Mr. Magazine

This is a first for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have ranked and rated magazines before. However this is the first time I am ranking magazines dealing with a single topic: Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. So far, I was able to find 15 magazines which devoted the entire magazine, most of the magazine or a section of the magazine to the late music star. I have spend more than 24 hours reading and looking at those magazines and here is my final result to which ones you should buy, which ones you should collect and which one you should just glance at while shopping at the supermarket. Those magazines also brought out the professor in me, so I graded them with A+ being the highest grade and F, obviously, the lowest grade. So, without further due, here are three groups of magazines ranked in order:

The Fab Five:
1. TIME magazine: By far the best publication regarding the untimely death of Michael Jackson. The writing, the photography, the design, the paper, you name it, is by far of a much higher quality than any of the remaining 17 titles. The cover is outstanding in its look and lack of judgment, the info charts inside the magazine are unique and well executed, the writing and photography gives a new meaning to the phrase “visual impact of print,” and even the only ad in the magazine is devoted to the King of Pop. All in all a job much better than well done. An excellent issue that you must buy and collect if you are a Michael Jackson fan. Price: $5.99. Grade: A+

2. TV Guide: The only other regularly published magazine to devote an entire issue (with few pages devoted to the late Farrah Fawcett) for the late star. Building on the rich archives of TV Guide, the magazine divides MJ’s life into different segments, from TV to DVD and everything in between. A nice recap of the star and his music with special excerpts from previous interviews with him that have appeared in older issues of TV Guide.
This ad-less issue of the magazine comes in two different covers and could have used some better quality paper to reflect the “Special Collector’s Edition” cover label. Price: $3.99. Grade: B+

3. People: Maybe because I was expecting more from People magazine that when I went through the issue I was unhappy with what I saw. People, I always felt, is the magazine that gives pop culture and celebrities that human touch and keep them well, alive and down to earth. While the cover of the magazine, and the two different back covers, grab your attention, the inside (MJ fans have to dig deep into the magazine before they reach the MJ section, unless they flip the magazine and start from the back) of the magazine was lacking any stoppers. Well, maybe the covers of all the previous People issues that had MJ on the cover stopped for a little bit more than the rest of the pages. A good effort, but not what I expected from a top student. Still, I say buy it, just because it carries the name People. Price: $4.49. Grade: B

4. Entertainment Weekly: The man, the magic, the mystery is how the tribute section of this week’s issue of EW begins. Almost half of the magazine is devoted to MJ with a tribute written by Stephen King and a final picture page carrying a quote from Madonna, “The world has lost one of the greats.” The magazine provides a historical look back at MJ from the beginning to the end illustrating the power of the man whose music “captured the DNA” or our pop culture. EW captures that DNA through this issue that is a must read for every “pop culture” fan. A nice easy read that it will be OK to pass along later to a friend. EW published four different covers for this issue. Price: $3.95. Grade: B

5. The Nameless Magazine: With a tag line that states “exclusive collector’s edition” this nameless magazine offers a tribute to MJ from “child star to the greatest showman on earth.” Published by American Media Inc. (publishers of Star and National Enquirer) the magazine offers over 200 pictures that captures every stage of the star’s life up to “the day the music died.” A very emotional issue with pages tagged “we’ll never forget you” the magazine truly captures the fan-spirit of the many followers who adored the music and entertainment of Michael Jackson. It is a magazine created with fans in mind and the headings and captions for all these pictures reflect that. A must buy to the fan and an emotional souvenir for those who are mourning MJ’s death. (By the way, it seems that this nameless magazine was the reason that Star magazine was the only celebrity/gossip magazine to play down the death of MJ on its cover. See my review of Star #18). Price: $5.99 Grade: C+

The So-So Fab Four:
6. Newsweek: As I mentioned in an earlier blog, this issue of Newsweek with MJ on the cover in only on the single copy issues of the magazine. The subscribers received their Best Books to Read cover. So, that alone should be worth something in the world of collecting. There is no question that the execution of the special section in this issue of Newsweek is very well done, but it you are only buying the magazine for the MJ cover story, you will be disappointed. A high cover price combined with very few pages ( 9 to be exact) makes buying this issue questionable. However, I need to add that there is a tribute by Quincy Jones that is of interest to the King of Pop fans. To buy or not to buy is the question. Price: $6.95 Grade: C

