Author Archives: Magazine Training International

Chinese journalists go back to school

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School is now in session for China’s entire official press corps after they were ordered to attend at least two days of Marxist classes last month. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal  more than 300,000 reporters and editors were to sit through classes where they would be reminded to help foster stability and support for the government and to listen to senior leaders in selecting content to publish.

Of course, the official press corps is not the only news outlet in China. The Chinese government may be even more concerned about the popular Weibo microblogging service. Not to be left out of the government re-education campaign, users were ordered to stamp out what the government describes as online rumor-mongering, according to another article in the Wall Street Journal.

An August 28 Wall Street Journal article noted that Reporters Without Borders ranks China as 173 out of 179 counties on the organization’s Press Freedom Index. The 2013 report also called the country the world’s biggest prison for Internet users active on social media, with 70 users currently imprisoned.

For more information:

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/08/28/marxist-school-now-in-session-for-chinese-journalists/?mod=WSJBlog

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/08/26/party-urges-popular-weibo-users-to-think-of-national-interests/?mod=WSJBlog

Young people opt for print

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When students at Penn State decided this summer to start a magazine called Impact, they planned to have both an online and offline presence—that is, a print magazine. “We feel print is really important,” stated co-founder and co-editor Frances Starn. Speaking on the magazine’s Kickstarter video she said “We feel that having people be able to hold the magazine in their hand and see something will help us reach the widest audience possible.”

What? These are college students, the people raised on the Internet, wirelessly connected 24/7. Wouldn’t they prefer to consume content on one of their several devices? Not so, according to a poll released this summer by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. The poll found that 75 percent of young adults aged 16-29 years of age said they have read at least one book in print in the past year, compared with 65 percent of adults 30 and older.

“Younger Americans’ reading habits and library use are still anchored by the printed page,” said Kathryn Zickuhr, a research analyst at Pew Research.  Americans under 30 are just as likely as older adults to visit the library and borrow print books, she said.

Sure, they love their technology, but there’s something about the look and feel of the printed page which they find attractive.

The silver lining in the bad news about magazine publishing

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“Magazines, all kinds of them, don’t work very well in the marketplace anymore.” This startling statement was made earlier this month by David Carr in his Media Equation column in The New York Times. Reflecting the generally negative atmosphere surrounding any discussion of the future of magazines, he went on to say that “like newspapers, magazines have been in a steady slide, but now like newspapers, they seem to have reached the edge of the cliff.” As evidence he pointed to a recent Audit Bureau of Circulations report stating that newsstand circulation in the first half of the year was down almost 10 percent. Advertising is also down 8.8 percent year to date over “the same miserable period a year ago,” according to the Publishers Information Bureau.

Magazine publishing in the United Kingdom has also suffered a series of setbacks, according to Mike King of Companiesandmarkets.com. Moreover, he states that the UK magazine publishing market has been forecast to continue to decline over the next five years. However, he is a little more optimistic than some market observers, predicting an eventual recovery, or at least stabilization, as the UK economy recovers.

In South Africa, some observers are even more optimistic about the future of magazine publishing–with one caveat. “There is a definite downward trend within the magazine publishing industry, both in terms of readership numbers and ad revenue, locally and internationally,” says Tanja Carruthers, editor at Fitness magazine and publisher at Maverick Publishing Corporation. “However, certain niche titles seem to be the exception as consumers become more discretionary with their tighter expendable income.” Her magazine is a case in point. South Africa’s only dedicated female health and fitness magazine has posted its fifth consecutive year of circulation growth.

Carruthers says that instead of consuming more general information, people now prefer to consume content on a specific subject through their preferred media platform. This phenomenon has been evident for decades, appearing as long ago as 1971 with the demise of Look magazine and the introduction of a plethora of new specialized magazines. However, Carruthers predicts this trend of “narrow-casting” to  increase and eventually overtake the older more-general once-venerable publications, which like dinosaurs, will eventually drift into obscurity.

11 Christian magazine professionals from four countries headline Indian training events

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Join the excitement as magazine staff from around the world come together in Bangalore in October to jump start their careers and inject fresh impetus into their magazine ministries. You’ll sit under the teaching of experienced magazine editors, publishers, and designers from the United States, Ukraine, Brazil, and India, and you’ll network with other Christians in magazine publishing from around the world.

Two key training events include a five-day Advanced Magazine Publishing Institute Oct, 8-12 and a four-day  intensive Digital Magazine Publishing Seminar Oct. 14-17. In the Advanced Magazine Publishing Institute you’ll sit in on sessions designed to introduce you to the full spectrum of magazine publishing and you’ll get specialized training in the track of your choice, whether magazine editing, magazine management, or magazine design.  In each track, international teams of three trainers will delve deeper into the secrets of success in magazine publishing, imparting insights, tips, and wisdom gained by years of experience in publishing.

