Mr. Magazine

I do not know why the more I think about my interview with ABC News on the so called “Celebrity journalism” I am reminded of Marx’s famous quote on Religion. He wrote, “Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze…” I, for one, do not agree with his definition of religion, but what if we replaced the word “Religion” with the words “Celebrity and Gossip?” I think his quote will fit much more today’s society and marketplace. As long as I have the opportunity to teach journalism, this profession will remain to me a profession that must answer the simple question of What Is In It For Me? That ME means my life, my home, my money, my country, my soldiers, etc…but NOT some Hollywood created celebrities (here today, in jail tomorrow and gone the day after)…there is nothing in them for me. They have become the opium for our people. What a sad commentary on events (and our society) when a dead celebrity occupies not twice or thrice, but more than hundred times the coverage on cable television news while the death of our soldiers fighting in Iraq were not worthy but a ticker line on the bottom of the screen. Please do not misunderstand me, I love all kind of magazines including the gossip ones. But please do not treat them as Journalism. They are not. In fact you will be doing a disservice to real journalism if we equate the death of Anna Nicole Smith with the death of our soldiers in Iraq, or if we equate the imprisonment of Paris Hilton to that of Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

That is the number of covers I was able to find, so far, from my hunt to locate all 20 covers of the July 2007 of Vanity Fair’s Bono guest-edited issue. The special issue on Africa carries 20 “historic covers photographed by Annie Leibovitz.” You can see the covers at Vanity Fair’s web site here, but there is nothing like having all the copies of the magazine covering your coffee table at home or at the office to show the power of the visual impact of print. Wish me luck on my hunt, ( missing the Buffett, Gates and Jay-Z covers) because I want my Vanity Fair puzzle to be complete on my coffee table. Every time I think Vanity Fair cannot be anymore innovative, the editors surprise me one more time… Another job well done and another reason to believe that the future of print, and journalism with a purpose, is well, alive and kicking. Thank you Graydon Carter, thank you Bono and thank you Annie Leibovitz.

Who said you can’t tell a magazine by its tag-line? Well, I can. Good’s tag-line reads, “Good is for people who give a damn. It’s an entertaining magazine about things that matter.” Check Good here. The Believer’s tag-line, or so to speak, reads, “The Believer is printed on heavy stock paper and is almost entirely awesome.” Check The Believer here. The only two words that I will change in those tag-lines are “entertaining” in Good and “almost” in The Believer. Good is way beyond entertaining. It is one of the best magazines that I have seen in a long long time that Has a Purpose. In fact it reminds me of being similar to Highlights magazine with its famous 60 plus years tag-line Fun with Purpose. The only difference, Good is for Adults. Adults who want to know more than what Brit, Brad, Jan, etc. are doing and do not really care to treat them as newsworthy or as a beat (in journalistic terms) to follow and report on. Good is Journalism with a Purpose. The Believer is not almost awesome. It IS. From the pages that you read to the music that you hear. The current issue is their special music issue and it is worth every penny from the $10 cover price. To use the words of Good, pick up those two magazines today and act as if you give a damn about the future of journalism and magazines in this country…better yet, act as if you give a damn about the future of our country. Act now.

I am really really tired from all the prophets of doom and gloom from our magazine industry. I just read a report based on a speech by a group magazine president. The president said “magazines have a credibility problem with the advertising community” because of “the poor circulation practices of the past, especially the practice of counting unpaid circulation as paid…” For a second, I thought for once a major publisher is thinking about improving their circulations practices for the sake of …. readers. Well, forgive me for thinking about the readers, a commodity that is becoming largely ignored by the publishers of big magazine companies. “Advertising will remain the primary source of revenue,” the executive is quoted as saying. The only reason magazine publishers want to try to fix the advertising woes is pure and simple: get more advertising. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Publisher, do me a favor and spend $10.00, yes $10.00 and order the book that Roy Reiman, founder of Reiman Publications, wrote about his empire of publishing that did NOT sell a single advertising page. Reiman was able to sell his company for $760 million dollars without selling a single advertising page. Reading his book is a MUST for anyone who really wants to understand the value of the reader. Readers to Reiman are much more than numbers. In fact they are not even numbers. They are human beings, pure and simple. Humans who deserve to be appreciated, catered to and served. Readers who were, are and will never be a commodity. Order Reiman’s I Could Write a Book here. Do it today for your own good and the good of the readers.

