En de Mercur gaat naar....

Hollywood has the Oscars, scientists the Nobel Prize, magazine makers have the Mercurs.

Once a year, in the month of December, all the gentlemen and ladies from magazine land strut their stuff to Amsterdam where a famous person always ties the evening together. Lauren Verster, Anita Witzier that level. There are acts and everyone is really nervous.

I remember Hilmar Mulder the editor-in-chief of the year with Grazia, Karin Sweerink who rocked the stage in her Glamour days in a fitting uniform (her legs were at their brownest, longest, and slimmest) and Esther Goedegebuure who emotionally thanked founder Marie-Nanette Schaapman when JAN magazine was named magazine of the year.

Linda de Mol and Jildou van der Bijl were nominated at least three times every year and always got to climb on stage for the Mercur best art direction, magazine of the year, marketing action of the year or whatever of the year.

I have buried myself in all the application forms several times. Marie Claire had to be rewarded for art direction of the year, I thought. And I have occasionally thrown in a marketing action, but nominated, no way. Forget it. Yes, the anniversary cover was once in the running to win but a. it was made under the editorship of my predecessor and b. did not win.

The last time I won something was when I was 16. For the spring competition L2 ponies.

In the past few weeks, my publisher was quite busy and mysterious. Liesbeth, Jet, and Josselin had to fill in all sorts of things. About Amayzine.com and about me. After some serious sleuthing, I found out that ‘we’ were being nominated for a Mercur nomination. I laughed. Quite hard, I believe. No matter how much I appreciate and respect the Mercurs, what do they want with a digital, I repeat, DIGITAL magazine?

Let me take you to Thursday afternoon. I was in a transformation session with Leco van Zadelhoff (you should know we had it in the evening) and looked at my phone when he was done. 37 missed calls on the left, 110 unread messages on the right. Panic with the flowers, was the subject of one email. Call me, we'll go through the press release again. And then our publisher: ’Come to my office when you're there. I have something nice.” a party On his desk stood a bottle of champagne. I felt it for a moment. If it was cold, we would immediately celebrate something. It wasn't. Hmm. So it had probably been there longer. Apparently, the news wasn't that great. I received an envelope in my hands. From Aldipress. Aldipress? That's one of the sponsors of the Mercurs. I opened the A4 sheet: “We are pleased to inform you that Amayzine.com has been nominated for the Mercur Launch of the Year.”

I don't know if we are going to win the prize. It has always been a print award and we do little with paper. Let's say nothing actually. Unless you count the wrapping of the“

T-shirts from our webshop as part of it. On the other hand, we are the first magazine that is made online. The love for magazines is just as great and the Mercur jury also shows that they are very much keeping up with the times. However it may be, until December 10 I am going to enjoy that nomination immensely, incredibly, extraordinarily. And worry a lot about what we should wear Hollywood has the Oscars, scientists the Nobel Prize, magazine makers have the Mercurs. Once a year, in the month of December, all the gentlemen and ladies from… of course.

To be continued.