Format: Ideas and General Hints
These are extracts from the FORMAT NEWSLETTER.
1. WHAT IS A TITLE WORTH?
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A discussion on a publishing email list started with a question on the lines of "I have a chance to take over, at no cost, a couple of specialist magazines that were started in the 70s". There were a couple of problems with this statement.
In my book "How to Start and Produce a Magazine" I suggest that the computer program needed more than any other in the process of magazine publishing is a spreadsheet.
One of the major problems in working out costs and potential profits is the number of variables involved in a magazine because of the two selling prices (of the magazine itself and the advertisements in it).
We suggested that the potential new owner really needed to look at a worst case scenario -- the cost of printing with the number of pages needed to carry no more ads than the publications are presently getting.
Monthly publications making a small loss each month can build to a huge loss in a surprisingly short time (as I know from experience), and remember that, on the basis you are describing, you are not being given the magazines. We suggested that the buyer was saving the present owner from having to repay all the outstanding subscriptions. The total of those amounts is what is being paid for the magazines; and if there are 1000 subscribers, that is several thousand dollars. (1000 times the subscription price divided by two will give a rough figure if the subs are spread evenly).
Publications, even between large publishers, often change hands at very small amounts because of those debts to subscribers (and the high cost of refunding small amounts of money). Before the days of computers I bought what was then Australia's major music magazine from EMI for $400 and that included the addressing machine for labels which was worth considerably more than that. After building up the subscription list I gave the magazine away because it was far cheaper than closing it down (subscriptions went well but ads didn't). More recently I bought the local weekly newspaper in a small country town for $1500 and sold it for a slightly smaller amount a couple of years later. In both cases those purchase amounts were a very minor part of the investment needed.
Getting something for nothing can prove to be an expensive buy.
WHAT TO GIVE AWAY
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Russ Dollinger wrote: "I got your book on starting a magazine. I'm still working my way through it; however, it does not seem to cover a strategy problem that I have. My initial research indicates that there is a lot of interest, and good advertising potential. On my webpage, does it make sense to offer a free newsletter covering the same area? I'll get email addresses and contacts, can reach a lot more people, and can theoretically convert more people into buyers or subscribers. On the negative side, I might invite competition from bigger, richer publishers before I'm ready to compete."
Most publishers, especially those with established print publications, face the dilemma of how much to give away on their web site. There are substantial success stories of selling web content, but most such attempts fail.
Take one example: many newspapers put their death notices on the web because it makes them available over a much wider area, and, for a weekly newspaper can mean that notices are carried which would be too late for just the print edition. Do they cut into casual sales or do readers of the on-line notice then buy a copy of the print edition?
I'd certainly consider launching a free email newsletter covering the same area as your print magazine. Use it as a promotional tool -- and if you get a lot of people signing up to the email and not the print version, juggle the balance of content.
If you start the email version first, it will, as you say, give you a list of potential subscribers. There's always the danger that someone else will see it as a good idea for a print version, but presumably you'd be in a good position to move quickly. Bigger publishers may be rich but they also tend to be slow and cumbersome.
There's also a strange truth with advertising -- it can be harder to sell ads if you are the only publication in a field. The choice is then between advertising or not advertising. With two publications, both are selling hard on the idea of advertising. Many clients will be presold on the idea; all you have to do is to get them to make the choice in your favor.
This newsletter, Format, has very little hard sell. Sometimes there's nothing more than the mention of a couple of titles in the "who we are" section at the bottom -- but there is always a flurry of book orders after each issue.
On the frequency issue: If there is any doubt, I'd start quarterly, or every second month. It is easy to promote going monthly as a result of the publication's success. It is not easy to see a move from monthly to quarterly as anything other than failure.
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cExpresso Graphics has some useful hints and links on DTP in general and Photoshop in particular at <http://www.espressographics.com>. The pages were created by Debbie Roberti.