You think you know the newsstands, and the folks who frequent them to buy magazines, think twice. What follows are ten true and false statements about magazines and the newsstands. Check if you can tell the true ones from the false:
1. Newsstands buyers are habitual buyers
2. The majority of people who buy magazines on the newsstands do not send in the discounted subscription cards.
3. For a lot of publishers, the newsstands are nothing but a showcase for the advertiser to see the magazine “in their face.”
4. The reason publishers put much more copies than they sell is because they do not want to have empty pockets.
5. Some magazines can make money selling only two copies of every ten they put out.
6. Low cover price does not mean selling more copies.
7. The Magazine Publishers of America uses frequency to define a magazine, thus not everything you buy on the newsstands is a magazine according to their definition.
8. Magazines without advertising can survive and thrive on the newsstands.
9. More than 70% of American magazines are sold by subscription rather than single copy.
10. Cosmopolitan magazine sells more copies per issue on the newsstands than any other magazine.
So what is your score? How many true statements and how many false? If you answered true on each and every one of the above ten statements you’ve passed with flying colors. Believe or not, all the above statements are true and in the following days and weeks I will be writing and expanding on each statement, so stay tuned…

What does it take to rejuvenate the newsstands in American and add a glimpse of hope to our industry? The answer is very simple. Treat the newsstand buyer with some respect. Last week I was attending a magazine conference and I heard an editor of a major magazine referring to the customers who buy his magazine on the newsstand as “not very smart and I do not think they deserve to read the magazine.” His reasoning was why should they spend $4.95 on the magazine at the newsstands when they can get 12 issues for less than $15. The sad part is that most of the magazine publishers and the organizations that support them are the ones that continue to insult the readers and accuse them of not being “very smart.” I remember the days when I was a student at the University of Missouri-Columbia, my magazine teacher Dr. William H. Taft used to show us Cosmopolitan magazine’s subscription price that was five cents more than the newsstand cover price. Dr. Taft told us that the reason Cosmo sold as many copies on the newsstands as it used to sell was very simple: “They did not want you to subscribe.” It was true with Family Circle and Woman’s Day too. Now all three have joined the “subscription discounters” and joined the majority of magazines in “alienating the newsstand buyer,” and “blaming the newsstands for their woes.” Cosmo still leads the newsstands sales on an issue by issue basis. The reason is in its content: more of the readers prefer the privacy of the newsstands than the publicity of the mailbox to get Cosmo. So here are seven common sense approachs to recreate the buzz on the newsstands:
1. Be a newsstand only magazine. No subscriptions.
2. Charge more for your subscription than the price of the magazine multiplied by the number of issues offered.
3. Charge the same price for your newsstand issue, as you are willing to offer it by subscription. If you are willing to sell your magazine for 35 cents by subscription that should be your newsstand price and not $4.95.
4. Stop selling your magazine on the newsstands if you are not willing to reduce your newsstand price or increase your subscription price.
5. Keep in mind the big increase in postage that is heading your way. Now is the time for some major decision making… continuing to bury your head in the sands and pretending that all is fine is not going to help any. Remember how our friends the Chinese define insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results every time.
6. It is time for the MPA and the rest of the magazine publishers of America to start focusing on the millions of customers (readers) all across the country rather than the 50 or so customers (advertisers) who reside within the city limits of NYC. There is more, much more to the magazine business than NYC.
7. Stop blaming the distributors and the retailers; it is time to examine the publishers pricing method and to DO something about it. Now. As in Today.

Remember Redbook and how they change the word sex from the newsstand covers to the word love on the subscriptions cover, well Best Life magazine does something similar every father’s day issue (the June issue). This month Kyle Chandler, of Friday Night Lights fame, is the cover subject of Best Life. On the newsstands he shares the cover with no one and the type screams “Be a (Much) Better Man.” No such screaming on the subscribers’ cover, but Kyle is pictured with his two daughters on the cover and the cover line whispers, “Be a (Much) Better Father.” So the question of the day is: do single men buy more magazines on the newsstand than married men with children? If you answer no, why then Best Life treat “man with children” as if they have newsstand leprosy? Just checking!

So it seems. You expect to see the three-letter word on the covers of Cosmo and Maxim, but how about on the covers of Inside Triathlon and Parabola. The first is a magazine dealing with biking, running and swimming. Yes, you’ve guessed it, sex is not one of the three sports, yet the magazine offers its readers “The Sex Issue” making good on its tagline promise “The Multisport life.” Moving one step further, from the physical to the spiritual, the second magazine Parabola, with a less, much less revealing cover offers the readers its SEX issue dealing with the “Spiritual Teachings on Sex.” Grab both magazines and you have it made both physically and spiritually. Who can ask for more? Definitely not the editors at Texas Monthly.