Author Archives: Magazine Mavin

Six reasons why your new magazine may fail

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Why would you want to think about reasons your new magazine might fail? Well, you’re making a significant investment of time and money in getting your magazine off the ground and you want it to succeed. In the United States 60 percent of magazines fail within the first year. I don’t know what the statistic are for other countries, but my observation is that the same is probably true in many other places. In the U.S., by the fourth year 80 percent of new magazines have failed and by the 10th year, only 10 percent are left.

So, how can you make sure that your magazine is one of the 10 percent that make it long term? Industry expert Samir A. Husni (www.mrmagazine.com) suggests there are 13 traps to avoid. I’ll list six of them here and briefly comment on each.

• Insufficient planning and research: You’re excited about your idea for a new magazine and you want to start right away. Why take the time to plan for the long term and to do research to find out whether your magazine is really wanted and needed and whether anyone will be willing to place advertisements in it? Many years ago, I was on the staff of a national Christian bi-weekly newspaper that started with great excitement and an investment of millions of dollars. The publishers were so sure their vision for the publication was on target that they didn’t bother to do research. Five years later, with diminishing renewals and skyrocketing debt, the publishers concluded a publication like theirs was not wanted.

• Insufficient budget and funds to cover magazine costs: It’s not surprising that a brand new publisher has no idea how much a magazine will cost. The assumption may be that you sell the copies and it will cover the cost of the issue. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work. It may take years of careful planning before your magazine even gets into the black. That means you have to have investors or donors who share your vision and who are willing to cover the losses until the magazine is able to get on its feet.

• No clearly defined audience or target market: Who exactly is this magazine for and what are their interests? Publishers and editors know what they want to say, but if you don’t know what your potential readers want to read, your magazine will have an audience of one. The more you know about your potential reader, the more you can shape the content, design and language to appeal to the reader. Okay, this does mean research. Don’t take it for granted that you know who they really are.

• Unfocused mission and editorial philosophy: Can you say in one sentence what the purpose of your magazine is and how it should affect the reader? If not, go back to the drawing board. The more focused your mission and editorial philosophy, the more likely you are to appeal to the target audience.

• An ineffective [or nonexistent] marketing plan: Many magazines in the Developing World are started by editors. This is the person with the vision and the ability to communicate. However, often this is also a person who is NOT a marketer. I personally know of many magazines with enormous potential started by editors who knew the audience, were good writers and editors, but who were not able to get the magazine to the audience. A carefully thought out and researched marketing plan is crucial.

• Unable to acquire significant distribution: How will you distribute the magazine?  Distribution is a significant hurdle and new publishers have to have a plan to overcome the obstacles in the way of new, small, untested magazines. In many countries, subscribing to magazines is practically unknown. Everyone buys their magazines and newspapers at the local kiosk. But will the kiosk take your magazine? And if they do, will they display it or will it end up stuffed behind the more popular publications? If it’s not possible to get single subscriptions and if you can’t use the kiosks, how will you distribute your magazine? This is an important issue and should be seriously considered before you even think of printing the first issue.

In my next post I’ll list some reasons why your new magazine may succeed.

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/

What is a magazine?

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Everyone knows what a magazine is. Or, do we? It used to be easy to recognize a magazine. It was a printed and bound sheaf of pages that was published periodically, whether weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Then came the Internet. Wow! That solved the printing and distribution problem. Just take the magazine and put all the content up there for everyone (or no one) to read. Wait a minute. Is it a Web site now or a magazine?

What distinguishes a Web site from an e-zine, or, for that matter, from a print magazine with a presence on the Internet? Can someone who is publishing only on the World Wide Web call themselves a magazine? How do they know they aren’t simply another Web site or even just a blog? Traditionally, a magazine has been categorized as a periodical. If we keep that category as a defining characteristic, then the question is whether the “magazine” on the Web is published on a regular periodical schedule or whether information is entered haphazardly.

I asked Idelette Vicker, editor of the beautiful “She Loves Magazine” on the Internet, how she distinguishes the site from a Web site or a blog. She responded: “To me, a Web site is more static with basic information about a business, church, or product.  You can order a product, get contact information, reserve a stay for your pet at a kennel, etc. Blog content is more personal. A magazine is creating content around the issues of the day or questions of the heart, just as a print publication might do.”

You might ask why defining what a magazine is matters. It matters to me because our name is Magazine Training International and our mission is to provide training and resources for Christian magazine publishers. So, we have to know what a magazine is and who we are supposed to be training in what kind of skills. We’ve just added digital publishing to our training program. But if Web sites can also be magazines, how far do we go in changing who we are and what we do?

What is a mavin?

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You know what a magazine is, though that once clearly definable entity is now growing foggy around the edges.  But what is a mavin? Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines it this way: “An expert or connoisseur, often specifically a self-proclaimed one.” Yes! Self proclaimed! Okay, I may not be an expert, but I’m definitely a connoisseur, a lover of magazines and periodicals of all types.

Although I’ve worked in book and newspaper publishing,  magazines have been my true love, from my years of study at University of Missouri where I majored in journalism with an emphasis in magazines to my many (but who’s counting?) years in secular and Christian magazine publishing to more than two decades as CEO of Magazine Publishing International, an organization dedicated to training and providing resources to Christian periodical publishers in the Developing World.

In this blog, I’ll talk about everything related to magazine publishing, especially Christian magazine publishing. Please feel free to add your own comments, observations, and news. I’d like to get a conversation going about the issues and trends that affect Christians in magazine publishing. Why this blog? To provoke, encourage, and inform those who will go on to strengthen Christian magazine publishing in their own countries. If you are reading this blog, you are probably one of those. If you are adding your own comments, you are undoubtedly one of those who can make sure Christian publishing has a future in your country.