Still room for print in magazines

There's still room for new magazine titles in the US it seems. Research by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) shows 257 magazine launches in 2005.

Their website found only around 30 despatches, though some of the reported acquisitions may have been disguised closures as acquisitions often lead to mergers. (Mergers are a standard way of avoiding actually having to repay advance subscriptions).

Among the new titles announced in 2005 were: 31 magazines for women, 22 magazines dedicated to sports, 27 lifestyle titles, 13 magazines targeting African-Americans, and another 13 with a Hispanic/Latino focus. Also of note were the number of magazines that originated as websites or online-only editions; a total of 10 magazines leapt from the Internet to newsstands and mailboxes in 2005.

So, while much effort goes in to finding a profitable means of having an online publication, it seems the most popular and successful way is still with a "dead tree" publication backed up by online extras and promotion.

One problem for publications which would like to be online is that a high quality file is still massive if you are to compete with printed graphics. Even publications which cater for the graphics industry find it necessary to resort to slimmed down versions for those without really fast broadband connections.

And I wonder how many other people have the same problem that I do? I subscribe to a top quality online magazine, and download it the instant I get the email advising that it is available. But often I do not even get to glancing through the PDF. It sits there on my desktop until a week or sometimes two later I will print out a sad looking grayscale version on my laser printer.

Where is the best publicity?

Whatever you produce or sell -- books, magazines, or most other products -- you'll feel a need to get publicity for either your product or your business?

Do you aim for the top, the major newspapers or magazines and the bigname TV shows, or for something a little lower down the chain?

I'm not saying "Don't aim high", but you can do just as well from some very minor players. Publicity in specialist club, trade and craft journals can add up to a lot of sales. And those media are a lot more forgiving in the quality of what you submit.

You could try for years without getting on to Oprah, but be missing the sales of two, ten or more that come from a mention in those many publications which circulate to 200 members.

At the same time don't underestimate those readers. They know their subject. What they will want is hard edged details of why your book or product is better or has the answers to a need they can see.

I was prompted in this by seeing an ad for what is essentially a local restaurant in a national magazine. The restaurant is good, but not one that will persuade people to drive for an hour or two to get there. Even the local newspaper which circulates in several towns may be spreading the net too wide.

The book "Success in Store" which I co-authored, tells of a pizza store which "always" distributed 10,000 menus in order to get to the end of the next suburb. But the result of several thousand of those was a few price-taking delivery orders who'd go elsewhere the minute someone else made an offer. And each took half an hour to deliver.

By spending the same on fewer menus, he produced something which stood out, kept his deliveries within easy reach, so he could guarantee them being faster, and his profit went up.

Flyers you can deliver on a morning run (to keep fit) may not suit your market, but some trial promotion in those specialist publications, maybe for some businesses even on specialist web sites, could be the better answer.

Do how much of it yourself?

As a small scale publisher, what should you do for yourself and what should you pay someone else to do?

That is a common question, and someone on a publishing email list rightly commented that it always seemed that the "experts" were saying that the newbie should get everything done (at a fee) by someone in the industry.

There is nothing wrong with anyone learning to do everything for themselves -- I even did a course in paper making because I thought it might help me understand the most basic of the raw materials we deal with, and it did.

The problem is that too many people are misled by the promises of people that everything is easy.

If someone...

a) studies the book market,

b) spends time not only reading the books on the subject (and most can be found in public libraries so you need only to eventually buy the ones which are going to be essential to you),

c) talks to everyone in the industry (I've learned a lot from a bloke whose house I walk past into town who is a forklift driver for a major printer who seems similarly interested in learning more about the products he hauls around),

d) is prepared to do the job (for example the layout) and then to look at it critically and do it again (I nearly sent a printing business broke when I looked at a book we'd produced as I handed the first copies to the customer, and then said "it's not good enough, is it" and we did it again, but we grew into a much stronger company),

then that someone can match everything the experts can do. It's not brain surgery -- you can practice without doing too much harm to anyone but yourself.

BUT, someone who says, I've never done a book before but I have Word (or I've just bought InDesign) and then, with a printed copy in hand, looks at finding a distributor or for someone who will tell how to get publicity for it.

I'm all for people doing things for themselves. I tend to run a mile from anyone who adopts the description of "consultant", and I like the description of expert as "ex", a has-been, and "spurt", a drip under pressure.