7. Collector’s Edition Historical: This monthly magazine that devoted its entire issues to a single topic (President Obama had the lion share of the issues, a total of five devoted to him. Sarah Palin had one and so did the First Lady). Now it is the King of Pop’s issue. The publisher of this pictorial issue pays tribute to MJ who and “proudly present this magazine as a testament to his musical genius and creativity that earned him the undisputed title of ‘King of Pop’.” This magazine is more of a photo album filled with pin-ups and may be suitable for the young fans of MJ (Are there young MJ fans?) Not much to read, but a nice collection of pictures on nice paper that gives the magazine a sense of being a collector’s item. A hefty cover price for this Collector’s Edition Historical magazine that I leave the decision to part with your hard earned dollars to you to decide. Price: $7.99 Grade: C-

8. The King of Pop: Another one of those Collector’s Photo Gallery magazines aimed the “pin-up” fans of MJ. This is a not to be read magazine, I repeat not to be read magazine, just go through the pictures and enjoy the trip through memory lane. As I tell people time and time again, any magazine that identifies itself as a collector’s magazine or a collector’s issue, it is a sign that there are millions of those collector’s issues, and few years from now, that magazine and five dollars may buy you a cup of coffee. So if you are not a MJ fan and you are going to buy this magazine as a future investment, do not. You have been warned. As for the rest of you, go ahead and make my day. Every magazine sold is another testament to the unique relationship between print and humans, since none of you is doing to download the “collector’s web page” that carried the MJ news. Price: $7.99 Grade: C-

9. OK! Weekly: Yes, I know, nothing sells more magazines than a celebrity dying all of a sudden in his or her prime. Princess Di is the best example I can give. However, does anyone really wants to see and remember the dead body of the celebrity or they want to remember the glory days. The decision to put the picture of MJ during his transport to the hospital on the cover of OK! Weekly and touting it as a “Michael Jackson World Exclusive The Last Photos” may get the media attention, but will it get the fans and followers of MJ to pick up the magazine on the newsstands? The next few weeks will tell us whether this issue of OK! Weekly was a hit or a miss. Personally, I felt that this cover was one of the worst on the newsstands and all the attempts to have “a complete tribute inside” pale in comparison to the cover shot. I would have expected a newspaper or a television station to use this image, but not on a cover of a celebrity magazine. However, this issue maybe the one that the so-called magazine collectors would buy and not the fans of MJ, the King of Pop. Price: $3.49 Grade: D

The NOT So-Fab Six

I know my parents taught me that if I have nothing good to say, then I should say nothing, but those remaining six magazines that devoted space and covers to Michael Jackson forces me to say at least a little something. However, do keep in mind that all the ranking, comments and grades are in direct relation to the Michael Jackson coverage and not to the magazines as a whole.

10. In Touch Weekly. From a journalistic point of view, maybe we need to treat both dead celebrities the same, but when it comes to the fans, you can’t have it both ways. Would have been much better off of a split cover one for MJ and one for FF if you’ve felt they have equal fan base. Price $2.99 Grade: D

11. Life & Style Weekly. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Typical Life & Style Weekly cover story. However, this was anything but a typical week. A different treatment was definitely needed here. Price $2.99 Grade: D

12. US Weekly. I am sure that Rolling Stone will be publishing a special issue on MJ, but the little sibling of RS has opted to cover the final days of MJ, rather than the artist, musician and pop culture icon that I am sure RS will cover. Price $3.99 Grade: D

13. National Enquirer. Really surprised by how little space the “world exclusive news” occupied from the cover and the inside. I would have expected to see the picture of the body in the white sheet taking over the entire cover. Is the National Enquirer tame now? Price $3.59 Grade: D

14. Globe. Well, in the day and age where all the CSI programs give you results of DNA testing, autopsy results in less than few minutes, why not the Globe? Price $3.59 Grade: F

15. Star. The only celebrity/gossip magazine not to devote the main cover story to MJ. (See rank number 5 above). I wonder whether American Media on purpose decided to forgo the coverage in Star to promote and sell the special nameless magazine, or they just opted to gamble in the hope that the annual “beach bodies” will outsell the rest of the magazines. Time will tell. Price $3.99 Grade: F

So here you have it, 15 magazines so far are out there devoted to the King of Pop. I will keep you posted with updates on any new titles arriving at the nation’s newsstands in the next few days. And, by the way, for those who still doubt the power of print and ink on paper, please help explain to me this phenomena that drives folks to the newsstands and makes them dig into their pockets and buy all these magazines every time a major event takes place. Amazing!

