Mr. Magazine

Imagine you are in charge of reinventing one of America’s icon magazines: The Saturday Evening Post. How would you react? What will be your first step? What are some of the obstacles facing you doing that? And do you think you can really reinvent such an icon? The aforementioned questions raced in my mind as I read the news that Steve Slon has been appointed editorial director of the iconic magazine The Saturday Evening Post and has been charged with the mission to reinvent the legend magazine.

Rather than trying to answer the questions myself, I opted to go to the newly appointed editorial director, the man who has led the AARP publications for years and consulted on many other magazines in his many years of professional editorial experience. Mr. Slon was gracious enough to answer my questions, even those that were casting more than a shadow of doubt on his new assignment for this “mission impossible.”

After all, mention the name The Saturday Evening Post to anyone and they will directly think you are talking about the past. So, how does Steve Slon plan to change this “past” stereotype to a present day 21st Century magazine? Well, in the typical Mr. Magazine™ Interviews, here are first the sound-bites followed by the very lightly edited transcript of the interview.

The Sound-bites

On his plan of action: To take some of the historical magic of the magazine and look for a contemporary application.

On the obstacles to reinvent the magazine: the first obstacle is that everybody thinks the magazine went out of business fifty years ago.

On the future plans to get the word out: To accomplish getting the magazine out, we’re developing some social media strategies… I’m not trying to recreate something that existed in our fantasies more than in reality…. I’m trying to create a contemporary magazine that’s relevant, beautiful, and interesting.

On the humanization of the magazine: It is a really well-rounded person with a liberal arts education who is curious about the world, who had personal concerns such as pocketbook concerns, maybe weighing a few pounds more than they wanted to and was just looking for good ideas about weight loss and money and that sort of thing.

On the name of the magazine: Magazine titles start out having a meaning and then the meaning sort of evaporates from it and it just becomes what it is.

On the future of print in a digital age: The experience of wrapping yourself in a magazine, opening it up and seeing it on nice paper, and seeing the beautiful images; the great magazines, like The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, just digging in and enjoying it and having a great read with the magazine in your lap, cannot really be equaled electronically.

On the audience of the magazine: It’s never going to be a magazine for twenty-year-olds in its current form.

On what keeps him up at night: Typos. I worry about interviews with people like you. I want to say the right thing.

And now for the lightly edited transcript of Mr. Magazine™ Interviews Steve Slon, editorial director, The Saturday Evening Post.

Samir Husni: The first obvious question: This is a big, big, big job to reinvent an icon in the magazine industry, The Saturday Evening Post. How do you propose to do that?

Steve Slon: Well, I’m glad that you used the word reinvent because I think that’s a key word. The way that I propose to do it is really to take some of the historical magic of the magazine and look for a contemporary application. So in other words, I want to make it clear from the outset that this is not in any sense of the word a nostalgia magazine. But at the same time we are a little bit always going to be trading on the wonderful legacy of the publication. So basically what I do is I deconstruct what the Post was in its hey-day that was a mix of an appreciation of art, of fiction, great writing, great journalism and I’m distilling that and bringing that into a modern context.

Samir Husni: What are some of the perceived obstacles that you see in front of you, preventing you from succeeding?

Steve Slon: Well, the first obstacle is that everybody thinks the magazine went out of business fifty years ago. No, seriously, the first mission is to get some word out that we are still publishing. My super secret strategy, and I’m going to put it on the line, is to build the magazine and make it a good read and fun to read and enjoyable. And then, strategically, we need to just get people to hear about it any possible way we can. And then get them to come and check it out. Then say, “Hey, this isn’t some old-fashioned thing, this is a contemporary magazine that’s really interesting. Because to my mind, what makes a magazine relevant is very plain and simple: Is it enjoyable to read? You know, it’s a very simple solution. So to accomplish getting the magazine out, we’re developing some social media strategies. We’re already… I’m not sure if the word would be syndicating, but we’re giving permission to the Hearst Wire Service to republish, every week or two, a story from the Post with a Post credit line at the end. Just to get the word out. We’re saying here’s the story, have people read it in the various newspapers that subscribe to the Hearst/New York Times Wire Service and put the magazine out there. And then people read it. My hope is…well, I don’t want to say hope actually, and my intent is for people to say, “Hey, that’s really interesting That’s the Post? Wait, the Post is still going? Wait, I better get that. I gotta’ check it out.” Then they come to the website and subscribe.

