Monthly Archives: February 2012

China: Still waiting for the green light on Christian magazines

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“We sell these in our church!” The enthusiastic response of the bubbly young Chinese woman when asked where she had gotten the Christian t-shirt she sported. She spent over two hours in the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association booth at the Beijing Book Fair, looking at books and talking with the Americans manning the booth. The incident took place over 10 years ago and only a few hours after an encounter with another Christian young woman who, frightened as a young rabbit on the side of a freeway, refused to even set foot in the booth. Standing in the hallway she faced straight ahead as her eyes flicked to the left, where shelves of Bibles and Bible reference materials were displayed. “Especially those,” she said.

Trying to get a handle on…fill in the blank…in China? It’s like trying to grab a hold of a greased pig. You think you have the right foreleg in your grasp and suddenly it’s gone.  “You can say anything about China and it will be true somewhere in China, ” goes the saying. The other side of the coin is that whatever you claim about China will also be false somewhere in China. Nevertheless, there is evidence that despite reports of persecution of Christians in various places, Christian literature is making an inroad in China.

In a January article in Christianity Today titled “Discipling the Dragon: Christian Publishing Finds Success in China” author John W. Kennedy cites “a surge across China in the availability of popular Christian titles by authors Rick Warren, Gary Chapman, and Beth Moore, as well as classic titles by C.S. Lewis and others.”  He says that although statistics on Christian book sales are unreliable, it is evident that more books are available from more sources, recently including on-line booksellers.

Kennedy’s very useful article on Christian publishing did not mention magazines, which are still strictly controlled by the government. Nevertheless, with the growth of huge networks of house churches, the number of Christian magazines, while published “under the radar” is mushrooming. Compared to the densely printed—white space is a waste—black and white approach to underground publishing in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the communist years, some of these Chinese underground publications are peacocks, colorfully illustrated, slick publications. When will Christian magazines be legally available in the same venues as Christian books? When that day comes, watch out! Aspiring Christian magazine publishers are waiting in the wings.

“Discipling the Dragon: Christian Publishing Finds Success in China”   http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/january/publishing-success-china.htm

The Facebook Phenomenon takes India by storm

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India is the second largest user of Facebook after the U.S., according to a blurb on the MTI-in-India Facebook page >www.facebook.com/pages/mti-in-India/134425589967955< quoting statistics announced by Forbes.com. In the last 12 months, the use of Facebook grew exponentially from some 17 million to 43.5 million users. Third is Indonesia, which until this year was the second largest user of Facebook. Fourth largest user is Brazil, whose growth was even more dramatic, as the country’s Facebook population grew from 13.5 million users to 38 million.

What does this mean for magazine publishers? If they are not already on Facebook, they need to get on fast! An enormous and growing population is cruising through Facebook, looking for friends and company’s to “like.”

Someone is looking for your magazine

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So you have an idea for a magazine and you’ve been thinking about it for years, mulling over the pros and cons. Sure, there are lots of cons these days with a struggling economy, news about the demise of well-known magazines, and maybe print is on it’s way out, anyway. Is anyone interested in magazines these days? Is anyone looking for the kind of magazine you’ve been dreaming about? The answer is: Maybe so!

A look at Google’s keyword tool is instructive. Over the last 12 months, the average monthly number of searches for Christian magazines for women totals 8,720. How many people are searching each month for Christian magazines for kids? 6,066. How about Christian magazines in Malayalam, a language spoken by nearly 30 million people in Kerala, a state in south India? I was surprised to find that there were a monthly average of 1,070 searches for Christian magazines in Malayalam.

For the generic term “Christian magazine” there were 40,500 average monthly searches. A lot of people are looking for Christian magazines and maybe some of them—or even a lot of them—are looking for the magazine you’ve been dreaming about. Check it out. Maybe it’s time to get to work on that new magazine.

More good news for magazines

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Magazines in the U.S. are experiencing a resurgence, according to the Evangelical Press Association, quoting a report from Mediafinder.com, a magazine database. Launches of new magazine titles grew in 2011, as did total advertising revenue, notes Doug Trouten, EPA director.

Launches of new magazines grew by nearly 24 percent last year, while the number of magazines going out of business dropped by nearly 14 percent. This is good news for a magazine industry whose demise was widely predicted during the worst years of the recession. Advertising revenues, which fell off sharply in the last few years, turned the corner and began growing again, increasing 2 percent, while ad pages dropped 1 percent.

These statistics cover all publications, and may not reflect reality in the Christian magazine publishing world, which is still struggling to regain its footing after dropping at least a dozen established national publications representing hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

According to Mediafinder.com, the largest single category of new titles were food-related, followed by regional magazines. However, regional magazines was the category with the largest number of closures last year, followed by bridal magazines.

Print magazines—not yet on the endangered list

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Are print magazines lumbering dinosaurs about to be overwhelmed by the Internet tsunami before they can reach the safety of the ark? Not according to leaders of some of the largest magazine groups in America, who joined forces to organize an advertising campaign titled “Magazines: the Power of Print.”

Here are a few of the facts they presented:

* Magazine readership has grown over the last five years, with paid subscriptions reaching nearly 300 million in 2009.

* Four out of five adults read magazines and the average reader spends 43 minutes reading each issue.

* Since Facebook was founded, magazines gained more than one million young adult readers and magazine readership in the 18-34 year group is growing.

It appears that print magazines are not only not on the endangered species list, but are actually flourishing. Will the Internet eventually kill magazines? Probably not. Magazine experts point out that people find room in their lives for new experiences alongside the ones they already love. But in order to continue to thrive magazines must provide value to the subscriber. It’s no longer possible to take the subscriber for granted. And, many magazine publishers have found they can harness the opportunities offered by the Internet to add value to the print publication. In fact, some large publishers are now putting people with primarily digital experience in key positions in the company.

Those of us who have been involved in the print medium for many years may be tempted to see the Internet as competition, while those who grew up with the Internet may be tempted to see print as a dying medium. Yet, magazines that harness the best opportunities offered by both will enjoy more success and be able to offer more value to their constituency.

For a very interesting short video about the “Magazines: The Power of Print” campaign, check this link: http://powerofmagazines.com/