onto the site. It’s just a fraction of what I’ll be doing in the coming month, but it is a start, which is better than where I was two weeks ago.

The prints are a big part of the plans for Whipps Industries in 2011. I go to a lot of car shows, typically to cover the event for one magazine or another. A while back I was also the president of a car club and we put on our own show, which did pretty well. I’ve always felt it was important to support the local car scene, but up until the other day, I wasn’t really sure how to do that. At the time, setting up a booth didn’t make sense – it wasn’t like I could sell quickie articles on the side. But with prints of my work on hand, I can now set up a tent and go to town. Now I just need to decide what shows to hit and when, then I can plan ahead.

2011 was a great year for the company, and I want to thank everyone for their support. This site will be getting a refresh soon, but in the meantime, it would be really cool if you could follow me on twitter: @whippsind. Thanks.

I tend to be a fairly anal person. I’m organized almost to a fault, which is why my wife and I get along so well together. She is the master of spreadsheets, and without her creativity, there are days that I wonder what I would do without her.

Case in point, the Whipps Industries Article Tracker. I write for multiple publications/websites/private clients, so I needed a way to sort out everything that I did. In addition, I also needed a way to track who has paid me and who hasn’t, plus show an overall cash flow for the year. This way I could set goals, track invoices, etc. My wife created this wonderful spreadsheet in iWork’s Numbers, and it’s been invaluable to my workflow. It’s also taught me a few things along the way that I didn’t quite expect.

Looking at my spreadsheet, I can see at a glance where the ups and downs of the business has been. For example, January and March were my two lowest invoicing months. Why? Well my son was born on February 8th, and January was a bit hectic what with getting the baby room ready and the few false labors that happened around that time. Follow that into March however, and there’s the highest invoicing month I had over the entire year. Why? I was catching up, frankly, plus one of my clients needed some work ASAP, so I got it done. What interested me though recently was the past five months, because when I was looking at the graphs, something stood out.

One constant thing across the board is that I’ve always invoiced more than I’ve actually been paid. There’s a pretty decent lag time with some magazines, and although I expect these charts to level out eventually, sometimes things happen. Stories don’t run, companies go into bankruptcy, things like that. Up until August, my invoice number was always higher than my paid number, and both were typically higher than my monthly goal. But in August, September, and October, my numbers were flat across the board, plus under my goals. How did that happen?

When I worked at Rebel, I put most of my focus into the magazine. Although I did have other clients, I didn’t work as much on other magazine articles, because it just took my focus away from Rebel. August and September were particularly trying times, what with trying to put together an entire infrastructure in just a few weeks while simultaneously preparing for the next few issues. That doesn’t mean that I was neglecting any of my clients, because everyone was still handled just fine. But I did downsize a bit in preparation for the monthly launch of Rebel, as well as the accompanying raise in income that came along with it.

Do I regret that decision? A little bit. Unfortunately, no one can see the future, and I had no idea that things with the magazine would work out the way they did. I gambled a bit, and I suppose by that standard, I lost. On the other hand, the decision to leave caused me to step back and reassess my priorities. I had been neglecting other things as well, like my website, online sales, marketing, etc. By being so blindly focused on one thing, I got tunnel vision.

Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. December is shaping up to be a record setting month for the company, and lots of work is going out into the world. I’ve also readjusted my work schedule to best optimize my time, and three weeks in, it’s working out better than I could have expected. I’ve also started branching out more on Twitter – @whippsind and @kwhipps – and behind the scenes I’ve been working on our picture site, where soon people will be able to purchase prints of my photography. I’m also working on sponsoring a few local car shows, and trying to get some other marketing gigs going.

2010 was just the beginning for Whipps Industries. I’ve got a lot of plans for 2011, and there’s still lots left to do. But hopefully, 2011 will exceed expectations.

This is one of those posts that I’ve been putting off for a while now, mostly because I just don’t know how to say it. After much consideration, I’ve decided to just go ahead and pull the trigger.

I left Rebel.