Is the whole area of digital publishing still a mystery to you? Or do you feel like you’ve only scratched the surface of the possibilities digital publishing offers to you and your magazine? Then this very full four-day introduction to digital publishing is for you. Whether you’re considering developing a Web site, an app, a video, or e-reader option, you’ll find the information you need to develop your own digital brand strategy. You’ll learn how to develop a business model for your publication, editorial workflow, and production schedule. Two internationally recognized digital publishing experts will discuss emerging trends in digital models and help you to see how you and your magazine can best take advantage  of the new opportunities in digital publishing.

These two training events specifically for Christian magazine staff will be followed by a workshop on Communicating Through Comics. Although the first two events are open only to people working with a Christian magazine either as a volunteer or staff member, the comics workshop is open to any Christian who would like to use comics as a tool of communication. The workshop will be taught by a team of four trainers from three countries.

For more information about all these programs: http://www.magazinetraining.com/UpcomingConferences/India2012/

Forget dabbling: In Asia, social media is here to stay

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Should Asian magazines find ways to use the unique opportunities offered by social media? Recent statistics suggest it’s not only an option, but a necessity for magazines that want to gain credibility among subscribers and visibility among potential subscribers. Social media is here to stay and it’s a critical source of information and entertainment for millions of users.

According to a recent Burson-Marsteller study, social media usage in the Asia-Pacific region has exploded in recent years, up to 107 percent in South Korea and 12,305 percent in Vietnam. More than half the region’s population is active on line, with Facebook the most popular social network.

With everything else a publisher has to do, it’s difficult to find time to do more than dabble in social media. However, dabbling isn’t going to get us anywhere. It’s time to think beyond simply handling occasional social media interactions. It’s time to develop a strategic plan for your social media outreach.

Use Facebook to interact with subscribers

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Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest are valuable tools for magazines which have discovered the value of interacting with subscribers. But how do you use these platforms effectively? And how do you keep them from draining valuable staff time? The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) has offered some tips developed by Brad Best, RJI’s advertising editor, and a team of Missouri School of Journalism students after weeks of analysis of a major Midwest metro daily newspaper. Here are five tips regarding Facebook.

1. Ask questions as a way of beginning discussion about events or issues. Make sure to link back to an article about the event, in order to drive traffic to your Web site.

2. Use visuals to add interest to the layout of your Facebook page.

3. Integrate new technology and media into your page in order to keep it lively and interesting. Consider posting videos of events, authors, or themes related to an article you want to feature.

4. Find a balance between daily posts and conversations. Too many posts will clog users’ feeds, and readers will begin to unsubscribe.

5. Prompt the visitor to read the Web site article related to the discussion question on Facebook.

Download the full article at http://rjionline.org/news/how-use-email-tool-your-news-site

 

Chinese magazines see new opportunities and challenges

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The secular magazine market in China is booming, according to Chinese publishers interviewed recently by Publishing Executive. Chris Hu, publisher of Elle Decoration and Quentin Lin, editorial director and associate publisher of Elle Men, were interviewed at the Yale Publishing Course in England last week. Both publications cater to the rapidly growing affluent urban population and both finance their magazines with advertising of luxury items. The advertising income is essential, they say, because glossy magazines cannot make money selling magazines on the newsstand.

Another challenge is distribution.  China is a large country spread across five time zones, and the 21 provinces have varying policies for periodical distribution, ranging from newsstands to the post office to state-owned stores, making it impossible to establish a unified distribution policy.

But one of the biggest problems is the gap between the rich and the poor and rural areas and cites. This requires different marketing strategies in different places.

Nevertheless, some magazines have managed to overcome at least some of the obstacles to grow exponentially. According to a China Daily report, Men’s magazines, a relatively new entry in the Chinese media market, have enjoyed an annual growth of 30 percent since 2006.

Social media may have been a factor in this growth. There are more than 500 million Internet users in China and according to a Chinese government report over half are on a social network. China’s microblog, Weibo, is an important tool for magazines, says Lin, and publishers are making increasing use of social media.

Work as a journalist in China, however, is not without its dangers. Two senior newspaper executives in Shanghai were recently removed from their positions, presumably because of incautious reporting on sensitive issues.

The 10 biggest digital magazine mistakes

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So you’ve launched a digital magazine or you’ve created a digital twin for your print magazine. Congratulations! Now take this 10 point checkup to see how you’re doing. In a blog published by Unbound Media, Michelle Kalman tells of contacting a broad mix of industry experts to research some of the key problems in digital magazine publishing. These are 10 of the big mistakes she discovered.

1. Duplicating the print experience. The print and digital media are not the same. Both present limitations and opportunities. Recognize the limitations of the digital medium, but also be sure to take advantage of all the opportunities it offers to build your magazine’s community through social media tools or to extend your story through video.

2. Assuming the online user experiences digital content in the same way a reader experiences print content. Your online navigation may not easily parallel your printed table of contents. Online users may jump around more than print readers. The importance of position may change and you may need to make your advertisers aware of this fact.