WHAT'S HAPPENING TO NEWSPAPER READERS
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John Lavine, professor of journalism at Northwestern University, Illinois, believes the next three years are crucial for the print media, a golden opportunity to build readership before other media grab a significant share of advertising.
Lavine is the author of the Impact report by the Readership Institute prepared for the Newspaper Association of America and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. The report and a whole set of detailed surveys are available at <http://www.readership.org>. There will be something there for anyone with a role in producing a publication.
The reports compared "constructive" and "defensive" cultures -- and found that while most management stated a need for the former, almost all fell into a "defensive" stand. "Defensive" cultures are more usually associated with government organisations and according to the survey are less often found in industry -- except it seems for newspapers.
Typical defensive structures are where an advertising department regularly disrupts the production process to take late ads. The advertising department contends that its mandate is to provide perfect service to the accounts who fund the newspaper. But if the paper is delayed and some readers do not receive it before they leave for work, then advertising is using perfectionism to put its goals ahead of the newspaper?s.
Interestingly, 14 of the 100 publications surveyed in depth had no one primarily involved in marketing and promotion.
And if you regard journalists as having the fastest turnover of staff you would be wrong -- the greatest turnover with the shortest average stay is in advertising. Because most journalists and pressroom and advertising staff can readily move to other publications which have a similar attitude and structure the tendency is to work "the newspaper way" rather than in an individual way to benefit a publication. Most jobs are filled from outside the organisation.
Eighty percent of respondents felt their papers did not offer good management practices and this changed little according to the size of the paper. Changes in technology have not led to changes in management practice.
While most in the industry say readers want shorter stories, the research showed most respond to longer explanatory stories. Explaining complex subjects by showing how changes apply to local individuals, is the most effective way of telling a news story. And they found that people do read obituaries and wedding reports (every oldtime journalist could have told you that).
Another finding – that newspapers with a higher level of staff-written stories did not have higher satisfaction levels – confirms that it is less a matter of who writes the story than how it is written.
Newspapers that readers find "easier to read" tend not to have shorter stories, rather they provide more actionable information (such as dates, times, locations, phone numbers, Web site addresses associated with stories), run more feature-style stories and do more in-paper promotion of content.
The smallest newspapers print 21 stories per week for each full-time equivalent position (FTE) in the newsroom. (FTE numbers include reporters, editors, senior managers, photographers, clerical staff, etc.) Newspapers of more than 200,000 circulation print about 1.4 stories per week per FTE.
One aspect of readership of publications could be worth promoting: "when you read the newspaper you?re focused on reading it; you?re not doing something else, too."
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Now we turn to a book which, as soon as I read about it, I thought: "I want that". It is the Handbook of the Print Media and is published by perhaps the best known printing equipment maker in the world, Heidelberg, in association with the Springer Publishing Company. It was written by a team of 24 specialists led by Dr Helmut Kipphan, technology and innovation research director at Heidelberg. Hardly a "handbook" with more than 1200 pages, it was published in German last year and is now available in English. Try your local Heidelberg machinery supplier who may well be able to offer a better deal than the book trade. (We have ordered it, at A$176, from the Heidelberg Print Academy in Sydney, German price is DM185 or from the USA US$99, both plus tax and freight).
AN ANSWER TO "SPAM" EMAIL OVERLOAD?
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Kaitlin Duck Sherwood, author of "Overcome Email Overload" for Eudora and Outlook users <http://www.OvercomeEmailOverload.com> suggests a possible answer for publications wanting to receive email rather than physical mail but being overloaded by SPAM, the unwanted email offers of sexsites, moneymaking schemes etc.
Kaitlin suggests that the industry should come up with a list of journalism email subject keywords (JESKs). These are things like PITCH: or OOPS: (correction needed) coupled with a bureau/department keyword like SPORTS:, BIZ:, NEWS:, TECH:. For example, the appropriate JESK for my own publicity-seeking efforts would be PITCH:TECH:.
On web sites and in the publication, there would be the clear statement: "Email messages with JESKs will be read first. For more information on JESKs, see http://blah.blah.blah..."
