Cover Critique: Time Out's Duct-Taped 'Sex'
Dylan Stableford
Time Out New York followed up its “sex issue” (“How Not to Promote Your Magazine's Special Issue”) with the anti-sex, err, anti-Sex and the City issue. The cover features a photo illustration of the show’s stars with their mouths duct-taped shut. It’s an effort to combat the relentless hype the HBO-hit-turned-movie has garnered (see Entertainment Weekly's latest cover, for starters). It also serves as a thinly-veiled shot to its bigger, more established (and, frankly, better-designed) rival, New York magazine, which last week plopped Sex s More...
Do Not Reply to This Blog Post!
Dylan StablefordShrinking advertising revenue. Layoffs. Foldings. A recession. You'd think b-to-b publishers have enough to worry about without, say, an international SPAM conspiracy.
Via American Business Media's chief technology officer:
From: Joshua Kuvin
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 1:18 PM
To: Dylan Stableford
Subject: Crucial ABM-CTO Message
Dear Dylan,
Warning!
If you receive a foreign e-mail from any country or anyone stating that you are in danger of losing your Company or Brand's Domain Name (in China .cn; or Germany .de; or Europe .eu; or even the United States .us)
Do not reply! ~ If you wish More...
Another Big-Time Editor Goes Out on His Own
Paul ConleyHarry McCracken is leaving PC World to start his own technology Web site. That's big news for the world of b-to-b journalism for several reasons.
Harry
may be the biggest name in b-to-b editorial circles. Anyone who follows
this industry will remember Harry's clash with management last year. Harry's
ethical stance in that dispute won him the most important award in B2B
publishing—American Business Media's Timothy White Award for
editorial integrity. And certainly Harry More...
Death of the Star Magazine Editor
Dylan StablefordYesterday, Bonnie Fuller, a celebrity magazine editor who seemed to view herself as a celebrity in her own right, announced that she is abandoning her post as editorial director at American Media Inc., publisher of Star and the National Inquirer. Her departure, by many accounts, had been a long time in coming. AMI CEO David Pecker had hired Fuller away from Wenner Media, where she was responsible for the meteoric success of Us Weekly, to oversee Star's transformation from tabloid to glossy.
But it was the luxurious contract-which runs through March 2009-that More...
Nine Out of Every 10 Doctors Prefer Print
Josh GordonNo matter what sector or industry you are in, this is a great study to sell the value of print advertising. The study—"What Doctors Think"—documents how physicians prefer to receive their professional information, and magazines top of their list. The study has implications beyond just medical magazines because of the importance and prestige doctors have. The study, with 231 physicians responding, also covered a variety of other perceptions doctors have on the media that serve them.
Use it on a call.
Talk about the importance physicians play in our society. Talk about how, unlike almost any other profession, the information they re More...
Magazine ‘Like Tequila for the Mother’s Soul’
Jason FellEmbracing the post-Mother’s Day spirit, I couldn’t resist sharing this edgy literary magazine for mothers I stumbled upon.
Launched in the fall of 2006 and published quarterly, Get Born magazine’s tagline is: “The uncensored voice of motherhood.” Get Born was founded by two Colorado mothers who wanted to “celebrate the whole messy process of motherhood by giving real women in the real trenches of motherhood a chance to speak, to write, to make their voices heard,” the magazine’s Web
site
says.
According to its media kit, Get Born targets mothers aged 22 to 45 wit More...
Inside the Time 100 Party
Dylan StablefordSEE RELATED SLIDESHOW: Inside the 2008 Time 100 Party
Time magazine celebrated its Time 100 issue—like all lists, an arbitrary collection of the “100 most influential people” in the world—with a star-splashed, blingy black-tie ceremony last night in Manhattan.
The annual event is always a surreal experience—not just in terms of who shows up (last night roughly 40 members of the 2008 list were in attendance). The sheer volume of celebrities in one room presents bizarre comingling opportunities tha More...
Making a User-Generated Issue ‘Neither Cheap Nor Easy’
Erik TorkellsSEE RELATED STORY: Magazine Publishes 100-Percent User-Generated Issue
If there’s one thing—above even the emphasis on value—that sets Budget Travel apart, it’s that we don’t just make the magazine for our readers, we make it with our readers. Four of our recurring sections revolve around our community: 20 Tips, Trip Coach, True Stories, and Budget Travel Upgrade (and that doesn’t include Letters to the Editor).
So for our 10th-anniversary issue (June), it seemed natural to let readers generate the entire mag More...
The Weird Pricing Plan at Barnes & Noble’s Magazine Store
Dylan StablefordBarnes & Noble announced this week that it will begin selling magazine subscriptions online at steep discounts to more than 1,000 print and digital titles. Print subscription prices range from as low as $5.99 (Batanga) to $299 (Adweek). Digital subscriptions range from $1.56 (24-K) to $1,372 (Jane's Defense Weekly). Digital single issues range from $0.99 to $99.
The retailer scoffed at the idea that it would be competing with discount subscription sellers. More...
Elle’s Green Issue Prank: Fact or Fiction?
Jason FellWas this for real?
Late last month, FOLIO: reported that Elle’s May green issue was the apparent victim of a prank by which “Retraction” stickers were placed in several copies on an investigative report that examined the eco-extremist movement through the story of a teenage FBI informant.
Earlier this week, someone posted an anonymous comment to the story pointing readers to a site to see the stickers—which claim the Elle story contains “factual inaccuracies,” and gives a “fair hearing More...
Is This the Future of Publishing?
Dylan StablefordOn Monday, the New York Times published a must-read profile of International Data Group, the large technology publisher that last year made a dramatic turn away from print to become a Web-focused company. (The big move came in April, when IDG shuttered the print edition of InfoWorld.)
IDG's online revenue has now surpassed its print revenue (52 percent online to 48 percent print) and its managers say they've adopted an online first business model.
Perhaps not surprisingly fo More...
When Bad Publishers Happen to Good Magazines
Mark Newman
[There Will Be Blood still, courtesy of Paramount.]
There is nothing that will create a bond between art and editorial quicker than a meddling publisher. Granted, editors and artisans should already be thick as thieves, but when a publisher starts needlessly getting involved in the creative aspects of a magazine, there will be blood!
Take the case of a design-driven b-to-b magazine. The creative staff worked together nicely throughout the production process, but almost like clockwork, the publisher would decide to put her two cents in. It basically happened eve More...