David Granger Has Seen the Promised Land of Print and Digital Partnership

The January/February issue of Publishing Executive magazine includes an interesting guest column by Esquire magazine editor David Granger. Longtime readers of this blog – or new readers who just have a lot of time on their hands to read all of my old posts on Esquire in general or David Granger in particular – know that I both respect and am impatient with the long-serving celebrated editor of Esquire. On the one hand, he really gets it on why print is important and what it does better than anything else. On the other hand, I think he produces a magazine that underperforms in terms of its writing and intellectual quality and gets sidetracked with silly gimmicks. It's Esquire, after all; it's hard to get an American magazine with a better pedigree than that. But the mag is filled with articles written for people who are hipper than they are bright, smirkier than they are stylish.

But whether or not you agree with me, I think he's someone to whom you should pay attention if you're interested in the dramatically evolving world of periodicals publishing. In his PubExec column, Granger enthuses about the growing "entanglement" between all of a publication's media: print, web site, tablet computer.

[W]e're taking advantage of the Web's awesome disseminative power to broadcast a daily version of Esquire to the widest possible audience and then to entice a significant percentage of that audience to pay for the print and iPad Esquire experiences. Simply, subs sold on the Web are cheaper to acquire, and you can charge more for them. The iPad and other e-readers promise a whole new distribution matrix that will build on this foundation and let consumers carry more of the revenue load. Beautiful. 

And, of course, as this happens, we will get to pour more resources into doing even crazier, more expansive magazine/Web/iPad projects that will make everyone want our products more and make them more valuable to advertisers.

I think Granger's on the correct general path toward finding how different media forms work together, and helping to end the fundamentalist fight between people who just hate print or just resent the internet.

I've received the occasional request from readers of my issue-by-issue chronicle of the late science-fiction film magazine Starlog for directions on where they can find digital copies of that magazine. Each time, I reply that the former publisher of the magazine had at one time promised to release a digital archive of the magazine, but it hasn't appeared yet. Any digital copies you find online are illegal, and I can't support them.

Despite my responses and despite the lack of a legal digital copy available, it's not too hard online to find people who have scanned print articles or even entire magazines and posted them to their blogs or web sites. Think of it as media convergence, rebel-style.

The image above that accompanies this post is of a cover of Esquire magazine, but it's not the American edition, despite my discussing the editor of the U.S. edition. The above image of the South Korean edition of Esquire is from a screen grab of a web page that I came across doing a simple Google Images search for "Esquire 2011" – and it's apparently a site where you can illegally download digital copies of a wide variety of magazines (from the looks of the featured magazines on the site's home page, they specialize in soft-core porn magazines, which is an interesting twist on the one print publishing niche that I do agree has no reason to continue existing in a world where nekkid pictures are disseminated much faster and cheaper online). Cut off at the bottom of the image above is the handy download button.

But I'm not sure the publisher of Esquire can or should be too upset about the magazine's unauthorized distribution over the internet. Granted, they don't make any direct money from it, but as Granger notes in praising his magazine's own authorized digital forays, digital offerings can allow the magazine to reach a wider audience, some of whom can be enticed "to pay for the print and iPad Esquire experiences."

The print edition of the U.S. Esquire is not expensive; I believe the price has risen since I entered into a ridiculously cheap multi-year subscription a while ago, but it's still dirt cheap. Esquire is one of those consumer books that makes its money not from circulation but from advertising. I understand that model, though I've been criticized in the past by people who didn't know there was another model. Really, I think publishers should pursue whichever model – or a hybrid of the two – works for them.

And ultimately, that's the angle that interested me the most about Granger's PubExec column. Because, after praising entanglement and silly "augmented reality" gimmicks, he points out that it's not just a one-way street, of print endlessly hemorrhaging advertising and readers to its online "competitors." The two can be symbiotic in numerous ways, including the ability of digital to increase the sales of print subscriptions. "Simply," he says, "subs sold on the Web are cheaper to acquire, and you can charge more for them. "Beautiful," indeed.

Imitation Is the Best Flattery: A Tale of Starlog, Famous Monsters, Playboy, & Esquire

Learn from your elders. That's not a bad idea, and it's an idea I heard long ago from a magazine and newspaper editor to whom I may or may not be closely related.

What it means in practice in the publishing arena is to not be afraid to see what works in other publications and adapt those ideas to your publication.

This did not become clear to me until I visited a little bookstore in San Francisco called Kayo Books, which focuses on (and sort of fetishizes) the 1950s and '60s. I saw some inexpensive copies of '50s-era Playboy magazines, and I bought some.

