Magazine Death Pool

The magazine death tips keep coming in...

The end of the year brings Secret Santa, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, and a lot of dying magazine rumours. With Kirkus Review now down in the cold ground (E&P does not count because it moved from magazine to web a few years ago), it feels like others could be following soon. So let's sit by the fireplace and read these letters, shall we? No names please!

Please remember that these are just letters. We print all confirmations and denials, as you know!

RE: "Casino Player" and "Strictly Slots"

You might want to look into those. Websites down, all numbers constantly busy, no returned emails.

Yes, it does seem the web sites for these two magazines are out of commission. With the news today that 43 Las Vegas casino hotels with rooms for less than $40 a night, these magazines may have rolled their last dice.

MAGNET magazine is on hiatus and they do not know when they will be able to get another print edition out. 

RE: Motorcycle Magazines Near The Edge

Lots of bad news for several of the motorcycle magazines these days.  

Ads are WAY down, newsstand sales are in the dumps and the subscription rates keep dropping. If they get any lower they might pay you to subscribe!

Wonder how long a few of them have to ride?

I’d add a few to your watch list in this order of decline:

Walnecks

Barnett’s Cycle (just dropped from 10 issues a year to 4)

IronWorks

Street Chopper

2 Wheel Tuner

And I’d keep an eye on the once all-powerful Easyriders and V-Twin. They are now combining their circulation and passing it off as “real” to advertisers and not mentioning the blend.

Akin to the niche hot rod and performance car magazines which have been picked off in the past year, these titles are primo targets for El Reaper.

Letter to the Reaper: Donald Trump's publishing history

Dear Grim:

FYI: The evolution of the Trump branded periodicals is as follows:

Trump Style (publisher unknown. In-room book for three Trump AC hotel & casinos)
Trump World (I) (Lockwood Publications)
Trump World (II) (Premier Publishing Group)
Trump magazine (I) (Premier Publishing Group)
Trump magazine (II) (Ocean Drive Media)

That magazine had more lives than Radar!

URB co-founder and publisher Roker says "put the sickle away for a minute"

Dear Reaper,

I know we all have a job to do, but your intrepid reporters could at least do their homework properly. URB should get credit for all 18 of our years (we launched in December of 1990).

Also, despite your findings, we still have a paid staff (less two people) and that includes two paid editors. We also have three people handling marketing projects, promotions and sales. Beyond this, we have a number of partnerships, and alliances that help us spearhead additional activities. And we have a commissioned agency handling our digital sales.

And the battery life of most magazines will be questionable in 2009. Dramatic changes are afoot, you know this. However, regardless of the prospects of the printed URB — something neither you nor I can predict — the brand and its multimedia and experiential activities will continue. This isn't 2005 when the death of a magazine meant the death of the company. Strong brands (we believe we qualify) have made credible inroads into platforms well beyond print. We have and will continue.

Stay positive and put the sickle away for a minute. Our next issue is out in two weeks.

Thanks.

RAYMOND LEON ROKER
co-founder and publisher

Letter to the Reaper: "Kiplinger.com has had an effective digital strategy for quite a while"

Dear "Reaper"
 
I read your comments about Kiplinger's Personal Finance having, "...a poor digital strategy" in yesterday’s Media Life Q&A with Diego Vasquez.  In fact, Kiplinger.com has had an effective digital strategy in place for quite awhile.  Since the last redesign, Kiplinger.com witnessed 188% page view growth and 208% unique visitor growth. On top of our audience growth we increased revenue by 403%.  Kiplinger.com currently enjoys 1.5 million unique monthly visitors.  

Today Kiplinger.com provides a rich interactive experience highlighting Kiplinger's editorial excellence in personal finance and business forecasting. As confirmation, Kiplinger.com received the following accolades in 2008:

•        2008 EPpy Awards Winner: Best Business Web Site with fewer than 1 million unique monthly visitors – Business Resource Center
•        2008 EPpy Awards Finalist: Best National Magazine-Affiliated Web Site
•        2008 Webby Awards Official Honoree: Financial Services

If you'd like learn more, feel free to contact me at sstesney@kiplinger.com.
 
Best,
 
Steve Stesney
Online Business Manager
The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc.

Letters to the Reaper: "Why be such a hater?"

Hey Grim,

 

I recently came across your blog, have to admit I've become both obsessed and intrigued.  Your insights are constantly on target and you appear to have quite the impressive insider information... Are you still in the industry?  I have to ask, why be such a hater?

 

Although I love magazines... I understand and accept the uphill battles the print world has been facing.  Yes, while I do think some pubs shelf life will be cut short soon (O at Home, Life and Style, US News/World Report, Town & Country to name a few...) I also feel some publications are doing an excellent job adjusting to the tough climate by leveraging their equity and consumer loyalty.  Several books are proactively expanding the print product to other touchpoints to help generate revenue and stay relevant: improving their websites, podcasts, broadcast integrations, sirius satellite stations, licensing their name for retail endorsements, clothing lines, nightclubs/restaurants, event marketing, etc.  Magazines are brands, a trusted source of information that a consumer specifically chooses to have in his/her life.  Of course I agree it's not all about buying a page in a magazine, those outdated business models will die quickly... but the smart media teams and publishing houses that can create customized, integrated solutions... those books aren't going anywhere.

 

Additionally, although we all love knowing the inside juice on which pubs are about to bite the dust... people are losing their jobs, a lot of them.  With so many of our respected colleagues out of work right now, just think a little more sensitivity would be appreciated.

