And the Mercur goes to….

Hollywood has the Oscars, scientists have the Nobel prize, magazine folk have the Mercurs.

Every year in December, all the ladies and gents from magazine land get dolled up and head to Amsterdam where a famous person presides over the evening. Lauren Verster, Anita Witzier, persons of that level. Acts are held and everyone is extremely nervous.

I remember when Hilmar Mulder got editor-in-chief of the year with Grazia, when Karin Sweerink, during her Glamour days rocked the stage in appropriate uniform (legs were at there most tanned, long and slender) and when Esther Goedegebuure the emotional founder thanked Marie-Nanette Schaapman as JAN got chosen as magazine of the year.

Linda de Mol and Jildou van der Bijl were nominated at least three times each year and were always up on the stage receiving a Mercur for best art direction, magazine of the year, marketing campaign of the year or something of the year.

I’ve spent plenty of time filling in those registration forms. I felt Marie Claire had to be rewarded for art direction of the year. I even chucked a marketing campaign their way, but were we nominated, no sir. Forget it. Yes, the jubilee cover was once in the race to win but a. it was made under my predecessor and b. it didn’t win.

The last time that I won something was back when I was 16. A jumping contest L2 ponies.

My publisher has been rather secretly busy with something during the last few weeks. Liesbeth, Jet and Josselin had all sort of things to fill in. About Amayzine.com and about me. After some serious detective work I discovered that ‘we’ had put ourselves forward for a Mercur-nomination. I laughed. Out loud I believe. No matter how much I value and respect the Mercurs, what on earth would they do with a digital, I repeat DIGITAL magazine?

Let’s fast forward to Thursday afternoon. I was in the middle of a transformation session with Leco van Zadelhoff (we had a party that evening as you know) and when he finished, I looked down at my phone. 37 missed calls, 110 unread texts. Panic with the flowers, was the subject of one email. Call me, so we can talk the press release through and so on and so on. Then our publisher: “Come to my office when you get here. I have something good.”

A bottle of champagne was on my desk. I touched it. If it was cold, we had something to celebrate immediately. It wasn’t. Hmmm. Maybe its been standing there a while. Perhaps the news wasn’t that big after all. I got an envelope pushed into my hands. From Aldipress. Aldipress? The sponsors of the Mercurs. I opened the A4: “With great pleasure we inform you that Amayzine.com is nominated for the Mercur Launch of the Year.”

I’ve got no idea if we’re going to win or not. It has always been a print prize and we do little on paper. Well nothing actually. Unless the packing in of T-shirts from our webshop counts. On the other side, we are the first magazine that is made online. Our love for magazines is just as big as before and the Mercur jury are showing that they’re keeping up with modern times. Whatever the outcome, I know that I’ll be savouring the nomination with gusto until December 10th. And driving myself crazy with wondering what to wear of course.

To be continued.