It was fascinating to see the early years of a magazine that became a behemoth of the periodicals industry (and several other industries). Reading the editorials and subscription ads and the text that referenced its readership made it very clear that the magazine had pretensions -- pretentions it had not yet met; but issue after issue, it improved and got closer to that manufactured self-image.

In short, Playboy was aping Esquire in many ways, even while it was clearly going beyond and above it in terms of quality and success. Playboy has a long history of award-winning and stunning cover treatments, but it was only when I saw those early issues of Playboy and then -- wow -- saw contemporary issues of Esquire that I realized that Playboy's (and, by that, I assume I mean Hugh Hefner, the former Esquire employee who started his magazine after being denied a raise; but it might also include his art staff) view of its audience and itself owed an immense debt to Esquire.

It's not just the cover designs that were clearly done with an eye to the market leader. Those '50s issues of Playboy were almost painfully earnest in their attempt to reach the ivy league young professional, the educated "gentleman" (oh, if only either magazine tried to reach educated gentlement today, the world would be a better place) seeking to learn what it takes to be independent and successful in the post-war world. That was Esquire's market.

I saw something similar when I spent more time looking into Famous Monsters, the Jim Warren-published movie monster magazine that paved the way for such competitors as Fantastic Films, Starlog, Fangoria, and others. Like Playboy, Starlog was known for years as a creative and confident powerhouse in its publishing market. In its first half-dozen years, in addition to its monthly magazine and its many spinoffs, it published poster magazines, best-of collections, LP albums of movie music, high-quality paperback books, photo collections, foreign editions, a children's book by Boris Vallejo, calendars, t-shirts, licensed movie magazines, and more, and would soon launch live conventions. It was a great time to be a science-fiction geek.

But Famous Monsters had done a number of those things first (such as best-of "yearbook" collections, licensed movie mags, and conventions), and that realization has only fairly recently come to me. After all, I was too young to appreciate Famous Monsters; I found it to be juvenile and low-quality; as a 'tweener in the late '70s, early '80s, I much preferred the Starlog approach that inspired me to play with ideas and controversies, and that also gave me lots of color pages and professional-quality features.

But Starlog-partisan that I am, I have to admit now that the magazine would have been radically different had FM not existed. That's not to take anything away from all of the people who worked hard on Starlog -- or, for that matter, on Famous Monsters or Playboy or Esquire. It's just a recognition of when a great title is more an evolution than a revolution.

What interested me about it is that both Playboy and Starlog came to dominate the markets created by the magazines from which they were drawing ideas. And noticing their creative debt to other magazines is both disconcerting and a little endearing.

Playboy borrowed a lot of ideas from Esquire; Starlog borrowed a lot from Famous Monsters. It's not just a matter of taking from what came before. Starlog wasn't stealing very many ideas from Cinefantastique, another pre-existing competitor. Playboy certainly was avoiding the men's adventure mags that also flourished before it came to dominate the market.

And that is the point, and I think the lesson for magazine creators today: Starlog and Playboy borrowed from the leading publications in their fields, not just any publications in their fields, because both Hugh Hefner and Starlog's Norman Jacobs and Kerry O'Quinn had expectations of great success and of leading their respective fields. So why not learn from, and imitate, the best?

Esquire, Enough Already with the Covers

I like actor Daniel Craig, but I do have to blame him, in a way. His September 2006 cover of the American edition of Esquire magazine was the first of what has become a tiresome image/text treatment for the magazine. There, in the center of the cover, stands the handsome Bond actor, with giant text filling up every available space on the cover behind him, even running behind him.

Once, that treatment is nice and bold. Twice, it's too much. But this is now September 2009, and the Esquire that showed up in my mailbox this week features the umpteenth consecutive iteration of this design. Just six such covers are shown in the image above, but check out the (otherwise really nifty) Esquire Cover Archive and see a zillion more from the past three years: almost every single issue.

Esquire was once known for its great covers. I still remember one of my UW-Madison journalism professors dissecting a 1960s-era Esquire cover, pointing out the genius of the design, the text, the actual words used and how they conveyed what the mag thought of its readers and the high level of subject matter inside. I know, it's not the same magazine today. No magazine is the same today as it was 45 years ago, and it's almost always a change for the worse.