Kaitlin offers to come up with filters/rules that change the priority of messages that have the appropriate JESKs in the subject lines. These go on a Web site for journalists to download/import into their own email program.
But what if spammers start using those JESKs? Kaitlin answers: If every industry has its own ESKs, then hopefully it will be too much trouble for the spammers to put in different ESKs for each industry."
If someone wants to target a newspaper, couldn't they disguise the virus by putting a JESK on it? Kaitlin answers: "If I *really* wanted to target your publication, I'd forge The Boss's return email address. And if I wanted to ensure good distribution of a virus, I sure wouldn't put a keyword in the subject that non-journalists would ignore! Also, I'd be happy to write a filter that bounced back anything with an attachment with the message, 'I'm sorry, this publication does not accept attachments. Please convert your attachment to text, snailmail it, fax it, or put it on a Web site"."
SURVEYS -- WHAT DO THEY PROVE?
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An item in the daily email issued by CreativePro for the Seybold Seminars in San Francisco set us thinking about surveys. Thomas Penberthy was reporting on a session with the title "There's No 'You' in 'User': Tools and Tactics for User-Centered Design."
Tom reported that the room was overflowing (which was in itself unusual at this year's sparsely attended event), and a quick question by the moderator showed that attendance was divided equally between Web and print people.
As many publications tend to feel it necessary to send out regular survey forms, it was interesting to hear that Jonathon Korman, of Cooper Interaction Design, offered a compelling case that this "scientific approach" to research is less than ideal at achieving the type of information needed.
He argued that design in particular affects users on an emotional level, and that statistical questions rarely get deep enough. Korman's firm favors one-on-one sampling of a much smaller number of "qualified" users (existing customers or definite members of the target audience). "With this approach, you start to see trends very quickly, and pretty soon you can predict what people are going to say early on in your conversation."
One-on-one interviewing may seem like more effort up front, but the information that comes out in the end is far more useful.
We've long felt that the way to find out what your publication should be doing, either in coverage or in appearance, is to get out and talk to the people it is aimed at. And we've taken to putting all surveys in the circular file -- or the virtual trash.
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Keith Spears wrote: "I just received your book, 'How to start and produce a Magazine or Newsletter' and find it wonderful. My question is more business related. I'm in the process of writing a business plan to start a Real Estate Magazine and wondered if you have any information relative to pricing ad for such a magazine? Also, do you now if the new PageMaker Data Merge feature will be helpful for automating such a magazine?"
We replied: The two ways of pricing ads are really "what the market will bear" and "the costs of producing the magazine divided by the space for ads". It is advisable to try both ways as, if you find the figures are coming out in a similar range, you're probably OK. If the second way comes out ahead of the first, you're in trouble. Compare rates to those of other places to advertise real estate, bearing in mind what you see as your advantages.
The DataMerge plugin could be useful, and there is a PDF file which we prepared for those who have bought our "Newspaper Production using PageMaker 6.5" book that shows one idea. You can get this from: <http://www.worsleypress.com/download/DMadbookings.pdf>
Adobe are also using an example of a car catalogue in some of their current presentations -- bringing pics and text from a database into a one-page layout to create a multi-page catalogue.
The one problem with the plugin is that it would need to produce ads or edit descriptions on separate pages -- but you can then move the completed items to another page layout file.
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If you put an illegal email address as the first entry in your Outlook address book you may just find that you get a message that an email could not be sent rather than having a virus or worm send emails to everyone you know.
CATCHING THEM YOUNG
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Many publications suffer from an ageing readership, and there have been many attempts to involve children in newspapers and other publications. The idea is that if you can get children reading newspapers and magazines before they reach teenage, there is a good chance you will get them back in their late teens or twenties.
West Ferry Printers in London started running tours for children soon after starting in 1986 and have now spun off the educational aspect into The Newspaper Education Trust, a registered charity which runs visits and courses for school children plus teacher training days.
