Re-Selling Michael Jackson

Just a few months after Barack Obama's newsstand drawing power induced endless (and some unlikely) publishers to put him on the cover and even produce special issues celebrating his election (and, later, his inauguration), now we're clearly in the Michael Jackson magazine era.

Nearly every magazine is finding ways to produce special issues or to slap Jackson's photo on the cover of their regular issues. Samir Husni notes that Time's special edition devoted to Jackson (with a bumped-up cover price) was produced in just 24 hours; Newsweek put the late entertainer and questionable child-supervisor on the cover of its regular edition and also boosted its price. Blogmagazine.com gives a preview of the Time "special commemorative edition."

Of course, had Jackson not died at the same time as actress Farrah Fawcett, then she would be dominating the newsstands these days. At least In Touch Weekly did a quick split cover, featuring both recently deceased celebrities. Competitor People had the better cover photo of Jackson, but it relegated Farrah to a corner box.

Jackson probably will sell better, so in that important way, there are probably few dry eyes in mass magazine publishers' offices these days. Few would be able to resist.

Starlog Withdrawal

Ever since Starlog magazine decided to retire to the powder room to retool its print version, I -- like thousands of other science fiction aficionados -- have been without a monthly print fix from the long-time publisher. (We could take the drug metaphor further, but I'm really not a drug person, so I don't know how.) There is a regularly updated web site, of course, but no print magazine to stick in my bookbag every morning to read on the subway or take to the living room for a relaxing read on the sofa.

True, this isn't a problem as vexing about what to do about the Iranian election problem. But for a blog that is 90-percent focused on magazines and the publishing industry, it's worthy of comment.

For years I have received my shot (okay, one more) of Starlog in the mail, thanks to my subscription. But I still have gone to the bookstore or magazine shops or newsstands (well, we don't really have newsstands here in San Francisco; unlike Manhattan, where I could get just about any magazine from newsstands on zillions of street corners, here there are actual kiosks selling newspapers that sell exactly one paper: The San Francisco Chronicle; it's like a Soviet newsstand, with only one choice) to pick up other magazines and the occasional SF media magazine. Now, when I cruise through a magazine rack looking for magazines, I'm also seeing if there's a replacement for Starlog that might entice me. So far, I'm non-enticed.

This is not just because of pathetic loyalty to the Starlog brand, though long-suffering readers (reader?) of this blog know I've got that. It's that nothing else has that flavor of SF news mixed with affection for the SF fan. No uplifting columns urging fans to pursue their dreams. No acknowledgment of the difficulty of being a dreamer in a world that doesn't much understand dreamers. Instead, at least in the giant-sized British SF mags that dominate the newsstands today, I get the sense from the snarky attitude that the writers and editors are more likely to be the tormentors of a young SF fan than the supporter. But they'll take his or her dollar for the magazine.

Yeah, that's harsh, and I'm sure they're fine people, some of them. But when I pick up a Sci Fi Now or a DeathRay or an SFX, I see three magazines that are so much alike that they're hard to tell apart. To the casual reader at the news rack, they look alike, the tone is the same, and they are UK-focused, not US-focused. So I buy one or two a year, but none of them is a candidate for replacing Starlog as my regular SF print magazine.

Lack of originality is nothing new in the science fiction publishing genre. Back in the prehistoric 1970s, when Starlog started, an early competitor was Fantastic Films, published in the Chicago area. It was painfully Starlog-focused, yet they had none of the editorial magic (nor quality) that made Starlog a must-buy, making Fantastic Films a sometimes-buy. Like Playboy-wannabe Gallery's early years, the aping was sometimes so obvious it made one wonder whether the missing ingredient was a lack of funds or talent. (After Fantastic Films expired in the mid-1980s, the same publisher created FilmFax, which was its own animal and which, I'm pleased to say, continues to this day.) Others during Starlog's run -- Sci Fi Universe, Cinescape, Sci Fi Entertainment, etc. -- also lacked originality. Cinefantastique, the pre-existing original in the field, had long before lost its originality and vigor and seemed to rely on higher prices, fewer pages, and annual Star Trek special issues.

If all of that seems unduly harsh, it comes from a desire to see a publisher do something different and of quality. Sadly, most Starlog competitors did not. (I hold a special place in my pantheon of Starlog competitors for the short-lived -- lucky 13 issues -- Questar magazine. It, too, suffered from trying to succeed at a time when Starlog was redefining and dominating the SF media magazine market, but it did do things differently, taking cues from Omni magazine in terms of design and Future Life in terms of art and literature articles, and adding original comics to the mix. A business failure, but an honorable one. I'd have liked to have seen how that magazine wouldhave evolved over another five years.)

Where the hell was I? Oh, yes: It's ... it's ... it's ...

I don't think I'll explain it here just yet. Those long-suffering reader(s) of this blog might be able to piece together where I'd go with this, what type of magazine I think could redefine the SF media genre today, and which I believe could survive in an internet age and a brutal publishing marketplace. But I'm not ready to lay my cards on the table just yet.

But you probably know some of the key words: Global. Big. Quality. Imaginative. Adult. Human.

When Is a Magazine not a Magazine?