But cover design is often the single most enjoyable part of putting together an issue of a magazine. Coming up with the right image and text, trying something new, getting it to reflect (and, let's be frank, oversell) the interior content, eagerly awaiting its appearance on the newsstand so you can smugly note how much it stands out from its competitors. Looking at a good cover is also one of the most enjoyable parts of reading a magazine. So why the heck does Esquire stick with a cover design treatment that makes each issue look so much like the previous issue that newsstand browsers are likely to mistake the new issue for last month's?

There are other, smarter ways to give a magazine a distinctive look on the magazine racks. Let's hope the highly paid staff at Esquire can think up some of them.

24/7 Wall Street to Esquire: Drop Dead

Once upon a time -- well, four years ago, to be exact -- I worked with a woman who had previously worked at Esquire magazine. She noted proudly how that title had come back from a near-death experience the previous decade, when it had gotten dangerously thin and was largely ignored. But she pointed to its resurgence in ad pages (and for all I know in readers, too) in recent years.

It's always nice to see a magazine return to the front lines after being written off by all and sundry. And, though I have my qualms about the current Esquire's direction, it remains a powerful and historic magazine brand, and I wish it many decades of continued life.

But I don't think Douglas A. McIntyre agrees. McIntyre writes on 24/7 Wall Street that Esquire is one of 12 major brands that will disappear. He even calls his article "Twelve Major Brands that Will Disappear."

Many of the other brands are not in publishing: Chrysler, Palm, and he goes really out on a limb and lists AIG. But he does include Architectural Digest and Borders. Borders would be a shame to lose.

But Esquire? Frankly, I don't know what Hearst will use to decide its live-or-die choices, but killing a 76-year-old magazine because of a once-in-76-years economic collapse doesn't seem smart. And I don't think Hearst got stinking rich by being stupid. At the very least, wouldn't they sell the brand? Go online-only?

McIntyre notes the magazine's more than 25 percent drop in ad pages early this year, but that's actually not out of line from recent industry-wide numbers. If he's picked up a copy of Esquire's competitors such as GQ or Playboy recently, he's noticed that they're a lot thinner, too. And the "lad magazine" competitors aren't in much better shape, those that are still around. It's called the Great Recession for a reason.

Will Esquire die? Unlikely. Will Douglas McIntyre think of a meatier subject to write about for his next article? Hopefully.

National Magazine Ellie Award Finalists Announced

Alas, once again, I've been overlooked for an Ellie award from the MPA. But for those lucky potential winners (i.e., you have "the" and "new" and "yorker" in your title), it's a heady time of the season. Nominated! Again! Like Meryl Streep at the Academy Awards, the Conde Nast people might still be let down in the end.

Or not.

Anyway, here's the list of the 2010 National Magazine Award (aka Ellie's) finalists, courtesy of the MPA:

General Excellence, Print
Under 100,000 Circulation: Aperture; Architect: Military History; The Paris Review; San Francisco

100,000 to 250,000 Circulation: Foreign Policy; Garden & Gun; Martha Stewart Weddings; Mother Jones; Paste

250,000 to 500,000 Circulation: The Atlantic; Audubon; New York; Texas Monthly; W

500,000 to 1 Million Circulation: The Economist; Esquire; Food Network Magazine; GQ; Wired

1 million to 2 Million Circulation: Field & Stream; Men’s Health; The New Yorker; Teen Vogue; More

Over 2 Million Circulation: ESPN The Magazine; National Geographic; Real Simple; Sports Illustrated; Time

Design, Print
Esquire; GQ; Martha Stewart Living; New York; Wired

Photography, Print
GQ; National Geographic; The New York Times Magazine; Vanity Fair; Vogue

Photojournalism
Foreign Policy; National Geographic (2); New York; Virginia Quarterly Review

Photo Portfolio
National Geographic; New York; The New Yorker; Out; W

Single-Topic Issue
ESPN The Magazine; New York; The New Yorker; W; Wired

Magazine Section
Esquire; GQ (2); New York; Wired

Personal Service
5280; Men’s Health; New York; Parents; Wired

Leisure Interests
Esquire; Field & Stream; New York; Texas Monthly (2)

Public Interest
The Boston Review; National Geographic; The New Yorker; San Francisco; Technology Review

Reporting
The Boston Globe Magazine; The New York Times Magazine; The New Yorker (2); Vanity Fair

Feature Writing
Esquire; The New York Times Magazine; Texas Monthly; Vanity Fair; Wired

Profile Writing
Esquire; New York; The New Yorker; Vanity Fair (2)

Essays
National Geographic; The New York Times Magazine (2); Orion; Sports Illustrated

Columns and Commentary
The Atlantic; The Economist; Newsweek; Popular Science; Travel + Leisure

Reviews and Criticism
GQ; Harper’s Magazine; Los Angeles; The New Yorker; Paste

Fiction
The Antioch Review; McSweeney’s Quarterly; The New Yorker (2); Virginia Quarterly Review

Magazine of the Year
The Atlantic; Fast Company; Glamour; Men’s Health; New York

Good luck, folks.