We quote from their web site: "We believe it is unique with nearly 2000 Primary and Secondary pupils using our newsroom facility each year. Not only in numbers, but also in the way in which pupils are covering live news stories as they break, (often beating the nationals with their own stories!), the specific curriculum preparation that has been written for teachers before returning with their pupils, and the vast amount of ICT, Literacy and office skills that pupils learn during their day's visit. If you make a telephone call to The NET, it may well be a 10 year old that answers!"
It is a good example of how a newspaper production company has set about involving children and details can be seen at <http://www.the-net.org.uk/index.html>
West Ferry Printers started in 1986 and now prints the Telegraph, the Express, the Star, the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the Observer in London's Docklands.
They print 3 million copies a day which means that papers have very strict production schedules. For example the Financial Times has an allocation of just 1.5 hours for makeready, printing, collating, and dispatch of 180,000 copies each night with plates scheduled to be ready at 10.40pm each night and the press due to start running 5 minutes later. There are incidentally, special inks to allow for full color printing on pink paper.
EDITING HINTS
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The biggest need in editing copy is to develop a sense (a sixth sense?) for whose copy can be trusted. There is generally little time to check multiple facts, so I've encouraged sub-editors (US= copyeditors) on small publications to be prepared to throw back any story where they see that even one small fact is wrong.
If the writer can't check that July 23 this year really is a Monday, then how can you trust that a quote or any other fact is correct? As I heard an editor tell a journalist once: "I'm not here to be popular, I'm here to make sure we both have a job next week".
Have an affinity with The Count from Sesame Street -- count everything that can be counted -- such as the number of people in a picture and the number named in a caption.
And, if can still be achieved with the noise of computers, copy editors working in a group environment should still be encouraged to keep up their constant comments on what they are working on.
In the pre-computer world this tended to be a constant mumble about the lack of skill of the reporters. While it seemed as if no one was listening, it was a well developed system by which facts were checked -- if the mumble was correct, it passed through, but if there was an error, someone else would shout across the mumble -- not always with the answer but just an indication that there might be a problem... perhaps a shouted "No" that didn't even seem to interrupt the continuing mumble on his own work from the one who shouted.
Some of the best advice on editing newspapers is at the site maintained by Bill Walsh <http://www.theslot.com>. "The slot" is the inside position on a traditional U-shaped copy-editing table --usually the second position in responsibility, held by the person who makes all the detailed, and usually instant, decisions.
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There are useful links and tips on newsletter production at <http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/>, the Graphic Design Resource Center.
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We've had several requests recently for sources of templates for newsletters and while several layout programs include such templates, one of the best sources of ideas for newsletter layouts is frequently a colleague's wastepaper basket -- while the information in the newsletter is not needed. there may well be some good ideas in someone else's layout.
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If you need to use some dummy text in a layout, particularly one that is destined for possible web use, and need to use a dummy domain name, try <http://example.com>. It is registered to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority and though IANA has made no public statement, it is used as a "dummy" function by a number of web admin organisations. Several of the others that you might think of using are X-rated sites.
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When you are working on more than one computer, such as between office and home, you may like to consider carrying a copy of the several preference files for your page layout program -- including user dictionaries -- to ensure that what you see in each place is the same. Other files to consider, are hyphenation exceptions files in QXP, as well as custom frames and tool prefs, even fonts folders.
We have suggested before that a master copy of user hyphenation dictionaries should be copied to individual workstations from a central location regularly. To maintain consistency throughout an office, there should also be consideration of whether the same should apply to preference files. If someone needs to have their own preferences, then that person should be responsible to replacing with the master file if they change from one computer to another.
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In PageMaker you can get a list of all the shortcuts from Help>Shortcuts... In QuarkXPress, click on Help, then Help Topics, then on the Find tab and type the word "shortcut". You will see two topics in the field at the bottom, the second of which is Keyboard Shortcuts (Complete List).