Samir Husni: I’m sure you wouldn’t have accepted the job if you weren’t up to the challenge.

Steve Slon: Yes, well I like a good challenge, yes.

Samir Husni: But the critics will say that Life tried to come back and could not, Look tried to come back and could not, Collier’s, somebody bought the trade mark but still did not know what to do with it. What’s different about the Saturday Evening Post?

Steve Slon: Well again, I’m not trying to recreate something that existed in our fantasies more than in reality, the magic of the magazine. I’m trying to create a contemporary magazine that’s relevant, beautiful, and interesting. The same thing that is a negative is also a positive, which is if you tried to launch a new magazine in the current environment you would have everything else going against you that we’re dealing with today, the splintering of media and the news. And you’d also have to create a brand; well we have a brand, for better or worse. We have a brand that people know instantly that it is a magazine and what it stands for, which is good quality, solid journalism, great fiction, great art, etc. So, it is a challenge. But look, when I went to AARP, it was called Modern Maturity; it was dead as a door nail. The MRI numbers on that were plummeting and we said, look, what can we do to make this better. We basically turned it around with quality stories, good articles, good pictures, etc. It can be done. We have every confidence that it can be done. To me, it’s really no fun going to a magazine where you’ve already hit your formula and you’re just doing it over and over. I love the excitement of saying, “Wait, let’s try this, let’s tweak it a little bit and let’s see what connects.” One of the things that I wanted to tell you about is that I’m finding is that the essay, the opinion piece; it’s hitting like a pinging for us really well. We certainly have our little collection of service stuff; we cover tech, we cover money, we cover health, etc. But when we did a piece by Diane Ravitch this fall on what’s wrong with American school systems and we got a flood of letters, the kind of letters you never get from an article about 5 ways to get rock-hard abs or 5 ways to lose weight or that kind of thing. So that was very exciting and that has inspired me to push a little further with the opinion side of the magazine.

Samir Husni: If I give you a magic wand and you can strike the ink on paper The Saturday Evening Post and a human being comes out of it, who would that person be?

Steve Slon: I like that because I like that image. I do think of the magazine as having a personality analogous to a human personality and so what I see is, well, let me back into this a little bit. I see the magazine as a balance between really useful, practical information and really stimulating ideas, with an overlay of art and design and, fiction of course, being a part of art. So I would consider it a really well-rounded person with a liberal arts education who is curious about the world, who had personal concerns such as pocketbook concerns, maybe weighing a few pounds more than they wanted to and was just looking for good ideas about weight loss and money and that sort of thing. But at the same time was equally, perhaps more interested, in the bigger questions in life, such as education, such as…you know we just did a big story on outsourcing military equipment to foreign countries and the implications for the defense of America. So I would say it’s a person with mostly catholic interests. I don’t want to characterize it and say it’s a single person, I’m not going to name a name, but I think it’s that kind of person, with a wide-ranging interest. And the thing is, this has the potential to be huge, because we’re all really people like this. The key is to find that mix of subjects that really click and we’re approaching it.

Samir Husni: Does the name keep you up at night? Would people, no matter how great the writing, how great the stories, pick up a magazine today called The Saturday Evening Post?