In my blog yesterday I wrote about the “more conservative” Reader’s Digest. I and many others in the media world based our comments on an article that appeared in The New York Times. Well, I guess we assumed that “the paper of record” had their facts checked and checked again. In a phone conversation with the folks at Reader’s Digest, followed by a written response from the magazine’s editor in chief Peggy Northrop, we learn a different set of facts. For the record here is Ms. Northrop e mail letter to me regarding The New York Times’ story and the future direction of Reader’s Digest.

As editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest since November, 2007, I am happy to clear up the confusion generated by the New York Times article, which has been picked up, quoted, and spun out into the far reaches of the blogosphere. To be perfectly clear, Reader’s Digest has not changed its editorial direction to a more conservative approach. What we have done over the last year is modernize our look, sharpen our voice, and add new sections that hark back to our roots as a ‘digester’ of valuable content—all while maintaining our focus on the “hometown” values that our millions of readers share.

The Times’s characterization that “the publishers are pushing [Reader’s Digest] in a decidedly conservative direction” is both misleading and puzzling, considering the pains we took to describe what’s we’re up to. Our real push is strategic: We are now creating a host of new products that will be available on multiple media platforms under the “Reader’s Digest Version” banner, taking advantage of our historic reputation for delivering concise, authoritative information to a mass readership.

The misleading impression was only compounded by the podcast interview with reporter Stephanie Clifford that accompanied the Times story online. In it she described us as “choosing sides in the culture war, and that side is to the right.” Certainly, our readers value community service, family and, often, some form of faith. But the “culture wars” and the divisive political posturing evoked by that phrase do not interest our readers in the least. I know this from extensive reader research, and I shared a summary of it with Ms. Clifford. There is an interesting story in how regular folks define their values and their needs; unfortunately the Times chose not to tell it.

A glance at a recent Reader’s Digest table of contents would reveal that while yes, we do cover aspects of military life (from stay-at-home dads dealing with the long deployments of their wives, to mothers caring for their severely injured sons), we also continue to cover healthcare, jobs, the environment, finance, and other topics that don’t fall onto any particular spot on the conservative-liberal values continuum. I would wholeheartedly agree with the author on one point she made about our magazine’s transformation in the past year: “Out are generic how-to magazine features.” Indeed, the American Society of Magazine Editors recognized Reader’s Digest with a National Magazine Award for General Excellence this year—a first for us, and a fact that was omitted from the story.

I can’t really blame the Times for the blogospheres’ reaction to the report, which has ranged from The National Review online welcoming us back into the fold while questioning our conservative bonafides, to the examiner.com headline “Reader’s Digest Takes Aim at Obama, Shoots Self in Foot.” I would urge readers who are curious about our magazine’s strategy—and who wonder about what truly appeals to a mass audience—to look past the chattering classes’ fixations and pick up a copy of the new Reader’s Digest for themselves.