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Jeanne Hubbard of Eugene Print has written a guide to submitting files for print. She adds: "We call it a P.R.E.F. Guide... Print Ready Electronic Files. It is basically a beginner's guide, and thanks to Jeanne there's a copy available on our website at
<http://www.worsleypress.com/download/prefguide.pdf>
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There are now tutorials in using ALAP's ShadowCaster plugin for QXP or InDesign at their website: <http://www.alap.com/>.
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Dave Mainwaring, managing director of PrintPlanet, tells us that WhatTheyThink and PrintPlanet.com have joined forces to become what they claim to be the "World's Largest On-line Information Source in the Print and Graphic Arts Industry". The new website is at: <http://www.whattheythink.com/index.html>
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According to "Graphic Design USA", audio and visual effects on packages are expected to begin by the end of this year. Power Paper, a small Israeli company, has developed an ultra thin flexible battery that can be rolled off a press like ink onto paper. Claimed to be environmentally friendly, it can be thrown out with the package. One potential use is flashing a product's logo on a package in multiple colors... or maybe a publication could tell you the contents when you pick it up from the newsstand. <http://www.howstuffworks.com/power-paper.htm>
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"THAT FILE YOU EMAILED ME WON'T OPEN"
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How often have you sent a substantial file as an email attachment and had a response that they got the message, but not the file, or that the file you sent won't open?
It generally happens only when people are in a hurry for the file, and seems to be caused by some mail servers which list the mail as soon as it is received without checking if there are attachments, and if they have been received.
So, the recipient can get the covering message but not the attachment and makes a hurried call to you to say you forgot the attachment. In most cases the mail server corrects itself and relists the mail when it is complete.
It is also possible that the attachment may take longer to arrive at the mail server than the recipient takes to download it. The result is that the recipient thinks they've got the whole file when in fact they only have part of it. Again, most mail servers seem to cope with this by again listing the message as soon as it finally arrives, even if the attempt to download it sent back an instruction to delete the message on the mail server.
It seems to happens most when both ends are on dial-up connections or if the sender is on a dial-up connection but the recipient is on a permanent link. We now put the size of the file in any accompanying message and ask that the person we are sending it to check the size of the file they receive.
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The January "tips" feature on "The User Friendly Manuals' Website" <http://www.prc.dk/user-friendly-manuals/> covers "Current trends in technical communication", with info on Preferred software for technical writers, HTML help is still gaining ground, Monitors and screen resolution, Possibilities with colour laser printers and photocopiers, Using camcorders and ScreenCams for technical documentation, Increased interest in interactive multimedia manuals, Electronic still and video cameras are gaining use, and Electronic file transfer to the printshop.
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A recent email we received began: "I saw some obvious typos on your webpage...<http://www.worsleypress.com/pubprod/Magbook.htm>"
The email went on to point out that we had twice spelled organization as organisation.
We hope most people even new to publishing realise <sic> that there is considerable variation in spelling around the world. On our website we generally follow Australian spelling which is closer to UK than US style.
In Format, we generally leave spelling as it is from correspondents and other sources unless it is obviously wrong.
We also make our own misteaks.
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The question was simple: "I was working away and suddenly my paste function won't work -- help, please!"
The answer equally simple: "Save, RIGHT NOW!!! Exit and reboot. You're crashing... but gently. Head it off at the pass."
Most DTP software seems to suffer from its own specific examples of signposts that warn of what is ahead.
But special thanks to Craig Faichney for the "gentle crash" term which we plan to use as if it was our own.
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Gordon Woolf, owner of Worsley Press, wrote an article on running an email newsletter for PC Update, the magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group, and you can find it on their website: <http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/2010/2010article10.htm>.
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Do you have to return floppies? We've seen a couple of references recently to US publishers just giving a blank floppy to anyone who gives them a floppy now that they cost less than the postage to return them. Additional ideas are to use cut-down DL-size envelopes as a wrapper (even wrongly printed ones with the bad or old return address cut off), and to include a PDF on the floppy of ad rates and forthcoming promotions.
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