Setting aside for the moment all of the blowhard arguments about whether and how print magazines should adapt to the internet, the Wall Street Journal today has an interesting article about magazines that seem just a wee bit un-magaziney. For example: A magazine that comes in a sealed can each month, filled with various objects related to that month's topic. Or T-Post, a "multimedia magazine" that is really a t-shirt that bears a true story on the inside and an artist's interpretation of that story on the outside.

And so on. The Journal's story wasn't necessarily an exhortation for all print magazines to follow those, er, leaders. It was more a report on some fringe artists who are stretching the boundaries of what can be called a magazine.

I won't try to play semanticist here. You can call a Ford Thunderbird a magazine if you want and it won't bother me. And while none of the magazines profiled in the Journal article in the least bit interest me as a potential reader (because, frankly, there doesn't seem to be much to read; it's art, not publishing), I do appreciate their willingness to rethink what can be done on an established model.

In less grandiose ways, smart magazines have long done things that went beyond the expectations of their readers. Anyone remember science fiction magazine Starlog including a pull-out modular kit to build a 3-D structure? British magazines, such as music mag Mojo, throw in lots of extras with magazines, including CDs and books. With magazines I've bought on newsstands or received via subscriptions over the years, I've received trading cards, VHS cassettes (for a British science fiction program, so it won't work on my old VCR), DVDs, posters, maps, blueprints, model kits, little action figures, free copies of other magazines, and of course books and CDs.

In general, these things are included to boost newsstand sales or to keep subscribers loyal. That's not quite the same as reinventing or reimagining the very concept of a magazine. But hey, it enlivens the sometimes mundane cycle of producing or consuming a periodical.

As I said: What Distributors Should Fear

The shift is already happening. I've written here and elsewhere before that I believe the biggest losers in the technological tsunami washing over the periodicals business will be distributors, not publishers. The publishers will still be able to make their magazines and distribute them digitally; the distributors are having their expensive business model fall apart around them. And now I've found a company that's making this shift happen.



It's called MagCloud, and it's a great first step. It's a service used by publishers (many of them small publishers who couldn't even dream of having the capital to publish a print magazine and get it distributed the traditional way) who upload their magazines in PDF format. MagCloud then does a print-on-demand service, printing the magazines and mailing them to readers as requested.

The per-issue cost is high (20 cents per page plus postage, plus whatever income the publisher would like to earn), but other than that, this is exactly what I have been talking about. It actually increases the ability of people to publish, to publish what they want in their own voice and design, and it drastically cuts production costs (which makes me wonder if some small publications that actually do have budgets might be able to take a portion of the money they're saving by not printing and mailing and/or going through the newsstand and use that savings to subsidize the mag's purchase price on MagCloud; they might still come out ahead of where they are now, financially).

Any of you using MagCloud? What are your experiences and feedback?

Magazine News: The Inaugural Issues

With the recent news that the election of Barack Obama helped Time magazine set a newsstand sales record, it should surprise no one that the inauguration of Obama would make even more publishers slap his face on their covers and hope for newsstand magic in these tough economic times. And so it is.

You expect Time and Newsweek to put the president's swearing in ceremony on their covers. But I was surprised to see Giant Robot (a magazine covering Japanese pop culture) do so, less surprised to see lifestyle mags like Life & Style (talk about a perfect monicker) and People (with what I think is the most beautiful cover of the bunch).

Feeling somewhat left out, my own magazine, the serious Commonwealth, also slapped Obama on the cover. But then we don't include stories about celebrity bed-hopping or giant robots (though, I'd love to have the latter). Instead, our cover story is about experts such as scientist Richard Muller, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, diplomat George Mitchell, and many others offering advice to the new president, who has so many items of business to balance (hence the cover image, right?). I hope this makes our newsstand sales go through the roof. :)

I Guess Elections Aren't Bad for Newsstand Sales After All

Time to be snarky: I recently tweaked a magazine distribution data executive who blamed a whopping 22 million copy drop in single copy magazine sales on the election (among other things). I said no, an exciting election (which this definitely was) should boost newsstand sales.
And it did. Folio: reports that Time magazine's Person of the Year issue and its commemorative special edition on the election victory (both featuring a certain White House-bound Chicago White Sox fan, broke the magazine's records for single-copy sales.

So the old line about how a magazine cover can't lose if it features a dog or children? Now add President Obama. (Who, by the way, is buying a dog for his children. Whoever puts that on their cover will be a millionaire!)

The Coffee Table Was too Crowded: Newsstand Sales Dive

MediaWeek reports that single copy newsstand sales of magazines declined from 266 million to 244 million in the third quarter (compared to the same quarter last year).

Writer Lucia Moses quotes Gil Brechtel, president and CEO of publishing data firm MagNet, suggests that the fault lies with higher gas prices, economic problems, and the election, which he thinks took people's attention away from reading magazines.

I'd have to agree with him on the first two, but big news events (especially complex, ongoing ones) don't decrease peoples' appetites for magazines; they increase them, just like the surge in print sales after 9/11. My guess – from a very non-publishing-data-firm background – would be that the election boosted some magazines, so the overall loss of 22 million in copies sold is actually better than it otherwise would have been.

Of course, I'd hate to be right.