Mr. Magazine

My friend Rex Hammock alerted me to a news story in the Financial Times where reporter Joshua Chaffin writes, “In the history of US magazine launches, the high point may have been August 1999, when Tina Brown’s magazine debuted.” I guess his definition of history is the 1990s or 1999 to be specific. He goes on to write, “These days, new magazine launches — let alone big-budget events — are few and far between.” Well, if he just bothered and checked the facts he will find out that we publish now-a-days more magazines than we did at any other period of the history of American magazines. Even if you exclude the specials and one shots, here are some of the numbers of new magazine launches going back to 1984. Keep in mind these are all new magazine launches with at least four time launch frequency. Starting in 1984 the numbers are 134, 203, 299, 300, 284, starting in 1990 the numbers are 325, 363, 443, 417, 458, 510, 535,459, 518,360 and starting in 2000 the numbers are 333, 301, 290, 454, 473, 350, and 332 in 2006. There is no need to explain any of these numbers. I think they speak for themselves. I hope reporters, especially those in the print media, stop promoting the myth of print is dead and no one is doing anything in print any more…. Just give the story due diligence and go visit a newsstands first or a post office and then tell me print is dead…

So can ink on paper and pixels on a screen live happily ever after. Well, here is an example of a publication that shows that when pixels on the screen marry the ink on paper, the result will be the creation of a community that interacts with each other and that have connectivity and usefulness second to none. To take from the words of its founders: There are magazines, and then there are magazines and then there’s JPG. And they couldn’t be more right. JPG took the mold of an industry model and completely smashed it, proving that technology is not the enemy to print as all the prophets of doom and gloom preach. Read my interview with founder Derek Powazek here.

It never ceases to amaze me how much we love numbers and lists. You give me a list and I am reading it from number one to number 399. You tell me there is 101 (somehow, odd numbers always work better than even) ideas to improve my home, and I start reading. But the questions that I always ask myself are the following: When those numbers exceed a certain amount, let’s say a 1001, how many continue reading or care? What is your limit? And, further more, have you ever taken a magazine to task to proof to you that the numbers on the cover are in there? Take for example the new issue of Women’s Health. The May issue sports a cover line that says, “2263 Amazing New Health, Sex, Fitness & Nutrition Tips.” Well, what are you waiting, go grab a copy of the May issue and start counting. It will be interesting to see how much more time you are going to spend with the magazine doing that. It may become addictive, you will fall in love with the magazine, and they will gain a reader forever…

Just so you would not think that the whole magazine world has ceased to exit because of CN Portfolio’s launch, I have some other news to report on. The folks at Green*Light magazine sent me an e-mail earlier today to present their magazine to me “as an example of (what we think is) great digital magazine presentation. We are interested in Monkey too and think it brings great visibility to the digital magazine genre, but like ours better.” Green*Light magazine launched in 2005 and has completed five issues in digital format so far. I visited the magazine site and flipped through the pages of the latest issue and liked what I saw. Relevant content, and relevant design, all in a made-for-digital format. The size of the type is good, the amount of words are great for the screen, and the pictures are right for pixels on the screen. However, what the magazine lacks is the interactivity and the movement Monkey magazine and other similar platforms offer on the web. A good start and a good “put your money where your mouth is,” but you need to check it for yourself here.