Steve Slon: I think that magazine titles, it’s really interesting, these magazine titles start out having a meaning and then the meaning sort of evaporates from it and it just becomes what it is. So for example, Gentlemen’s Quarterly is actually a monthly magazine, not a quarterly, nobody calls anybody a gentleman anymore; it’s an archaic word. Esquire is a similar word, Esquire is an old-fashioned word, nobody uses it. And yet, as a magazine, we just know what it is. GQ changed it, of course, to just the letters GQ. AARP, the organization that I used to work for, changed its name; it used to be the American Association of Retired Persons, it changed it to just AARP for a reason, because they didn’t want to be associated with only retired people because they had broader issues. But the thing is, it just became those initials. So I think that The Saturday Evening Post, you know arguably, yes, maybe it’s a little long, but I certainly don’t worry about it. Because it ceases to mean that it’s published weekly or anything to do with Saturday. It’s just a phrase that we know and we know it’s a magazine. So, no, it doesn’t bother me, short answer.

Samir Husni: Who’s the audience that you’re after now? Are you trying to maintain an audience that remembers that name, an older audience? Or are you going to try and move the magazine a little bit toward a younger audience?

Steve Slon: Well I think we all know that targeting older readers is difficult in the magazine business because advertisers aren’t curiously…I mean, again going back to my experience at AARP, our sales department did all kinds of studies showing that boomers, from 45 and up, spent more money on cars, more money on gadgets, electronics than anybody else, they have money, whereas people in their thirties and forties don’t have any discretionary money. But, nonetheless, Madison Avenue has a bias against older readers. That said, our average age of our readers is 55, we would like to bring that down a little bit to being the trailing edge of the boomer demo, so bring it down, our target might be say, 45. It’s never going to be a magazine for twenty-year-olds in its current form. Although we’re considering some electronic versions that might, specifically target a younger audience. But yes, for the foreseeable future, that will be a tough market even at 45+, for sales. Everybody has the same problem. If you look at our competitors, say a Smithsonian, an AARP magazine, or Prevention, or magazines that serve the 40+ demo, More magazine, it’s a tough market. A lot of your income has to come from serve. We’re looking for creative ways to get around it, of course. But it is hard. But we’re doing it.

Samir Husni: You mentioned that there is the possibility of a digital edition or something for the younger reader, how do you see the future of print, ink on paper, in this digital age, in general, and then specifically.

Steve Slon: In general, for the foreseeable future, they’re a generation who are reared on print, on paper, and there is something about the experience, I hope I don’t sound too old-fashioned here, but the experience of wrapping yourself in a magazine, opening it up and seeing it on nice paper, and seeing the beautiful images; the great magazines, like The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, just digging in and enjoying it and having a great read with the magazine in your lap, cannot really be equaled electronically. That said, another 10 or 15 years magazines are going to be viable on paper, and probably indefinitely for a smaller audience. But certainly it’s true a younger generation is coming up where they’re reading things first online, and second, maybe in print. It’s an evolution that has to happen. And we are, like everybody else, in the process of strategizing how to transform ourselves from an ink on paper magazine to a media company. And what’s needed at the Post actually… we have these incredible archives going back to the early 1800s that we have in an actual library, physical editions of the magazines under a curation that we are digitizing. So for example, we could create e-books, compiling some of the writers who wrote for the publication in its heyday, some of that stuff which is always going to be relevant. I made a list of some of them, in our archives we have: Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, I could go on. Kurt Vonnegut wrote for the magazine. These are stories that we own the rights to that we could create SIP’s or digital reader editions. What we’re struggling to figure out now is how to humanize that, can we give some of it away and then create custom collections for people. You can see it the way it actually appeared in the magazine with the original illustrations and so on. So, it’s pretty exciting stuff. We really have something that other magazines don’t.

Samir Husni: It’s exciting to you; it’s exciting to me. How can you spread this virus of excitement to the general community and to the public at large? What’s your marketing plans? What’s your promotion plans?