3. Not bothering with research. Just because you’ve researched your print publication doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do research before you begin to develop your digital version. Look at successful online magazines and figure out what makes them work. Find out how your readers want to access content.

4. Failing to get the best digital talent you can afford. Hire talented web developers and designers to produce your digital version. They will know what works in print, but may not work on line. Don’t forget to invest in social media activities.

5. Producing too many pages. The attention span of an online reader is much shorter than that of a print reader. Forget the three-page articles with columns of grey type.  Break down content into smaller bites in separate sections. And don’t forget to include creative elements to keep the reader’s interest.

6. Not keeping up with changing technology. So you’ve created a digital magazine or a digital version of your print publication. What platform are your readers using? Does your online publication work well on that platform? Each platform has its own rules and restrictions. There’s iPads, Android tablets, various readers, and mobile apps–plus whatever came out last week. No single digital product is going to work well on all platforms. You’ll  need to keep up with the technology to know where best to spend your digital dollars.

7. Thinking of money before engagement. Is your digital publication a desperate attempt to pull in some funds for the organization? In that case, it’s likely to fail. You’ll need to create engaging, relevant content in order to attract and involve an audience.

8. Not considering the advertiser. Advertising considerations are not the same as reader requirements. Spend money and time on preparing the right online presence for your advertisers.

9. Forgetting to get feedback. As you are developing your new online  magazine, get input from all those who will have a stake in the success of the publication. That includes audience, advertisers, and your staff.

10. Being satisfied with the status quo. Keep improving; take advantage of new digital opportunities and make sure your content continues to be fresh and engaging.

Is print dead? It’s too soon to start writing the obituary

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The news continues to come with gasps of amazement. Twenty years after its founding, SmartMoney magazine will dump its print edition in order to focus on SmartMoney.com! Twenty-five print staffers will lose their jobs! By the end of the year the Financial Times could have more digital subscribers than buyers of print copies! U.S. publishers report that foreign e-book sales last year increased 333 percent over 2010 sales! Is print dead? Or, at best on life support?

Probably not. A 2012 Reynolds Journalism Institute study confirms that tablet users continue to read print newspapers and magazines. Nearly half of Apple iPad owners and a quarter of Android table owners say they have a subscription to at least one print publication. A recent Pew State of the News Media study noted that a quarter of Millennials (18-24 year olds) said they read a printed newspaper the day before. Some 22 percent said they read newspapers at least every other day. That is compared with 40 percent of adults overall who say the same. The New York Times reports that 10 percent of its hard copy subscribers are Millenials; 9 percent subscribe digitally.

In the U.S., more print magazines were launched than closed in 2011, the same trend as evident in 2010. The Economist, a highly-respected British news magazine, writes about a new sense of optimism among publishers due to the increased readership of magazines. In fact, magazine audiences are growing faster than those for television or newspapers.

So, what accounts for the statistics of the first paragraph? The editor of SmartMoney magazine says the volatility of markets and asset classes has increased the need for rapid delivery of personal finance intelligence. Also, the magazine was losing ad pages. Thus the decision to cut their losses and try the digital model. Why is the Financial Times increasing digital subscribers at such a rapid rate? The magazine was one of the first to recognize the possibility of monetizing content on the Web and from the beginning charged for content that they made sure offered quality, rather than quantity. And, they were innovative in their approach to technology, opting for HTML5 very early on, with the result that their Web app drew 2 million users in less than a year.

What about the growth of foreign e-book sales? After all, a 333 percent increase is pretty amazing, isn’t it? Perhaps not so amazing when you realize that even after its phenomenal growth last year,  e-book sales still represents only 6 percent of total sales.

Perhaps some day print will die. But that day will not come this year, next year, or even next decade. Save the obituary writing job for your grandchild.

Four ways to evaluate your magazine’s purpose statement

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Kent Wilson teaches the session on Developing a Business Strategy for your magazine

You probably already have a purpose statement for your magazine, if not on paper at least in your head. But is it as good as it could be and is it accomplishing all you wish? Answer these questions to see whether your purpose statement accomplishes its goals.

1. Is it written down on paper and accessible to every staff member and every freelancer? Every person who works with your magazine in any way should know who the target audience is, what the publication is expected to do for them, and how you will do it. If this is not clear to everyone, your staff may become confused and disagree on direction, and your magazine will lose focus.

2. Is it succinct? A great purpose statement may be only one or two sentences, clearly stating who, what, and how, incorporating the audience, desired result, and method of accomplishing the result.

3. Does it guide your decisions on how and what you will publish?

4. Is it practical for decision making?

Learn more about writing an effective purpose statement in the video offered for free streaming on MTI’s Web site. The video on Strategic Planning for Magazines includes information on developing a business strategy, with help in  developing a purpose statement, a vision statement, and defining your values.

http://www.magazinetraining.com/FreeVideoAccess/