Exposé Frequently Asked Questions

Latest Update: 8/20/2001
  1. About Exposé:

  2. About Advertising:

  3. About Reviews and Submissions:

  4. About Subscriptions and Availability:

  5. About Complimentary Copies:

  6. Miscellaneous Questions:

What is Exposé?

Exposé is a quarterly publication that had a modest beginning in 1993 as a supplemental monthly newsletter for John Szpara's syndicated Progressive Rock radio show "Exposure" (which at the time wasn't even on the air yet). By the second issue in early '94 the radio show was on the air, but Exposé was starting to take on a life of its own, reaching far beyond the confines of Exposure's airwaves. It also became evident that producing it every month was an unrealistic goal. In the years since the page count has increased and the frequency has decreased. Our goal today is to produce four issues each year.

Who Reads Exposé?

Persons who are interested in rock based music and other progressive musical styles created with an ear toward artistic expression and with less consideration of commercial viability. This includes musicians, labels, merchants and regular fans from every walk of life who are dissatisfied with the standard commercial rubbish churned out by the so-called music industry.

Does Exposé have an attitude?

Yes.

What is the circulation?

As of March 2001, 1250 copies of each issue are printed. Approximately 800 are sent out immediately to subscribers, label owners, merchants, promoters, advertisers, libraries, radio programmers and so on wordwide. Approximately 300 more are sold through stores and mail-order merchants, and at concerts. The remainder are held for future back-issue sales.

What is the publishing schedule?

Our goal is quarterly. Basically we are all volunteers, with outside lives and jobs. Inadvertently delays come up and we do our best to work around them. We start an issue when work on the previous issue is nearly completed. plans in place to better distribute the work should move us toward our goal of meeting a regular quarterly schedule. Feel free to contact us anytime about near-term deadlines and publishing dates.

Does Exposé have a Facebook page?

Yes we do. Search for "Exposé Music Newsletter" (NOT Exposé magazine -- unless you're into skateboarding and fluent in French). The Exposé staff posts news items of interest there with regularity

How can I get information about advertising?

Go to the Advertiser Information Page. There we have information about rates, sizes, deadlines, and very detailed specifications on advertising submissions. Note that Exposé limits advertising to no more than ~25% of content, so it is imperative that you reserve your ad space in advance.

My band has a new CD. How do I submit it to be reviewed in Exposé?

If you think that your music is within Exposé's sphere of focus, send a copy of the release (CD, LP or demo tape) along with bio or other information to:

Exposé
881 State Street #140-404
Pleasant Grove, UT 84062
U.S.A.

It will then go into a queue to be reviewed, which the pool of staff writers draw from. Naturally we get many promotional copies and usually we are swamped with independent releases and can't get to them all. However, we do our best to try and get to everything that comes in. If your submission is reviewed you will receive (at least) a tear sheet of the review. In certain cases and for a variety of reasons a review may be published on the web page instead of in the publication. If this is the case we will make an effort to notify you when the review is posted.
Note: All items for review should be accompanied by a letter or a bio. Items received on cassette or on CDRs will be assumed to be demos, and will be reviewed in the demos section unless other arrangements are made.

What determines which reviews get printed and which go to the website?

Mainly it's the age of the release. Normally we feel that a "new Release" should mean the current year and the previous year, and the "Archive" section should contain items of recent issue also... Sometimes we have reviews of things that have been out several years already, or reissues that were never out of print (just a new issue of something that's been available all along). Other but lesser criterion are how well a release fits into the scope of what Exposé covers, and if the release was supplied to us as a promo or purchased out-of-pocket by one of the writers (the promos have precedence)

Can I do anything to make sure my CD gets reviewed?

One word: Advertise. We wish we could publish a review of every item we receive, but it's just not possible due to constraints of space and money. We consider many factors in deciding which items we review, but if you advertise then we will make sure your review gets published, unless the music is completely out of Exposé's sphere of focus (a dance-pop, rap/hip-hop or techno disc, for example). In that case you are still welcome to advertise, but we will let you know up front that the disc will not be reviewed

Does advertising guarantee a good review?