Before I get accused, although for some the verdict has been announced already, of being a Condé Nast Portfolio’s magazine groupie or cheerleader, let me give you a quick brief on why I love this magazine and why I am neither a groupie nor a cheerleader for CN Portfolio. I came to America in 1978 and continued my hobby of collecting first issues and studying them since then. I used first issues as my base for my academic studies, books, website, and now my blog. I have accumulated more than 23,000 first editions of all kinds of magazines. I have seen magazines come and I have seen magazines go. I never paid attention to the hype the media gives any given title. I always had my own views and my own opinions. All were and are based on my careful analysis and research on the new titles, how relevant they are, and how they relate to a specific audience. Yes, of course I also pay a lot of attention to my gut feeling about the titles. When I selected In Touch Weekly as the launch of the year of 2002, the traditional media and media reporters completely ignored the title and wrote it off. The magazine now has a circulation over 1.2 million and growing. My friend Steve Cohn wrote in MIN last week about the decline of new titles in the first quarter of 2007, “but it will not be a “slow” year with the onset of CN Portfolio, which Husni “has a good feeling about.” He was not pre-launch optimistic over the just-as-hyped Talk (1999) and Rosie (2001), and both failed.” It happened with Brill’s Content before them. While some media reporters are betting on how long CN Portfolio is going to be with us, and others are questioning the wisdom of the launch techniques, I am celebrating the fact that a major magazine company is still committed to launch a major title rather than pulling the plug on one. Passion and love (two words are so foreign to most of the media crowds) are what took my magazine hobby, turned it into an education, and in turn to a profession… the same passion and love that I see now in the way the folks at Condé Nast are launching Portfolio. I love Portfolio, even before I see its first issue (a first for me), because I love the commitment and courage of Condé Nast in launching this title. Bloom in the midst of plenty of business magazines doom…wow what an encouraging event for the future of magazine publishing and those who still believe in this business…

Once a week, I will try to bring you an interesting fact about some true, but bizarre, fact about our magazine industry. Here is the first fun fact courtesy of Capell’s Circulation Report… Did you know that the lowest selling issue of Sports Illustrated in 2005 was the Feb. 28 magazine selling 32,416 copies that week? Ten days earlier on Feb. 18 Sports Illustrated sold 1,083,827 copies for a difference of 1,051,411 copies. The reason for this huge difference in sales can be summed in two words: swimsuit issue.

I know I am not the one that is supposed to ask the questions, rather answer and comment on things, but this split cover phenomena is really getting out of control… It is becoming rare to find a magazine with one cover, whether two different covers one on the stands and another in your mail box, or split covers with both covers on the newsstands… I tried to give some answers in the past (read all about it here), now I would like to invite readers, editors, and designers to post their reactions in the comment link below. To understand what I am talking about, look above at the two covers of the May issue of Ladies’ Home Journal, the newsstand issue and the subscription issue, and the two split covers below of the special issue of Wizard magazine Mega Movie issue.

July 26, 2006 the headline in MediaPost read: Teen People Folds in Print, Remains Online. The article went on to say, “Time Inc.’s move comes several months after Hachette Filipacchi closed Elle Girl’s print edition in April. Like Teen People, Elle Girl kept its online presence. Both companies have indeed cast a continuing Web presence as a profitable alternative to print publications…” My comment in Erik Sass’s article (click here to read) was, ” The beauty of the Web is it gives magazine publishers the excuse, ‘We’re not killing the thing, we’re staying on the web.’ If people could survive on the Web, don’t you think Playboy would have folded its print edition long ago?” Well today’s headline in Foliomag.com reads, Teen People Can’t Make It Online or In Print. The article went on to say, “the site was not generating enough traffic to keep it going as a standalone.” (click here to read). The site is now folded into People.com, a very successful web site that complements the weekly’s print edition. The problem that I have with publishers folding their print edition and going online only, has nothing to do with the technology, rather with the content. The web is a great place to be, but it is not print and should not replicate the print editions of the magazines. It is not an alternative to print, it is a must-have complementary medium to your print edition. Just think, that if you cannot survive in print, there is no way you are going to be able to survive online alone. If you think you have competition in print, think how much more competition you have on the Web. The problem is not with the technology or the method of delivery, the problem is in having a product that is relevant to the reader whether it is in print or on the Web. It is the content stupid… just keep that in mind the next time you try to convince your readers that the reason you are folding your ink on paper edition to live in the bliss of pixels on the screen. If your readers are not there for a printed copy, I can assure they will not be there for a digital or online copy alone. I don’t mind being proven wrong, just show me the proof… if the proof is in the pixels on the screen only that is, after being published first in print. Now, if you only an online publication from the beginning, well that is a different story for a different day.