Esquire's #%^*ing "Augmented Reality" issue

Hmmmmm, ... so one of my loves about a good print magazine is that it is a self-contained universe, a worldview designed and written and presented between two covers (well, between four covers, if you're a magazine person). And yet ... alongcomes Esquire, with its December "augmented reality" issue, featuring a vaguely lewd pose of actor Robert Downey Jr. on the cover above a box that reveals who-knows-what under the right conditions.

Samir Husni, aka "Mr. Magazine," found the Esquire experience interesting and useless. I found it, well, completely unfulfilling, because when I finally received my copy of Esquire in the mail, I was first put off by the fact that a mailing label was covering up part of the special box that was supposed to be part of the "augmented reality" gimmick of the issue. I'd heard that you hold up the image to a web camera and something is revealed.

Not quite. Luckily, the idiotic mailing label (which can be placed elsewhere on the cover, you know; it doesn't have to be over the one vision-critical portion of the entire magazine cover) came off without ripping or disfiguring the paper beneath it. But then I was instructed to turn to page 21 of the magazine, where I learned I had to go to a web page and download a zipped file, and then view the cover of the magazine in front of the webcam.

No. I refuse. That's stupid. I mean, bravo, hooray, all that nonsense for a magazine that
is trying new (albeit useless) gimmicks to get attention. But I have to go download some software that I will never use again just to watch what apparently is an ad for the magazine I already hold in my hands?

I give up. How is this better than a normal magazine?

BTW, I have sitting on my desk next to me the June 1940 issue of Esquire (no, I'm not that old; I bought it on eBay, thank you very much). It features absolutely no such gimmicks, but it does feature articles by F. Scott Fitzgerald, examinations of Japanese life, a look at the people around Jack London, and a ton of satire, fashion, comics, and commentary. And much, much more. I hope Esquire -- and all the other magazine editors out there who think they have to trick people into reading their publications -- can come back to earth at some point and realize that people spend time with your magazine if you give them something worthwhile to read.

And you don't have to hold it up to some stupid web camera.

Esquire Splits: New Cover Trick

The February 2009 issue of Esquire magazine features yet another version of that Obama campaign poster we've seen sooo many times already, but they've got a twist: instead of a regular cover, instead of a cover with a fold-out ad on the other side, instead of the (thankfully short-lived trend of) covers that split in the middle, Esquire gives us a cover with a center window that opens to reveal a Discovery Channel ad.
Okay, to be fair, it also opens to reveal some quotes from the articles in this issue, but we all know the reason for it is to give an advertiser a new way to get their ad in front of readers' faces. No crime in that. That's why Hearst and most other periodicals publishers put out magazines.

It will likely only annoy those readers who like to save their magazines; the ad flap on the cover does have a bit of glue to sort of keep it closed again after it's been opened, but the flap will sooner or later fray on edges, become caught on the edges of other objects when the magazine is shelved, or tear off altogether.
For me, it fuels my notion that Esquire is a magazine whose editors are simply sick of putting out a magazine (and it's not a notion without real-world support).
By the way, Esquire is now offering one-year subscriptions for the price of six whole dollars. That's $6 dollars. That's less than the cover cost of two copies of the magazine (cover price $3.99 each). At that subscription rate, the magazine's publishing staff will have to get even more innovative selling ad space to make up the revenue.

Esquire Innovates All Over the Cover

Esquire's printer did not do the magazine or its readers a favor this month, if my subscription copy is anything to judge by. Note the placement of the mailing label in the image above.

I know, I know. Esquire's super-inexpensive in subscription form, so I shouldn't complain. At the rate I'm paying, I can't expect the periodical to arrive sheathed in a plastic bag, like the ones used by many magazines. But to slap the mailing label over the cover subject's head and the magazine's own logo is double damage; it's poor placement, and it's still that super-big mailing label publishers love today, rather than the thin ones of yesteryear.

Maybe it's just another of the magazine's "augmented reality" gimmicks. Maybe it's a sign that even Esquire publisher Hearst is getting sick of seeing Downey on the cover of this magazine. Or maybe they just screwed up.