Absolutely not! Advertising can guarantee that we publish a review of your music, but it will not affect the content of the review. Our writers offer honest, comprehensive, and critical reviews that first and foremost serve the readers of Exposé, and no amount of advertising can "buy off" that critical aspect and honesty.

What is a Roundtable Review?

Two or more reviewers (typically three) each write a seperate review of the same release. Exposé is the first (and to our knowledge the only) progressive music publication to offer this type of review. We premiered it in issue #4 back in '94 with a few releases, and the response was so overwhelming we decided to contunue and expand the section. Today we typically review over 12 releases this way in each issue.

How can I get a Roundtable Review for my release?

Roundtable Reviews are reserved for new releases and newly released archival recordings of significant importance. Typically an artist in the roundtable section has had at least two prior releases, and has generated enough interest through those releases to create a degree of anticipation for the current release. In general, Live releases are not considered for the roundtable section unless they contain a significant amount of previously unreleased material (Tipographica's "God says I Can't Dance" is one such example). When requested, the artist/label should supply Exposé with three (3) copies of the release to be considered for the roundtable section, but simply sending three copies does not guarantee that the disc will receive a roundtable review.

Will promos I send be considered for airplay?

No. Exposé and Exposure Radio went separate ways at the end of 1996, and there is no longer any cross-involvement between the two projects (in fact Exposure Radio is not currently on the air). As with the Exposé Concert Series, we are allied, but seperate entities.

How can I get information about subscribing?

Go to the Subscription Information Page. All the information you need is there.

Can I subscribe with a credit card?

Absolutely. Go to the Subscription Information Page. All the information you need is there, or go directly to The Artist Shop, or place your order by phone at (330) 929-2056 (10AM-9PM Monday-Friday, 11AM-6PM weekends). The Artist Shop is the official website offering subscriptions to Exposé, although single issues can be purchased at a number of places.

Can I get a free sample issue before I subscribe?

No. Buy a copy for six bucks. Or better yet, just subscribe... you won't regret it. It costs over two bucks just to mail a single copy. If we gave out freebies to everybody who asked for them for whatever reason we'd be headed for the poorhouse like fast.

I am a merchant and would like to carry Exposé at my store/mail-order business. Do you have a special price for resellers?

Yes. Basically it's one-half the cover price with the reseller bearing the full cost of shipping, paid in advance (unless other arrangements have been made). For domestic (USA) destinations, magazines are sent by "Media Mail" rate for quantities over six, or by Priority Mail for quantities of 4 or 5. For overseas, the rates are changing all the time so it's impossible to predict until we actually send them. Hopefully that will stabilize soon. Email Exposé for more information and to get started.

How do I know when my subscription has expired?

Normally we include a bright colored slip of paper in your final issue alerting you to resubscribe. It used to be full page, then went down to a half page, now it's a quarter page. Just keep an eye out for it when you open the envelope. In addition you can tell by the "number" portion of the code after your name on the mailing label. The number portion is the final issue of the current subscription. See the next question for what all the other stuff means.

What do the codes on the mailing label mean?

On the mailing label, after your name, you will see a code - enclosed in parentheses. There is always at least one character, which represents how you are entered in our mailing database: C=Complimentary (every issue), I=Complimentary (this issue only), L=Label, M=Merchant, P=Publication, W=Writer, S=Subscriber. If you are Subscriber, the S will be followed by a 2 digit number which is the last issue of your current subscription (see previous question). Also, if you are a subscriber, the two-digit number is followed by a code: D=Domestic Delivery, S=Surface Delivery, A=Air Mail. The latter two apply to overseas subscribers only.

I am Gray Matterson, guitarist and leader of the Crawling King Snakes. What determines if I get a complimentary copy or not?

People who receive free complimentary copies are: Labels who send us releases every issue with regularity, artists who we have covered in our feature section, other publications we trade with, and merchants, labels, and artists who advertise in any particular issue. If you are an independant artist and have sent us a release which has been reviewed in some particular issue, you will receive either a full copy of that issue or a tear sheet with the review on it. If you are an artist on a label that sent us a promo of your disc, the label will receive a complimentary copy of Exposé; If you would still like a copy of the Issue with the review in it, you may purchase a copy. We can also send an "electronic tear sheet" of the review by email.