Do you want a commemorative edition that honors, explains and documents the late King of Pop Michael Jackson? Well look no further than the special issue of TIME magazine that started arriving on the newsstands last Sunday afternoon beating all the celebrities titles including TIME’s parent company’s own People magazine. The 68-page magazine (all devoted to MJ) was done in less than 24 hours and was printed on heavier stock cover and inside paper. In addition the magazine was able to sell one ad page to Pepsi that created an ad in honor of the late King of Pop. (See cover and ad above). Newsweek, on the other hand. had to do some quick adjusting to their issue hitting the newsstands last Monday. The main cover story was about books and what to read now. However, the newsstands cover was replaced by a picture of MJ and the tag line The Meaning of Michael and a 9-page special section was produced devoted to MJ. The subscribers cover remained unchanged. What bothered me with the Newsweek cover is that it was made to appear as a special issue on MJ rather than a few pages insert, especially that the cover price for this issue has been hiked to $6.95, one dollar more than the regular price of $5.95. (For the record, TIME also increased its cover price on the special issue by one dollar to $5.99 from $4.99).
So why do you think TIME and Newsweek are interested in the MJ story? Simple, both magazines are catering to an audience who remember MJ the artist, the musician and the King of Pop. They are leaving MJ, the troubled celebrity, to the so called celebrity magazines, or as I have always called them by the real European name of gossip magazines.
So if MJ was a Thriller to you, you can bet that TIME can easily tell the competition Beat It!

Tired of visiting the newsstands looking for your favorite magazine? Tired of paying full price for your magazine? You do not want to subscribe for a whole year or even for six months? Well, two new outlets are trying to promote a new way of buying printed magazines, one magazine at a time, via their respective companies. The first, MyMAGHQ.com, is a virtual newsstands for the sale of single copy magazines. I met Shane Tabatch, president of MyMAGHQ.com at the PBAA annual convention and asked him about his venture. Click the video below to hear his answers.

The second, Wall Periodicals, an ethnic and urban magazine wholesaler serving the magazine community since 1986. Wall Periodicals is venturing into retail on line to help gain wider distribution for the many ethnic and urban publications they handle. I spoke with Trever Draper of Wall Periodicals at the PBAA convention and asked him about his latest virtual newsstand. Click the video below to hear his answers.

I am sure you’ve read the reports that Reader’s Digest is cutting its rate base from 8 million to 5.5 million and its frequency from 12 issues a year to 10. According to media reports the magazine is also “reducing its coverage on celebrities and how-to features and boosting the number of inspirational, spiritual stories, in a move that is taking it away from years of attempting to appeal to the broadest possible audience to a focus on a more conservative readership.”

What seems like anticipating the move to a “more conservative” approach, Reader’s Digest magazine opted to have two covers for its July issue. The one I bought at Walmart had the “Best of America” cover, the one I bought at Kroger had the “50 Secrets Your Dentist Won’t Tell You.” Now, my hometown of Oxford, Mississippi is not the big metropolitan area like Memphis, TN. Our population is less than 15,000 and the distance between Kroger (on the east side of town) and Walmart (on the west side of town) is less than 5 miles. The same people shop at both stores most of the time. So what can a test like this project about the future covers and directions of Reader’s Digest? I have no answer to this question and I am sure the folks at Reader’s Digest, if this test in my small town is any indicator, will have no answers neither. A 5 miles of separation is no indication of a “test” in small town America, the bread and butter of such a magazine like Reader’s Digest.

My only hope is that RD will finally settle on one direction and have, for a change, a Purpose Driven publishing model. This is the third major change of venue for the magazine since 2007. Check here for my earlier prescription for a better Reader’s Digest publishing model back in July of 2007 and the response from then editor in chief Jackie Leo.

Warning: There are pictures of naked men and women on the covers of magazines shown in this blog, so please proceed or leave at our risk.