Esquire to Cut Frequency, Hike Price

It might be late to the cost-cutting party, but Hearst's Esquire magazine has announced that it will follow the path of The Atlantic, Playboy, The Advocate, and so many, many more magazines by combining two issues next year into a "double issue" and raising its cover price.

Fishbowl New York reports that the cover price will rise 30 percent to 4.99 an issue, which, at current rates, is not much less than a full-year's subscription, so subscribe today!

The June and July 2010 issues will be combined into one. As with most of the magazines that've combined issues during this publishing depression, it's possible that Esquire will return to full monthly publication when things improve. After all, anyone remember Esquire Fortnightly, the magazine's short-lived twice-a-month publishing schedule in 1978-1979? Things change.

How Much Is Esquire Worth?

Sometimes you can't give your money away, at least not to magazines.

After picking up the February issue of Esquire because -- like everyone else who picked it up -- I liked the bold Obama cover, I saw the blow-in subscription card that featured an extremely inexpensive offer. One year (12 issues) of Esquire for six whole dollars. I figured if I buy just two issues of the magazine a year at the cover price of $3.99, the subscription would more than pay for itself. Then I noticed that I could get two years for $11 -- obviously, the math was even better. So I sent in the card, asking them to bill me.

All well and good. This week, then, I received my invoice. As I was preparing to fill out the form and include my check for a measely $11, I noticed a checkbox:

"Double My Savings! Send me an additional 24 issues for just $11.00 more."

Naturally, I figured the math was still on my side, so I was all set to take advantage of 48 issues of this odd little magazine when I saw another option on the invoice: For faster service, it promised, I could pay online, and it gave me the URL.

So I went. But after typing in my credit card info, the next screen did not give me an option to subscribe for 48 issues; I had to settle for just 24.

Now, I still got an incredible deal. I'm not complaining. I'll get each copy at just 45.83 cents. Think about that: The very first issue of the magazine, way back in 1933 (see photo), had a cover price of 50 cents, and that was before decades of inflation. And if I'd gotten four years on my subscription instead of two, the per-copy price would have been exactly the same as the 45.83 cents that I am getting.

But I wouldn't have the out after two years, which I in fact exercised the last time I did a two-year stint as an Esquire subscriber. (I have a love-dislike relationship with the mag.) Even if I had renewed, the mag would still have to pay to send out renewal alerts and reminders.

So why offer one deal on the printed invoice, then not have that deal available on the online payment system to which the invoice directs me?

Chewbacca Carries Esquire

Just proof that the Spanish edition of Esquire has far better covers than the U.S. edition, which is stuck in a multi-year cover design rut.

The above cover is occasioned by a one-page interview inside the magazine with Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew. Yes, a one-page interview got the cover treatment, something few magazines do. But when it allows you to put a Star Wars pic on the cover, I suppose it's irresistible, just as it was irresistible to me to buy this issue, even though I don't read any Spanish. (Well, I can make out "Esquire," "Leia," and "Chewbacca," so I guess I can read some Spanish!).

Media Roundup: John Mayer, Esquire, Gay Capricans, Starlog, & More

The latest in the vast, wild, weird world of media:

• For people looking for signs of life or death of print media  on the newsstands, Folio: interprets the disastrous second half of 2009 as evidence that things will be getting better, not worse.
• The new Syfy Channel series Caprica has gone unwatched in my house, except for the previews and a five-minute taste of the first episode, both of which confirmed in me my disinterest. I would, after all, far rather see a continuation of the incredible Battlestar Galactica series -- arguably one of the best dramatic series on television in the first decade of the 21st century -- than this prequel SF-lite series. Nonetheless, it's their money, their choice. But I was happy to hear from blogger Nick Mattos that Caprica features a gay couple, and it's all done without hype or over-reaction. That was, after all, just what we wanted from Star Trek all those years, but Trek never gave it to us (and I refuse to be happy with the forced allegories of that Enterprise episode, or the sex-shifting metaphors in Star Trek: The Next Generation). Babylon 5 didn't have a problem with having a major gay character. Galactica gave us the lesbian leader of the Pegasus and bridge officer Felix Gaetta. But Trek's given us squat. So, congrats, Caprica. 
• Let me reiterate my belief that one-time science-fiction media powerhouse magazine Starlog is dead, dead, dead. Happy to be proven wrong, but frankly I think this is a market opportunity for someone else. I doubt others will know how to exploit it (though I do), but that's the big leagues for ya. If the UK can produce two monthly science fiction movie magazines with more than 130 pages (SFX and Sci Fi Now), certainly the much-larger United States can do one. Right? 
• If print is dead and Playboy is dead, the print edition of Playboy sure does seem to be getting a lot of press lately for what it's doing. Unfortunately, the talk at the moment is about its interview with idiot-of-the-month John Mayer, someone I'd barely heard about before this hubbub about his allegedly racist (and definitely sexist) remarks in his Playboy Interview in the magazine's March issue (see image). Whatever happened to the interview with Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman we were promised? Why do we keep getting idiots like John Mayor and Sean Combs? Playboy is a much more intelligent magazine -- and is doing some really great work these days -- than these interview subjects would indicate. How about Krugman? How about Robert Reich? Michio Kaku? There's a long list of people who have much more interesting things to say than the know-nothings Playboy Interviews have featured for the past few years, with a few exceptions.  
• Despite my frequent dissing of Esquire magazine on this blog in the past, I must say I've been impressed with a couple of their recent articles, which have risen above their standard snarky and overly attitudinal fare. In the current issue, check out the profile of Chicago movie legend Roger Ebert. And in the previous issue, I was surprised to find myself actually reading several articles, including a quite-good profile of the U.S. secretary of defense. Maybe the economic collapse has focused the minds at the Esquire office on the need to focus on quality writing rather than just cover gimmicks. Or maybe they were flukes. Either way, I'd like to see more of this.
• And, for you comics fans -- and/or you Zac Efron fans -- who read German, here's a report on Efron's upcoming comics film role.
• And, finally, let me complain about Google's blogger interface, which has all on its own added random underlining, reformatting and placing photos, and other ridiculous stuff while I tried to write this short blog post. Much wasted time. Don't they test this stuff? Who do they think they are, Microsoft?

Read my previous Media Roundup.

Media Roundup: Augmented Reality, Playboy's Threads, Magazine Industry Promotions

The latest from the weird world of media:

• Samir Husni experiments with the latest fad to hit magazines that are bored with being magazines: augmented reality. He checks out Colors and Esquire, both of which employ AR in their newest issues. My Esquire hasn't arrived yet in the mail, but until it does, I'm informed by Husni's experience that my previous assumptions that Esquire is being smart PR-wise but dumb content wise were correct. Husni notes, "The result was fun, captivating and useless, all three in one… like eating cotton candy…eating all that hot air that will satisfy your taste buds but will leave you hungry rather than satisfied." Now isn't that what you want people saying about your magazine?
• One Twitterer (nittwit?) commented today, "Playboy may be sold to Iconix Brand Group (London Fog). That will be a sad day. The mag. enterprise could easily be salvaged instead." I tend to agree that the magazine is the important thing -- from the early 1960s through the early 1980s, it was one of the most powerful magazines in the country, socially and politically (and economically). Nonetheless, if Iconix does turn out to be a successful buyer for the company, I don't think that necessarily means the magazine's in trouble, or not more trouble than it's in today. After all, Iconix owns Joe Boxer, London Fog, and a ton of other brands. It must be smart enough to see the magazine as a marketing tool for those brands; an ad page in a magazine purchased by 1.5 million people a month is a great place to get traction. But I think another thing is not being noticed, at least in the United States: Playboy is a clothing brand, as well. It has a string of successful Playboy stores in China, for example. Go to eBay's Chinese or Hong Kong sites and do a search for "playboy." You'll see just how many non-magazine items there are. I continue to think that Iconix could be a good choice; and if it's not that company in the end that is the buyer, it at least shows that Playboy's being pretty smart in choosing its dance partners.
• But wait: There's more! The Los Angeles Times reports that Playboy's also talking with another potential suiter, a group led by the company's former entertainment chief Jim Griffiths. Both deals are estimated to be worth more than $300 million, and both would take the company private. (I never thought Playboy should be a public company, anyway, and it has only gotten more expensive and self-defeating to be a public company in the past decade. Sarbanes Oxley itself is reason enough to go private if you can.) The Times reports, "[Playboy CEO Scott] Flanders said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune that he wanted to grow Playboy by focusing on brand licensing and location-based entertainment, such as nightclubs. That probably would be the plan as well for Iconix, which owns and licenses several well-known brands such as London Fog, Starter and Joe Boxer." More good news, then.
• Enough Playboy news. For those of you train-wreck fans, CBS has put out some excerpts of Sarah Palin's interview with Oprah. Headline news: She doesn't like Levi Johnston, and she admits her interviews with Katie Couric weren't successful.
• And, finally, the cavalry is here. Several magazine bigwigs, including Rolling Stone and Us Weekly's Jann Wenner, Hearst Magazines' Cathie Black, and Time Inc's Ann Moore,  are planning to join together to promote magazines as an industry. Maybe they'll use Augmented Reality. I'm sure Jann Wenner does.
  