Steve Slon: The social media is probably the number one way. I’m not saying it isn’t anything you haven’t heard before, but I was at the IMAC conference. A lot of people were talking about how people were trying to reverse engineer Google’s search engine, while no one had the precise answer, all the arrows point to the number one trigger SEO ranking is Facebook. We’re lagging in that front I will say, but we’re working on it. You develop a community of people who like and share and want to hear about what’s new and learn about a free story from William Saroyan or something like that. I just want to go back to your earlier point, we might get excited, but what’s to excite the general public. The thing is we’re going to excite them with what we’re doing now, not what we did an hundred years ago, that’ll be just like a bonus. It has to be good now. And the magazine in its heyday was not a nostalgia magazine and we almost think of it that way because you know, Norman Rockwell. But it was a contemporary magazine. We talked about, in the last issue, about Rockwell discovering this very hot trend in the nineteen-teens with couples playing with Ouija Boards. And that was like all the rage and he did a cover of that. And that was a hot cover.

Samir Husni: A year from now, I am calling you for an interview and I am asking you: Steve, tell me where The Saturday Evening Post is today. What will you answer be?

Steve Slon: Well I have a modest, very reachable goal. We’re at 350,000 circ now; I want to get it to 500. We’re actually working with, I can’t name the name, a major internet publisher to do a co-op product, to do an online newsstand version and that would be Q1 and that’s another way we’re going to get the magazine out there. So I guess at a minimum we want to get up to 500,000 and more advertising. The other thing is I want the magazine to have a currency in social discourse, so an analogy is again, when I went to AARP, in the beginning I said to our staff, can you imagine someday that people will be saying to each other, ”Hey did you read something that was in the latest edition of this magazine.” It was something that we almost couldn’t conceive of because it was thought of as a magazine that was so limited in scope even though it was massive. And it was only about five yeas ago that we were mentioned on Saturday Night Live that AARP Magazine gets mentioned. So maybe a mention on Saturday Night Live would be our measure of success.

Samir Husni: One final question: What keeps Steve up at night?

Steve Slon: Typos. I worry about interviews with people like you and I want to say the right thing. Let me think about that for one sec. Some of the things that aggravate me are the Byzantine distribution system in single copy sales, so that because The Saturday Evening Post went through a sort of fallow period and fell off the map and basically gets hardly any newsstand distribution, which is very important just for people to see, you know walk into an airport or a supermarket, just to see it, and have the exposure, that people would know it’s there. We don’t have good newsstand distribution. That’s one thing.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Do you have what it takes to be a rebel? Well, you can easily say yes if your name is Rick Cabral, CEO of Rebel Media, LLC. and publisher of Rebel magazine. The magazine is on a mission and so is the CEO of the company that publishes it. Started by a group of men with no prior publishing experience, one of Rebel’s mission “is to have men ask deeper questions about their life purpose and their interdependence to others.” A noble mission, but not an easy one to execute. However, Mr. Cabral, a rebel with a cause, is determined to make a go from the magazine (and all the additional channels) regardless of the hurdles and is enhancing Rebel’s business plan to ensure it is well set for the future.

So, in the typical Mr. Magazine™ Interviews style, first the soundbites followed by the entire interview revealing the story behind Rebel the magazine and the man:

The Soundbites:

On the purpose of Rebel magazine: To shine a spotlight on some of the false masculine stereotypes and behaviors, or thought processes that have become accepted cultural norms for men today.

On the publishing industry today: The publishing industry is fraught with land mines – particularly for a self-published men’s magazine, launched in this tough and prolonged economic downturn.

On the business model of Rebel: Until 2012 – Rebel took no advertising revenue, we provided free advertising space to our growing base of charitable and brand partners – some of which were very well established, while others were in need of, and deserving of, a voice in our publication.

On who Rebel is: Someone who represents human imperfection and all the truth that statement implies.

On the toughest hurdle so far: The most difficult challenge for us at Rebel has been without a doubt…distribution.

On the future of print in a digital age: Today, print still dominates, while digital supports that. That trend will reverse, and likely sooner than later

And now for the entire interview with Rick Cabral, CEO of Rebel Media, LLC.

Samir Husni: When you hear the word Rebel, you do not think of a magazine devoted to fathers and fatherhood… What is the story behind Rebel?