Common sense will dedicate that you expect to see naked women on the covers of Playboy and Penthouse, but you do not expect to see them on the covers of Wallpaper and Vogue? Right? Well I said common sense, something we do not have to have much of lately. Shocking sense is more of the trend rather than the common one. While Playboy and Penthouse are taming their covers, other magazines are going to the extreme with naked models sans some tattoos or strategically located objects or other body parts to hide the complete nudity. Call me a skeptic, but maybe, and this is a big maybe, this is some smart magazines’ editors answer to make sure that they have no ads on the cover, thus making the folks at the American Society of Magazine Editors happy. I guess their thinking is that if the models are naked than the editors do not have to identify all the fashion, makeup, etc. that the models wear and advertise and is always disguised as part of the total package, thus running a foul with ASME!
In the last few months I have noticed that my subscription copies of some magazines are arriving with a cover mount that is nothing but an ad. Rolling Stone few months back did that and now my most recent issue of Playboy covered with a New AXE Instinct ad. You can barely (no pun indented) see the word promotion on top of the name of the magazine, but you can easily see the famous trademarked bunny on the cover as part of the ad and an invite to “uncover…” Unlike Playboy, my recent issue of Wallpaper came with no warning, and not one but two naked women on the cover. Now, I am not a purist and I think that I have seen it all, but for a design, interiors, fashion, art and lifestyle magazine to have naked women on their cover is, at least to me, stretching the word “interiors” a little bit too much. (Of course the naked women cover is a limited edition rewarding those of us who subscribed to the magazine as opposed to the single copy buyers; so do not rush to the nearest newsstand since you will not find that copy there).
And what about the recent issue of GQ and the news that the folks in Chicago are treating it as porn and covering it as they do with Hustler and other magazines? I wonder if they did the same with Esquire, British Vogue, Rolling Stone hot issue, ELLE, Vanity Fair May issue, the British Attitude magazine and the new adult erotic magazine Jacques. Take a look and judge for yourself. Are naked covers the best way to avoid ads on the covers? Who knows? I know one thing for sure, they get more publicity and sales than those with ads on the covers… so maybe going a la natural will be the answer for putting no ads on the covers!

Here is a look at a future newsstand opening soon near your home or apartment building. It is no bigger than any of the food carts you see in New York City, yet it provides you with more options than the largest newsstands in existence today. You want the same day The Guardian from the UK, no problem! Le Figaro from France, no big deal! You wish to have a copy of your paper from the Middle East, Japan, China, no problem.

The à la Carte newsstand will print your desired newspaper during the time you are searching for your change to pay for it. Imagine a 100% sale through, no returns and no waste. This is not a figment of my imagination; all what you need is a digital printer and a finisher (at a cost of less than $10,000). I have one in my office and I print my newspaper from Lebanon on it every morning. The print and paper qualities are in fact better than the mass printed copy.

While this futuristic scenario is not available in your neighborhood yet, NewspaperDirect company is now offering ” your favorite newspaper anywhere in the world on the date of publication! Through the innovative technology of the NewspaperDirect global digital network, same-day editions of internationally-recognized newspapers are available in print and onscreen in their original layout.” You can choose from over 1040 newspapers from 85 countries in 41 languages “in over 100 countries through a global network of distributors, the newspaper Print-on-Demand service is suitable for individual subscribers, retail outlets, hotels, cruise ships, airlines, corporate offices, libraries, educational institutions, events and private yachts.”

I asked Susanne MacKillop, director of global business development at NewspaperDirect about this innovative print on demand venture and why people still want a printed edition when the digital one is available for them. Click on the picture above to hear her answers.

What about magazines, you may ask? Well, Mag Cloud is doing that too… check it here.

The Mr. Magazine™ Interview
A publisher, a story–teller and an editorial director, Bryan Welch wears more than one hat at Ogden Publications, Inc. He oversees Mother Earth News, Natural Home, Utne Reader and Grit magazines among many others. He has been called an eco-pioneer and has been interviewed by various media outlets seeking his advice and insights on independent magazine publishing, circulation driven publications and all things “green.”
I had the opportunity to interview Mr. Welch for The Mr. Magazine™ Interview earlier this week. His advice was great, his insights were splendid and his views on all things green can’t be any brighter.

What follows are my 11 take-away sounds bites from the interview followed by a healthy dose of questions and answers:

These are very good times…
Print’s biggest problem is not environmental
I see a world of very specialized media created on one a time basis
The current advertising driven business model is not dead yet
The internet brings us all these great tools
Online has been a powerful asset in improving the quality of our print product
Our newsstands numbers are up dramatically
I got into this business because I like to tell stories
Here is my solution for the newspaper problems: give free Kindles with two years subs
We don’t think about the audience as being one age or the other
Be in the business of making the strongest attachment to the audience

Samir Husni: Is it the best of times or the worst of times for the media business?

Bryan Welch: Well, I think actually, these are among the best of times for circulation independent driven magazines. Certainly, in my career, things have never been better for circ driven magazines, so than they are today, largely because the internet just gives them much superior tools for aggregating audiences and for reaching out specifically to niche audiences…to people with a very high affinity for our content. Um, the internet is perfect for that. And so, among my peers, among independent publishers in general, you know, most of the people I talk to are having good success in audience aggregation these days. If they’re able to drive positive cash flows from the audience, then their business model is expanding…their potential is expanding. And these are very good times.