(My previous media roundup.)

Media Roundup: Levi Johnston, redux; Creepy wait; Funding Bookstores; Oprah and Ellen

The latest from the worlds of media:

•  Esquire's at it again: Supposedly, there will be 3-D something-or-other on the cover of the December issue of the magazine. I haven't received my subscription copy yet, but I hope it helps sales. That said, when was the last time you read about or heard someone talk about an article they read in Esquire? When was the last time you heard or read about some gimmick in Esquire? I suspect, for most of us, the latter is more recent (and frequent) than the former.
  
• There's been lots of are-they-or-aren't-they and finger-pointing concerning the reported plans to cease publication of long-running gay news magazine The Advocate. Gay blog Towleroad recently reported about a blistering attack on the magazine written by a former Advocate editor, but today the blogger says that the editor didn't mean to be so, well, mean. What's up here? There have also been denials that the magazine's going to be canceled (and turned into a 32-page insert into sister mag Out). Is this just a case of people trying not to burn bridges they might need someday, or is the final decision (and the resulting fallout) not yet final after all?
• The Daily Beast carries an article this morning by Jacob Bernstein on how Playgirl magazine is being reinvented and relaunched one year after it ceased print publication and went online-only. The high-profile figure involved in this is, of course, Levi Johnston, the father of right-wing Republican "author" Sarah Palin's grandchild. As has been reported everywhere, Johnston is going to pose nude for Playgirl. Originally, it was assumed this was going to be an online exercise, but the Beast's Bernstein profiles the man who's helping to bring the magazine back as a print product, though it's not yet decided if it'll be bimonthly or quarterly.
• In one of my earlier roundups, I included a note about how much I liked the new comics-sized version of the (formerly magazine-sized) legendary horror comic Creepy. The first issue really was wonderful, capturing the spirit and the look of the iconic Warren magazine while still updating it and not be too imitative. The release of the second issue of this (sadly only quarterly) comic was announced for October. Now well into November, I checked publisher Dark Horse Comics' web site and see the release date has been set at November 25. Production delay? I don't know the reason. My desire is definitely to see this comic go monthly, but if they're having delays producing it on a quarterly schedule, monthly might not be in the offing.
• United Business Media reported earnings in line with expectations, but it is expected to close more magazines, on top of the 15 it closed earlier this year, reports Folio:. I hope the UBM folks I know are doing okay.
  
• No hard-hitting reporting here (okay, not that my Creepy item will win a Pulitzer), but I enjoyed this post by Starlog editor David McDonnell about feeling required to buy something when you enter a bookstore. As you can tell from my response on that page, I feel much the same, and I'm often pleased with what I end up buying. Other times, I head home and I'm already regretting what I paid for. Do I really need to own a copy of ESPN magazine? Why am I buying the newest issue of Der Spiegel when I haven't even started my previous issue? Alas. It keeps the economy moving! (A side note: Is anyone else bothered that the background of the Starlog web site features images from sister magazine Fangoria, but not Starlog? Mistake? Marketing decision for their recent Las Vegas convention? Who knows?)
• And, finally, one of my favorite TV personalities/comedians, Ellen Degeneres, appears on the December cover of Oprah Winfrey's O magazine. When two TV talk giants combine, you can expect a media publicity overdose, and sure enough, you're getting it. There are video segments covering the photo shoot, reader polls (there are two versions of the cover), and much hooplah.
  

My previous media roundup.

The Esquire Whirl

William J. McGee writes an excellent review of Esquire magazine on MediaPost. He does a good job pointing out the downsides of some of the content (does anyone really need to be told how to be a man?) but also the title's strengths.

Also, Gawker jumped on the Esquire-is-in-trouble bandwagon, passing along supposed inside tips that the magazine was on its last legs and the staff was getting come-to-Jesus talks from corporate and advertisers. But at the bottom of the post, you'll find a number of updates which seem to amount to a "oh, nevermind." Rumor-mongering: live by the sword, die by the sword.

Oh, No, I Agree with David Granger!