What is the status on the next issue? When will it come out?

We normally post status on the current issue, and any issues in progress on the "NEWS" page of this website. We can't always predict ahead of time exactly when it will come out (too many variables, like essential people going on vacation, delays caused by advertising shortfalls, and a long queue at the printer), but any major production milestones will be posted there.

Why did you guys stop including an index with each issue?

First a little background. We began including an index with Issue #14, and stopped with Issue #20. It was a good idea and we didn't want to stop, but due to the greedy and extortionate overseas rate increases imposed by the US Postal Service, it became imperative that we keep each issue under 8 ounces (which, beginning with issue 21 now included a free CD as well). The casualty was the printed index, which would (in the case of an 84 page issue) add just enough weight to make it go over the line.
The good news is that beginning with issue #19, we have made the index available on this website as a PDF file, viewable with Adobe Acrobat Reader (downloadable for free). If you are reading this, then the Index is only a couple clicks away on our Index Page.

The CD was broken in shipment. How can I get a replacement?

We usually have a few extra copies of the CD produced precisely for this reason. First, contact us at Exposé and let us know about it. Mail a piece of the broken CD to us at our mailing address: 6167 Jarvis Ave. #150, Newark CA 94560 USA, and we will send you a new one.

Why don't you print Exposé in full color?

We have investigated this very carefully. The costs required for full color printing (or even partial color) would require well over 300% of the revenue we currently take in for advertising. We would spend all our time hustling advertising, and as a result the quality and integrity of our content might suffer. Certainly we could charge more for ads in full color, but the long and the short of it is that our advertising to content ratio would need to rise to about 55% (or greater) of each issue just in order to break even. Exposé has always been about knowledge, expertise and information - not gloss, color, and looking pretty. If that's what you want, there are other music periodicals you can subscribe to that provide this.

Whatever happened to John Szpara?

A little background: John Szpara was the original Publisher of Exposé, from Issue #1 through around issue #10. John is and always was a highly motivated multi-tasking individual, and at the time Exposé began, John was also driving the Exposure weekly Progressive Radio Show (which at its peak was carried on about 6 stations nationwide), he had a regular day job as a desktop publisher, had a rapidly growing Satellite TV installation business, and was doing several other things on the side. Eventually the success of the satellite business left no room for Exposé, and eventually his radio show as well. The task of publishing got kicked around for a few issues, but settled with Paul Hightower since Issue #14.
John is still around, living in Hollister, California (an hour south of San Jose), still attends the music festivals regularly, and has a growing collection of Fiero's! Anyone wishing to contact John can do so at fierodsl@pacbell.net

What's the current status of the Exposé Concert Series? I haven't heard of any new shows in a long time...

The Original Exposé concert series ran from November 1996 through October 2000, with a total of 27 shows to its credit. Since October 2000 the series has stopped.

What's the relationship between Exposé and Gnosis? I see that many of the Exposé people are involved in it in some capacity. What gives?

Gnosis was founded by Exposé Staff Writer Mike McLatchey, along with two other knowledgeable progressive music experts Dirk Evans and Tom Hayes (the latter who has written for Exposé as a guest contributor on a few occasions). Early on, Exposé editor/publisher Peter Thelen, editor Sean McFee, and former Exposé staff writer Mike Borella joined Gnosis, and since then staff writers Mike Ezzo, Jeff Melton, Jon Davis, and Henry Schneider have joined the team as well. Many other Exposé writers have contributed to the reviews section of Gnosis. However, it should be noted that Gnosis is NOT Exposé or even a branch of Exposé, and it involves many more people who have nothing to do with our publication, but are involved in other endeavors within the progressive community (including other publications). Gnosis is a very inclusive project which is intended to be a first step to build bridges in the prog community.


Any Questions or Comments? E-Mail: Exposé