SH: I know you are an advocate and big speaker for green and anything that has to do with green. You’ve been in so many different conferences…many interviews you have given…yet we hear from the critics that a lot about we are wasting the environment, the dead trees, and digital is the future and what’s your take on the future of print as we know it?

BW: Well, print’s biggest problem is not environmental. I ask environmentalists when they raise this issue to consider the differences between virtually any activity one could engage in and the act of sitting in natural light or under a single reading light and reading a book or magazine and then take into account the environmental footprint of journeying to the nearest Starbucks and consuming a latte and look at the gallons, you know more than 50 gallons of water is consumed, whatever your transportation costs are, etc. …Reading is a very, has a very low environmental impact. It’s a very positive, in general, it’s a very benign act, and people still prefer reading many media in the print form. I would, I argue, I believe strongly that the existence of print overall has a positive impact on the environment by distracting people from activities that require running around in automobiles or in busses or on trains that require you know going out to restaurants, that require going out to bars…there’s a long list of things. So, I argue in favor of whatever we can do to improve the environment and create a more sustainable presence on the planet. But I don’t buy the argument that print is somehow one of the great demons in this conversation

SH: Ok, so you see then there will be more print publications? Less print publications? I mean, how do you see the shift taking place? I know nobody can forecast the future, but if you have the magic ball, and you are looking to the next five to ten years from now…

BW: I think there will be many more print publications, but they will be distributed in much more efficient ways. I believe that, uh, magazines will improve the efficiency of their distributions through various channels so that, you know, they can effectively be printed on demand so people can order print publications one at a time. I think the Mag Cloud program that Hewlett Packard is putting together, which I know you are very familiar with, is a harbinger of things to come. I guess I see a world in which there can be very, very specialized print media created on a one at a time basis…created on demand…so that we are not printing magazines that no one ever sees, as we do today. Which, you know, is inefficient and on the whole kind of destructive.

SH: Do you think that the business model that currently exists, ie the advertising driven model, for the majority of the magazines is dead, and there is no way it is going to be revived?

BW: No, I don’t think it’s dead yet, but I think it is on the descendant, and I think that the circulation driven or the audience driven model is on the ascendant among periodical publishers in general. I don’t think it’s possible to accurately predict the speed of the descent or the ascent, but I believe both of those trends are underway. I think we’ll see a short term rebound in print advertising for magazines in the near future. But I don’t think the print advertising market on the whole is destined for long term recovery. And I think it’s in the descendant, so I hate to be so meticulous in my answer. I’d love to make a more declarative statement, but I think all that can be said at this point is that indiscriminant mass market print advertising is in the long term going to decline, and more and more advertising is going to be on demand as well as the print products themselves. What I believe is that really successful advertising in the future will have to be so ingenious, provocative, and well-targeted that people will in fact request to see ads from advertisers in whose products they are interested.

SH: All your magazines seem to have one theme in common: a sense of community. They are all down to earth. How do you see the impact of the internet, the impact of the social networks on this sense of community that you find in your magazines? Is it being affected? Is it being complemented? What are you doing to enhance that sense of community that your magazines are known for?

Well, the internet brings us all these great tools, as I was saying earlier. We aren’t nearly as good at social networking as we need to be, and it’s a primary focus for us these days. But just imagine when we can monitor media and stimulate wide ranging conversations among hundreds of thousands of people on topics that we’ve covered historically. That strengthens our brand, that strengthens our role, and strengthens our databases in a really profound way. Our belief is that in a few years, the core of our business will be driven by databases of tens of millions of e-mail addresses and that we’ll have very detailed information attached to each of those addresses about the owner of the address….what they love, what they buy, what they reached out for, what do they read about, where have they gone, how communicative are they, etc. etc. And we’ll be able to build those databases into profoundly powerful businesses that are on some levels very much like our business is today, which is a business driven by our engagement with an audience, except that the media will include absolutely everything, every kind of medium that can be delivered to or can facilitate a conversation with a given audience…as many media as there already are. So what are we doing today? Well, certainly we are distributing our content in many many more ways than we ever have in the past. We have eBooks and eNewsletters and dvd’s and cd’s and video, video both online and distributed on disk. We have blogs and tweets, our own Twitter persona. We have Facebook pages and pages on other networking sites. We have alliances with social networking sites that are topic specific and they utilize us to enhance their content, so we’re distributing to other people’s networking sites as well as trying to build our own. The fact is we used to have one way of connecting to our audiences…building relationships with our readers, and that was by creating a magazine that was loved. Today we have dozens of ways of connecting with audiences by distributing our content in all of these new ways, and that’s a big step forward for people who are in the business of aggregating audiences and distributing content.