Now this isn’t meant to be a slandering post against them, because I really do love the concept of the magazine. In my time there, we produced 2 excellent issues, one better than the previous. In fact, I’m really pretty proud of what we did in the December issue – pictured left – so go out and grab it at your local Barnes & Noble. As an added bonus, most of my content for the January issue is going in place as well, under the direction of the new guy. But I do feel that I should explain.

Ultimately, this was a bit of a learning experience for me.

I’ve been an editor twice now in my career. First, I was the executive editor for Six Degrees magazine, a publication that 944 bought in 2009 and absorbed into the 944 brand later that year. I was in charge for three issues, and it had its share of ups and downs. But in that time, I took the magazine through some pretty cool little changes, and was able to put in some pet projects of my own that really made it shine. That was cool for me.

But Six Degrees wasn’t really a challenge. The pagination was set, so I didn’t have the opportunity to move around pages and change up the book. I could change out sections, but that was really it. I was managing multiple local editors and tons of freelancers, but I was only responsible for a few pages in the middle of the book. I also didn’t choose who was the cover story, nor what the focus of the book was. So it was a stepping stone, but it wasn’t a huge leap for me.

Rebel was that leap. I knew when they called me frantically after they had fired their last editor in July that the situation was pretty dire. I had read the first issue after my father recommended that I call them because, “They need some help.” When I was offered the job as editor in chief, I really had to take a pause. There were some personal issues that I knew might become a problem later, so I brought them up. I also mentioned that although I produce high-quality work, I do have tattoos and that may not be the face of the mag that they wanted to present. I told them every single concern I had and they were all addressed right then, so I knew that everything was out in the open. Now I just had to talk it over with the wife.

The magazine was going to be a challenge. Their previous editor was both their editor and their designer, so they had no structure in place. There was no workflow, no deadlines, no scheduling in any way. I had to create a magazine essentially from scratch, add a bunch of other sections to the book, repaginate it, come up with issue plans for 2011, and so on. It was started from zero, and I wasn’t sure I could do it.

But I did. I had two months to get the first issue out there, and in that time I created everything. We broke the book down into three sections, each spaced out by burn pages and proper placement of advertisements that both myself and the designer managed. I created a workflow that included multiple copy checks, and a schedule to go with that to fit the owner’s needs. I also assembled an amazing staff of freelancers, which really helped to make the magazine shine.

In the five months I was at Rebel, many different things happened. The magazine went from a local book with a small distribution to 10,000 copies sold nationally at Barnes & Noble. We stopped taking advertiser’s money, and put in ads for companies that gave back to the community. We decided to donate 50% of the profits to charities that we featured each month. We went monthly earlier than I anticipated. We expanded from 64 to 96 pages, which effectively doubled our editorial content with the new advertising model. We went from a men’s only book to a men’s book that could also appeal to women. We began a plan for a nationwide tour that I really wish I could still attend. The magazine went through a lot of changes, and there were still more in the works.

Now I can’t take credit for all of those, and some were definitely a group decision. But at the end of the day, I was able to rise to the challenge and take the publication to a better place than it was before. I wasn’t sure that I could do it, but I did, and that’s something that I’m really proud of.

In the end, all of the issues I brought up in that first interview came to fruition, and I decided to leave the company. There’s no reason to bring up what those issues were, because I don’t hold any hostility towards the crew over there. In fact, I plan on picking up the next few issues of Rebel and seeing how it goes. I really do hope that the new editor takes the brand even further than I did, because I think it’s a cause that deserves it. No one is doing what they’re doing right now, and I wish them all the success in the world.

As for me, well it just means that I have one less client to work with. Ultimately, Whipps Industries has done substantially better than I ever expected in its first year of operation, and I have some pretty lofty goals for next year as well. Do I still want to be an editor of a magazine? Definitely. And in the coming years, I think that just might happen. But for right now, I’m pretty happy with where the company is, and where I’m at professionally. It’s not the perfect life, but it’s working out just fine for me.