In an article on the web site of the magazine industry publication Folio:, Esquire Editor David Granger said: "When I talk to groups I sometimes speak about the days I had when I'd get the new issue of Esquire and go through it and think to myself, ‘F--k, it's still a magazine,'" Granger said in a recent interview with FOLIO:. "What I mean is that the medium is so compelling that I and we should all be able to do more with it. The magazine experience is one of the last remaining opportunities to enter a hermetically-sealed world, an edited experience of our culture created by someone else. And, more importantly, it's an experience that encourages you to stay in it rather than constantly bounce in and out of it."

The first part of that reference is why I can't bear to read Esquire these days. It's clear that its editors are just tired of the magazine format. But as a magazine editor (and reader) who still loves the magazine format, I was impressed with the second part of his comments, in which he said, "The magazine experience is one of the last remaining opportunities to enter a hermetically-sealed world, an edited experience of our culture created by someone else."

Exactly. A good magazine isn't a bulletin board or YouTube. It's a presentation of a worldview (sometimes limited to a narrow subject, such as foreign films or knitting, but sometimes literally surveying the world) done by people who want to present it in a certain way, want it to be experienced in a certain way, and who have reasons for it to be done so. The person putting his or her imprint on that "hermetically-sealed world" might be Hugh Hefner, Kerry O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs, Gloria Steinem, or it might be a group of radical cartoonists in New York or a church society in Minnesota. Whatever. It's their world that they want to present in a way that lets them engage readers in a discussion of what they think is important.

It's why I think magazines are challenged today (because the "everyone's a creator" ethos of the internet undercuts it), and why I think magazines are a valuable tool (because, to steal more of Granger's words, "it's an experience that encourages you to stay in it rather than constantly bounce in and out of it").

I noted it in an earlier posting, but I'll reiterate it: Magazines have a bright future, if they can survive the serious and hazardous technological and market changes of today.

More Esquire China

Continuing my meme from this morning, here's another Chinese edition of Esquire, this time featuring Taiwan's singing/acting star Jay Chou:

SFX Does an Esquire with Its 3-D Cover

UK science-fiction media magazine SFX has slapped a 3-D cover on its current (May 2010, #194) issue. The Doctor Who (oh, they're British, who the hell else would they use?) image shows the doc standing in the foreground, holding out toward the reader a weapon/flashlight/instrument-of-some-kind (I don't know; I don't watch Who).

My first thought upon seeing the cover was that the magazine has pulled an Esquire -- i.e., going in for gimmickry with cover tricks in an attempt to get attention. My second thought was that the main effect of the 3-D imagery is to make the photo less clear and even to make some of the text difficult to read. And my third thought was the same as my first thought.

Still, it's an interesting thing to do, and as 3-D covers go, it's a good one. Best of all: It's nice to read in the editor's note that the magazine's circulation is high and rising. So much for print being dead, eh? Attention Americans: So much for science fiction media magazines being dead, eh?

(Note that this is one issue of the magazine that didn't do a separate run for subscribers without any blurbs on the cover. Apparently, it's one gimmick per cover.)

Why Is Hearst Cover-Text-Crazy?

I recently mocked the venerable Esquire magazine for its repetitive and unimaginative cover designs, which are filled with (usually uninteresting) text.

Today, on a whim, I clicked through the link on Esquire's home page to all of the Hearst subscription offers, and I had one thought: Hearst itself is madly in love with excessive cover text, isn't it? Click on the image above to get a better view.

I remember my mother coming home after her magazine (yeah, it's a family trade) had been critiqued by a design pro. He had praised her magazine for meeting his rule of no more than three cover blurbs. Now, I don't think three cover blurbs is a realistic rule for a newsstand periodical, but you've gotta be able to do better than some of the Hearst titles, right?

Note to Hearst: You pay your writers by the word, not your designers ...

Video Ads in Entertainment Weekly

The news is all over the place, so I'll keep this brief: CBS and Pepsi teamed up for an ad in a small number of Entertainment Weekly copies next month that will feature actual video on the page.

Well, there will be an ultra-thin video player on the page, and it will operate much as those musical greeting cards do, with the video activated when the reader turns to that page.

Last year, Esquire had its "e-ink" text on the cover of its 75th anniversary issue. As a stunt, it was fine, but it really wasn't "e-ink"; it was clearly a thick wafer inserted within the cover, and it served no great or useful purpose. As usual, my suggestion to Esquire is that they focus on improving the editorial product; but at the same time, it's good to see people experiment.

As for this video ad, I have no problem with it whatsoever. It's an ad; it doesn't affect the editorial at all, and it will be interesting to see how it develops if we see more of them. It's very expensive, but if more and more advertisers use it, some magazines will start adapting it to their own use on editorial pages (and covers).