SH: How do you improve and innovate your print products? Are you using any innovation techniques to enhance your printed products?

BW: Well, I think we are. I know for us, the engagement of editorial advisory boards which are made up of any reader who wishes to register online has been a powerful asset in improving our, the quality of the print products so that our covers of Mother Earth News look nothing like they looked 5 years ago. And they’ve, you know, we’ve sort of hit a sweet spot now so that they tend to look very much the same…issue in and issue out, which as an editor vaguely irritates me. Seems to take some of the creativity out of it, except that they sell like hotcakes. And our newsstand numbers are up dramatically. And in Mother Earth’s case, I think it’s largely thanks to the feedback we were able to get on the covers themselves. Historically, as we all know, editors created covers largely by the seat of their pants. I mean, the few research tools we had were primitive at best, and every editor felt like he or she really understood what the audience wanted to see and that was the end of that conversation. One way in which we could enhance the whole product is by seeking more feedback on the print product. We’ve started doing both before and after surveys of subject matter for every magazine so that we ask people before we publish the issue which of these topics do you find most interesting? And then we ask them the same question after they’ve seen the magazine to see where we’ve gone astray in how we crafted or presented specific stories. We’re looking for variation between the before question and the after question…to see where we haven’t presented or executed properly. And learning a great deal from that process. It’s letting us know as we’ve never been able to tell before when it’s not, we’ve never been able to sort out before whether a story was unpopular because of the subject matter or because of how it’s treated. And now we have tools at our disposal to do that. So I think this probably is infinite horizon for improvement of the print product. Have I discovered any silver bullets in terms of, you know, a new design for a table of contents or some damn thing or another that would create, you know, a huge popularity increases for the magazine? No, I don’t know that there are any, as I say, silver bullets…no miracle drug for the print products, but steady ongoing feedback loop with the audience is a, boy, that’s a fantastic improvement in the way that we craft magazines and I’m surprised that not every publisher out there is taking advantage of it.

SH: I’m surprised you’re surprised.

BW: Good point.

SH: What makes Bryan get out of bed and say “wow, you know, I’m in this great business, I love what I’m doing, it’s a great day. Or is it oh God, I have to go on, working in this business, when all the media pundits are saying we are on the way out, we are dying? What makes you tick every morning?

BW: By nature, I’m a story teller. I got into the media business because I really like telling stories. Story tellers, entertainers, people who do what we do out of natural passion love connecting with the audience, love connecting with bigger audiences more than connecting with smaller audiences…love building the audience for the information that we distribute for the stories we tell. And so I’m as enthusiastic today as I was on the first day I ever did this for a living. The first time I ever wrote a story and somebody paid me money for it, I thought I’d gone to heaven. I couldn’t believe it was possible to have that much fun and have somebody pay you for it at the same time. And I, more or less, have the same sense of wonder, amazement, and gratitude today that I had then. I’ve got so many great new ways of communicating. I’ll tell you one thing that relates to this. I hear all the time from publishers that I cannot get the editors to develop the websites to work online like they should, and the one thing that I try to say, every time I get a chance, is give your editors access to the metrics, get your editors into Google metrics or whatever you’re using and let them watch where people are going and how many of them are going and the editor will become the most passionate advocate in your organization for development of the digital media as soon as they see those people coming into our environment and reading our work. It’s thrilling.