 

Keep up the great work,

Print Nerd

Letter to the Reaper: Request from FPO Magazine

Dear Grim Reaper,

I was reading Magazine Death Pool this morning, and it spurred me to contact you about our upcoming TIPS issue. 

Here at FPO Magazine, the quarterly publication for magazine creatives, we're working on issue  #4: “Magazines from A to Z,” an issue-length “grazing section.” And we could use your help. Below is a working list of categories we plan to include, and we hope you and your readers will help us fill them. Please post this on your blog so the message gets out to as many people as possible. Every contributor whose tip(s) is published will receive attribution, a link on the FPO website and a “Get Creative” tee (so include your size with your submission!).

Words We Never Want to See Again
Top Ten Typefaces
Top Ten Overused Typefaces
Great Websites
Big Ideas, Small Publishers
Favorite Magazine
New Typefaces
Great Magazine Covers
Grammarcheck (funny faux pas)
Best New (and Old) Books (on writing, editing or design)
Magazine Launches
Other People’s Lists
My Favorite Spreads
Illustrator Spotlight (illustrators you like)
Program Tips (software)
Free Stuff
Type Tips
Design Tips
Editing Tips
Magazine Comebacks
Top 10 Cliché Headlines

Share your tips at www.fpomagazine.com/readertips, or email them directly to me at mckeithen@fpomagazine.com.

Thanks! We look forward to hearing from you!

Nancy

Nancy McKeithen
Associate Editor, FPO Magazine
mckeithen@fpomagazine.com

Letter to the Reaper

I find your website to be of great interest and your insights into the magazine business invaluable.  However, as someone who has always subscribed to too many magazines, I am somewhat put off by your tone.  You often seem to be a little too happy to report on the demise, or more often, the pending demise of one periodical or another.   Did you have a bad experience in the magazine publishing world?

 

I have to admit to being split on the entire subject.   I am amazed and confounded by the number of titles on display at the bookstore - and would not miss 90% of them if they disappeared, except for the simple pleasure of seeing that much variety available.   If all the golf, and travel, and craft, and guns, and wrestling (etc) mags were to disappear, that would be OK with me.   Of course, if the New Yorker or Scientific American (or even EW) died, I would feel badly.   Hell, I still mourn the loss of Saturday Review and Civilization.

 

Of course, you have figured out by now that I am an old timer, who loved the days when every decent sized city had at least two dailies, and the news was not reduced to bloggers quoting each other.    

 

Despite my qualms about celebrating the death of almost anything in print, I do enjoy your posts.   I hope that the difficult environment for print favors the publications of quality.   Of course,  I have little hope that will be the case.   But, then again, didn't you report that US was in trouble.   I had thought that might be the last magazine in print.

Jim M.

Letter to the Reaper: Is American Heritage really trying to increase its circulation?

Dear Reaper:

I was thrilled to hear about the re-launch of American Heritage, a magazine I always loved to read and long wished to write for.

So with a story in the works that would be perfect to pitch, I cruised over to their site and checked out their writer's guidelines...only to find a stiff, tersley worded two-page PDF file that, among other things, asks writers to use footnotes and annotations, like on those papers you had to write in school twenty years ago.

Now I ask you, is a magazine that's editorial policy clings to academic-journal standards really a serious candidate for increased circulation outside of people seeking their master's degree in American studies.

If you are going to re-launch, try re-launching in a way that doesn't look backward.

Dear Reaper, please don't shut Business 2.0

Dear Reaper:

Please don't come and swing that sharp thing in your hands at Business 2.0. Yes, I know you predicted it would be a goner soon because the ads are not coming in and Time Inc. is on the ropes these days.

We've even formed a Facebook group so we can pretend we're the fans of that show "Jericho" and  save our beloved magazine from the ax. 

Search me why readers love this magazine and are so passionate about it and circulation is very respectable and unusually steady, but advertisers are smitten with web campaigns. Reaper, if you have the loyal readers in big numbers, why don't the advertisers just wake up when you've got this kind of committed audience?

So I know you've been looming outside the Time-Life Building lately, but do you think you can take your swing at something else here, like Entertainment Tonight, those guys don't have many ads either, or maybe Cottage Living (who wants to read a magazine about living in a cottage anyway?).

Letters to The Reaper: "Memories" magazine DID catch on

Mr. Reaper--

I take issue with your assertion that Memories magazine, of
 which I was editor, never caught on. On the contrary, our circulation
 growth was extraordinary. After only 13 issues, we had reached 600,000
 paid subscriptions, and we went from six times a year to 12 only a
 month before the French owners of Hachette pulled the plug. Why, then, did
 they kill it? Because Diamandis Communications Incorporated (DCI), the
 magazine company they had purchased a couple of years before, was way
 off its projected revenues, largely because of the recession of 1989,
 which hit DCI's flagship publication, Woman's Day, particularly hard.
 Road and Track and Car and Driver were also hard hit, so much so that
 I was told that Hachette (DCI's new name) had to renegotiate the note with the bank that
 had initially financed the purchase. Though not yet profitable, at the
 time of its death Memories was in fact nearly a million dollars ahead of
 where it was projected to be. But Hachette did not have the estimated
 $5 million needed to get it the rest of the way to profitability. As for
 the syndicated TV series, Memories, to which you allude, it premiered
 a week or two after Hachette announced they were suspending
 publication. By the time it hit the airwaves, Memories was itself a memory.

Carey Winfrey
Smithsonian Magazine
Washington, DC