Rick Cabral: Well to be honest, Rebel is much more than a magazine about fathers, although fatherhood and the responsibility associated with that title, grace the pages of the publication frequently and we dedicate a feature piece to “fatherhood” in each issue. But Rebel provides readers a fresh perspective on a variety of topics such as: cultural interests, value based living, social responsibility, career and family challenges, relationships, sports, entertainment and more.

Rebel has an interesting history since the founding partners had no previous publishing experience. The magazine and overall mission really began as a response to my partners and I looking for a channel in which to reach men in a more authentic fashion. We hoped to shine a spotlight on some of the false masculine stereotypes and behaviors, or thought processes that have become accepted cultural norms for men today. We thought maybe we could encourage men to examine how they interact in the world, and/or evaluate their broader life purpose. We also hoped to inspire men through “real world” examples of other men, we like to call – ‘Rebels With A Cause’ – who are making an extraordinary impact on the lives of others through their work related endeavors, philanthropy, entertainment, humanitarian and/or cause related initiatives.

I guess to sum it up – by examining broader cultural paradigms, personal character and values, relationships, and ethical and moral issues – we hoped to have men asking deeper questions about their life purpose and their interdependence to others. We hoped to inspire individuals to get proactively involved in serving the interests of others before themselves and through our editorial content more accurately represent what men are experiencing in today’s cultural climate.

SH: So many other magazines aimed at fathers (and men) were published in the past and with rare exceptions all failed.  Why do you think Rebel will have a different future?

RC: Well again – fatherhood is only one aspect of our overall editorial – so I think Rebel has a much broader appeal to men in general, when compared directly to publications focused solely on reaching fathers. Rebel is a very unique publication – certainly a dramatic departure from traditional men’s magazines – which have been more focused on external issues such as fitness, grooming or say, fashion. We are not opposed to that per say, but we thought men today are facing a variety of personal and professional challenges in our modern world, and we tried to create a publication that more accurately reflected that.

One of the more interesting and unexpected aspects to Rebel since its inception is the response we get from female readers who continue to read and subscribe to the magazine and purchase it for their sons, husbands or brothers – we have a couple of interesting features called ‘VS’, and ‘Women on Men’, in which women have an opportunity to talk directly to our male readers, from their perspective, about a variety of subjects, in a very open and authentic way. Men always want to know what women are thinking anyway, so we thought this would be a great avenue to challenge gender perspectives and positively impact relationships in an sophisticated and edgy format.

SH: Funding and lack of advertising have always been cited as the number one reason for new magazine’s failure.  How are you dealing with funding and advertising for and in Rebel magazine?

RC: Very true – the publishing industry is fraught with land mines – particularly for a self-published men’s magazine, launched in this tough and prolonged economic downturn. It has been a challenge to say the least. Rebel is privately financed, which has given us autonomy to create this type of publication. I’m not sure the same could be said if this magazine were developed under a large media umbrella. But it also has required a different approach to both advertising and/or brand partner relations.

Rebel started out with the understanding that we could not succeed operating as an island. We also understood the financial ramifications of starting a magazine, and the distribution pitfalls that come along with it. We were determined to establish “like-minded” partner relationships that would ultimately become win-win situations for all involved. Until 2012 – Rebel took no advertising revenue, we provided free advertising space to our growing base of charitable and brand partners – some of which were very well established, while others were in need of, and deserving of, a voice in our publication. By working together, Rebel has developed new distribution channels and in turn creating brand advocates through each of our partnership communities.

Rebel has also taken a unique approach to our brand partners – we are actively pursuing those companies who have committed CSR initiatives and want to showcase them in our publication. We aren’t so much interested in having brands advertise their specific products and services solely, but rather engage with our community and partner communities at a different level, by introducing our readers to their “good purpose” initiatives. This way, consumers begin to see these brands as more than just commodities and more as ally’s in the ongoing struggle to improve our communities, take care of those in need, or find solutions to social injustices where present.