SH: As you know I am in the process of establishing the Magazine Innovation Center with the goal to amplify the future of print. So, I am looking for both the future of magazines and the future of newspapers. Do you think people are still willing to wait to the next morning to read the news in their paper and what do you think is the future of newspapers?

BW: It’s just not the most efficient way to deliver news, the newspapers future is not pleasurable. There isn’t a future for the daily newspaper except in this respect, and this blows my mind. I mean, the fact that no one has done this yet boggles my mind…why aren’t newspapers offering free Kindles with two- year subscriptions, digital subscriptions. In this competitive business, surely they can acquire them somewhere between $150 and $200 on a wholesale basis. Then they go out and advertise “buy a two- year subscription at the regular price and we’ll give you a free $350 device on which you can read anything and everything. Own this big library and all its benefits, we’re going to give it to you free with a two year subscription”. The newspapers cash flow would be increased exponentially from that subscription, because they would not be delivering that expensive daily newspaper and they’d be building audiences in the digital realm, which they would need to do. And two years from now, when that subscription runs out, there’d be some other device, some better device available, and they can renew people on the same basis. And I can’t fathom why no one is doing that. In doing so they will be locking people in to a set of behaviors, locking a new generation into a set of behaviors that gives the newspaper a franchise, an ongoing franchise. I think it seems very natural to me.

SH: You mention the word “new generation” , and when I look at the magazines that you all publish, what are you doing to bring in the new generation?

BW: Well, you know, we’re trying to innovate all the time. We’re trying to move them all in a hipper, younger direction all the time. Some of them are more successful at that than others. You know, I think the reader has built a young audience faster than the others. One important thing to remember, in my opinion, is that advertisers are always seeking out new customers among a younger generation…a generation so young that they’re not very good readers and they’re not contemplative in a way that long-formed journalism needs an audience to be. My wife a few years ago for fun gave me a book full of the minutes from the Missouri Press Association between, I think it was between 1916 and 1928 or something like that…this massive book. And all it was the minutes of the annual meetings of the Missouri Press Association. And I’m flipping through this thing, it’s a wonderful piece of history, and every single year between 1916 and 1928, the subject, one of the major subjects of their annual meeting is why young people don’t read newspapers and what are we going to do? We are going to be run out of business. It’s true to a certain extent that young people just don’t form a bond with a print brand the way that people in their child-bearing years and later do. We try to be as important to our audience as we can possibly be. We try to segment the audience by degrees of passion and not to segment the audience by other criteria. We try not to think about the audience, frankly as being one age or another. We don’t try to push the brand toward one age or another but now if we lose momentum overall, we may look at, whether we’re outmoded. In fact, we’re repositioning a couple of our magazines dramatically this year as we have done regularly over the years to change the design, change the production values, change the content, change whatever we have to do so that we remain relevant and valuable to the audience. Sometimes that means we’re pushing out towards a younger audience, but that’s not the primary motivator. The primary motivator is audience growth by whatever means we need to do that. I think it’s important to make that distinction. The advertisers say, you know, marketers like to say oh we’re looking for the 21-38 year old demographic or whatever. Well, ok, fine, and if we deliver that, fine, and if we don’t, I guess we’re not your medium. But we’re in the business of making the strongest possible attachment with an audience. We’re in the business of being as important as we can possibly be to an audience with a particular interest. And I believe that distraction from that fundamental goal is bad for the magazine and bad for the industry. So, that’s why I tell our marketers: Don’t talk to me about pushing, don’t change a magazine just to appeal to a 24 year old unless it’s going to make your magazine more appealing to the most passionate people in your audience.

SH: Thank you.

The Mr. Magazine™ Interviews are a series of informal questions and answers with industry leaders meant to echo the conversation style in which the interview took place. It is more like telling an oral story using the written word. Enjoy. To read previous interviews click here.

Well, you’ve heard it said before: location, location, location. If you live in New York City or LA, you were lucky enough to get the ELLE June issue with more of Megan Fox’s backside showing, including her tattoo. However if you’ve lived in the rest of these United States of America you have to settle for a traditional frontal shot of her. ELLE magazine did a three way split this month with their cover: the newsstands splitting the above two and the subscribers receiving the same LA and NYC cover sans the color (see below).