Still room for print in magazines

There's still room for new magazine titles in the US it seems. Research by Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) shows 257 magazine launches in 2005.

Their website found only around 30 despatches, though some of the reported acquisitions may have been disguised closures as acquisitions often lead to mergers. (Mergers are a standard way of avoiding actually having to repay advance subscriptions).

Among the new titles announced in 2005 were: 31 magazines for women, 22 magazines dedicated to sports, 27 lifestyle titles, 13 magazines targeting African-Americans, and another 13 with a Hispanic/Latino focus. Also of note were the number of magazines that originated as websites or online-only editions; a total of 10 magazines leapt from the Internet to newsstands and mailboxes in 2005.

So, while much effort goes in to finding a profitable means of having an online publication, it seems the most popular and successful way is still with a "dead tree" publication backed up by online extras and promotion.

One problem for publications which would like to be online is that a high quality file is still massive if you are to compete with printed graphics. Even publications which cater for the graphics industry find it necessary to resort to slimmed down versions for those without really fast broadband connections.

And I wonder how many other people have the same problem that I do? I subscribe to a top quality online magazine, and download it the instant I get the email advising that it is available. But often I do not even get to glancing through the PDF. It sits there on my desktop until a week or sometimes two later I will print out a sad looking grayscale version on my laser printer.

Where is the best publicity?

Whatever you produce or sell -- books, magazines, or most other products -- you'll feel a need to get publicity for either your product or your business?

Do you aim for the top, the major newspapers or magazines and the bigname TV shows, or for something a little lower down the chain?

I'm not saying "Don't aim high", but you can do just as well from some very minor players. Publicity in specialist club, trade and craft journals can add up to a lot of sales. And those media are a lot more forgiving in the quality of what you submit.

You could try for years without getting on to Oprah, but be missing the sales of two, ten or more that come from a mention in those many publications which circulate to 200 members.

At the same time don't underestimate those readers. They know their subject. What they will want is hard edged details of why your book or product is better or has the answers to a need they can see.

I was prompted in this by seeing an ad for what is essentially a local restaurant in a national magazine. The restaurant is good, but not one that will persuade people to drive for an hour or two to get there. Even the local newspaper which circulates in several towns may be spreading the net too wide.

The book "Success in Store" which I co-authored, tells of a pizza store which "always" distributed 10,000 menus in order to get to the end of the next suburb. But the result of several thousand of those was a few price-taking delivery orders who'd go elsewhere the minute someone else made an offer. And each took half an hour to deliver.

By spending the same on fewer menus, he produced something which stood out, kept his deliveries within easy reach, so he could guarantee them being faster, and his profit went up.

Flyers you can deliver on a morning run (to keep fit) may not suit your market, but some trial promotion in those specialist publications, maybe for some businesses even on specialist web sites, could be the better answer.

Do how much of it yourself?

As a small scale publisher, what should you do for yourself and what should you pay someone else to do?

That is a common question, and someone on a publishing email list rightly commented that it always seemed that the "experts" were saying that the newbie should get everything done (at a fee) by someone in the industry.

There is nothing wrong with anyone learning to do everything for themselves -- I even did a course in paper making because I thought it might help me understand the most basic of the raw materials we deal with, and it did.

The problem is that too many people are misled by the promises of people that everything is easy.

If someone...

a) studies the book market,

b) spends time not only reading the books on the subject (and most can be found in public libraries so you need only to eventually buy the ones which are going to be essential to you),

c) talks to everyone in the industry (I've learned a lot from a bloke whose house I walk past into town who is a forklift driver for a major printer who seems similarly interested in learning more about the products he hauls around),

d) is prepared to do the job (for example the layout) and then to look at it critically and do it again (I nearly sent a printing business broke when I looked at a book we'd produced as I handed the first copies to the customer, and then said "it's not good enough, is it" and we did it again, but we grew into a much stronger company),

then that someone can match everything the experts can do. It's not brain surgery -- you can practice without doing too much harm to anyone but yourself.

BUT, someone who says, I've never done a book before but I have Word (or I've just bought InDesign) and then, with a printed copy in hand, looks at finding a distributor or for someone who will tell how to get publicity for it.

I'm all for people doing things for themselves. I tend to run a mile from anyone who adopts the description of "consultant", and I like the description of expert as "ex", a has-been, and "spurt", a drip under pressure.

Good illustrator but how good for layout?

It was another common question: The illustrator for my book is a talented artist, but should I ask him about doing the book layout?

The first question should be to ask whether he has any experience and whether he wants to do the work. Then the publisher, or self-publisher, should ask himself or herself if they have time to cope with problems.

In this case the artist was being honest, and could have been prepared to put the time in (at his cost) in finding out all the technical information he needs to know. However, there should be at least one person who has the professional knowledge of what makes a good book layout in the team.

The danger is that book layout and file preparation for printing is detailed, systematic work, and the skills for that are seldom those needed to be an artist and illustrator.

There are a few who manage to combine both skills but they are a minority and deserve every cent they can command. They will, for example, know that the uses of a book cover for thumbnails on the web or in catalogues and ads and possibly for posters as well as for the cover itself, puts severe restrictions on artistic talent.

More common are those who can take other people's illustrations and turn them into good looking and good working covers and produce files which will print without problems. The person who creates good book files and the illustrator and graphic artist may use much of the same software, but they tend to use it in vastly different ways.

The kind of questions one could ask someone who may be able to do this work could be whether he or she knows the common standards for relative margin widths, on the differences in specifications for different binding methods, and, as this is presumably an all color book, the maximum ink levels according to printing process and paper stock.

He may not know the detailed answers but if he knows what you are talking about (even if you do not) then (if there is time to go elsewhere if necessary), by all means give him a go.

Giving your password away

"I wouldn't do that" would probably be your answer to the suggestion that you could be giving your password away.

But think about it. Do you have passwords on scraps of paper? Do you use the same password for many sites on the web where you have to log in?

As someone involved in publishing, have you ever given out your password for someone to upload a file to your website or FTP site? Maybe you can change that afterwards, but does it bear any similarity to the password you use for online banking?

There have been many warnings that you should never believe the phone caller who says they are from your bank or some other payment processing service, but it continues to happen, and this week TechWeb reported how a security firm has used official-looking pollsters in New York's Central Park to ask questions from the mundane -- "Is this your first visit to New York City?" -- to the personal -- "What's your mother's maiden name?"

More than 70 percent of those polled gave up their mother's maiden name -- a potential goldmine, since it's often used to confirm identities or demanded in a password reset -- while over 90 percent handed over their place and date of birth. More than half told the pollsters how they come up with online passwords.

I should add that I have always wondered about why banks use that mother's maiden name question. But then I've lived in small towns where everyone would know the family name of just about everyone else's mother. "George Smith? Oh, yes, he married the girl of Green!"

How many of the readers of this use as all or part of password their place of birth, favorite sports team, pet's name, spouse's petname or name for you. Or used any of those words backwards? How easily would you give that information in an answer to a phone or street poll? Especially if you were promised a gift or discount of some kind.

Whether you do or not, it may be a good time to change your password.