Taking that thought a step further and we get to the heart of the Rebel mission outside of the pages of the magazine – that is our service work. Rebel has created a service calendar much like our editorial calendar, and it is being developed as we speak for the remainder of this year. We do this because we believe strongly in the idea of serving others – it is a core mission and we think it is as important as the work we dedicate to the development of our editorial content. By partnering with like-minded brands and charitable organizations, Rebel becomes a catalyst to assist others; not just by talking about solutions but by creating them and engaging directly in their outcome. This is accomplished with the help of our community volunteers, and we thank them for their time and commitment to our cause work. There is so much need out there right now – we are just scratching the surface of our collective potential. Through these Rebel sponsored or co-sponsored initiatives we can bring the power and reach of our brand partners to positively and dramatically impact the lives of others in deeply personal ways.

SH: If you have a magic wand to strike the magazine and a human being comes out from the ink on paper pages, who will that person be?  Please describe.

RC: Well I think the way we would approach that is to say that the individual who walks out of our magazine is someone who represents human imperfection and all the truth that statement implies – because all of us, at our core, are a unique and specific piece of the greater whole. All of us are alike in that fact that we are a work in progress – we have made mistakes we wish we could erase, probably have been the beneficiary of a blessed moment or day, maybe we’ve experienced the gain or loss of loving another, or hope to be someone remembered for the good we brought to those around us. I would like to think the human being who walked out of our pages would look something like the rest of us. You and me, each trying to do the best we can with what we have been given. So eventually we come to some understanding of why we were here.

SH: What has been the most pleasant moment in the history of the magazine launch so far?  What has been your worst nightmare?

RC: Without question the most pleasant moment for our magazine came when we were notified that we had won two Folio Awards back in October.  I remember it so vividly, because all of the staff, as well as my partner and I were at a point that we were thoroughly exhausted from the last 12 months since launching our publication.  We had submitted one of our magazines to Folio back in May, 2011, and felt that we had created a magazine unlike anything in the industry, however, finding out that we were being recognized on a national scale sent a surge of gratitude through our entire office.  The timing of our awards could not have come at a more appropriate time for Rebel.  

I hate to call it a nightmare, but the most difficult challenge for us at Rebel has been without a doubt…distribution.  Being independently published poses obvious financial obstacles that larger publishing houses may not have.  With that being said, we have spent a tremendous amount of energy trying get Rebel and its unique content in as many hands as we can.  Our print circulation has ranged from 20,000 to 35,000 per issue, and we’re finding that through our combined digital distribution(currently over 500,000) we can effectively and inexpensively reach a fairly large audience.  

SH: You’ve started in print and now you are adding digital editions on the tablets.  What are your futuristic plans?  Are you going to be digital only? Both?  What about the future?

RC: We recognize the landmark shift that is occurring within the publishing industry and the importance of titles to provide their content across all platforms and not just in print. We envision our iPad or tablet digital edition eventually playing a greater role in expanding our circulation and becoming an important revenue stream. Today, print still dominates, while digital supports that. That trend will reverse, and likely sooner than later, our iPad/tablet digital publication will become the primary driver within our model and print will transition into a supporting role.

SH: What makes Rick tick and click every morning?  What makes you say wow, I love my job!

RC: If you were to ask anyone that really knows me they would tell you that it doesn’t take a lot to get me going in the morning.  Typically, I am up by 4am and getting on with my day.  What keeps me going and makes me say, “I love my job,” is the responses that we get from readers that let us know that what we have embarked on at rebel, is making a difference.  So whether it is the 65 year old war veteran who found our magazine at a hospital and immediately offered his assistance in moving our message forward, or the divorced mother from New York City that was so moved by what she read in our magazine and bothered by what traditional men’s media discusses that she bought a subscription as a Christmas present for her 13 year old son.  It is these and countless other stories that inspire me to get up each day and try to produce content that will help men become better men; better husbands, better fathers, better friends and/or leaders in their community.

SH: Thank you.