New Mobility to Cease Regular Print Magazine

United Spinal Association has announced that it will stop publishing the bi-monthly New Mobility print magazine and engaging digital edition after the November/December 2024 issue, but we want to assure you that this is not the end of New Mobility. We will continue to publish the authentic content created by and for wheelchair users that has been the hallmark of NM for 35 years. What will be different is the way we present it.

As the publishing world has evolved, so has New Mobility – and so have you, our readers. Whereas print was once the only option, you now enthusiastically engage with our website, newsletters, videos and social channels. And if you look closely at the numbers of new print subscribers compared to the cost of producing and shipping the print version, you see that the time has come for New Mobility to focus more on these contemporary publishing platforms. To make that possible, we need to move resources from print to digital.

We know that not everyone will welcome this change. As the team behind the world’s longest-running print disability magazine, we have mixed feelings. As we try to prolong the life of the print edition, we sincerely appreciate your donations and notes of support. And as we plan our final issues, we hope you will share with us your stories about how NM has affected you over the years. We will publish a selection of them in our final issue.

New Mobility 2.0

Even though we’re saying goodbye to an era, we can’t help but be excited about the future and having more time to devote to modern storytelling platforms. Whatever new forms NM takes, we’ll continue to tell authentic stories by and for wheelchair users that you can’t find anywhere else. We’re busy working on new presentation ideas, but here’s what we know: We’d like to expand our video creation capabilities. We’re discussing potential podcast formats. We want to publish web content more frequently. We’re considering more newsletters focused on specific topics like travel and health. Most importantly, though, we want to hear from you. What would you like to see in the next iteration of New Mobility? One way to let us know is to reply to our newsletter. 2024 Readers’ SurveyYou can also email us your thoughts and questions or leave a comment below. Just want to rant about the end of an era? We’ll certainly read and publish those letters, too.

One question we anticipate is whether there will be more print issues of any kind. We can’t commit to an issue, but we hope to produce one or two issues per year. Some of these will likely be “special editions” that delve into a single topic, such as travel, products, or health. Some will likely be “best of” editions that collect a variety of excellent articles in a format that can be distributed to new wheelchair users in rehabilitation or at skills expos. We promise to keep you informed as we finalize our plans, and again, Please tell us what you would like to see.