I sure hope not. But you can’t deny the magazine industry is looking increasingly desperate.
Case in point: Just two months ago, I subscribed (via my kids’ school fundraiser) to ten magazines—all ten of them well-respected national magazines. Well, two of the magazines I subscribed to just two months ago have since folded.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that magazine editors are facing tough times right now, with staff reductions an increasing reality.
So please don’t get too mad at editors who take forever to respond to your queries. And try not to get irate with the edit staff when you see the inevitable typos and reprints. The editors are making the best of what they have to work with.
It’s quite likely that a monthly magazine that once had dozens of editors is now operating with just two editors and maybe a part-time art director. And those editors are probably juggling all of the print plus the online work on top of it. Sorry to be a downer, but this is getting to me. I’ll try to be perky again next week.
If you’re interested in reading more about the fate of the magazine industry, check out “Mr. Magazine” Samir Husni’s optimistic take on the subject: “The Death of Magazines and Other Fairy tales.” And then read Bob Sacks somewhat more pessimistic “It’s a Digital World Now.” Ironic side note: I actually assigned and edited these two pieces back when I was a magazine editor.
-Maria Schneider
flickr photo by defrost.ca
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m curious how much of a magazines profit derives from advertising vs. subscription. I tried a search for the answer but didn’t find anything in the first couple of pages returned that spoke about that. Maybe there is no generally applicable answer. (I did find an unrelated but interesting article about advertising and circulation if anyone is intersted http://www.magazine.org/ASSETS/69F075CD230048C2996C58B7BE494C19/UnderstandingMagazineCirculation.pdf)
The reason I ask is that I wonder if there is a temporary, sustainable balance magazines can reach where they can get by on subscriptions without relying as heavily on advertising dollars. Maybe they have to cut staff and overhead to get there, but at least they can achieve a state of torpor until things get better.
–John
I know the newspapers around here are going through a tough time -they laid off 51 pople yesterday, and the local tv stations are laying people off as fast as they can as well.
I keep up the hope that new writing jobs will appear somehow, somewhere, even if the format is different. People still need the news, and the lighthearted stuff, espeically now in such tough economic times!
John, a magazine can be supported by a varying combination of advertising and paid subscriptions, and there are many examples of those that run on only one or the other. Generally speaking, niche interest magazines are subscription- (and to an increasingly lesser degree, newsstand-) driven, with targeted advertising helping to keep the subscription rate reasonable. Professional trade magazines are often free to subscribe to if you’re their target audience because advertisers pay a premium to reach that targeted audience. Glossy consumer mags are usually very cheap to subscribe to, with a goal of as large an audience as possible for consumer advertisers.
PS: Maria, ironically, subscribing to magazines via those fundraisers can actually hurt subscription-driven magazines as those subs are less profitable than the ones that come in directly. The worst is when you renew an existing direct subscription through a fundraiser program. Advertising-driven mass consumer magazines are fine with those kinds of promotions because their goal is high-circulation, high-ad dollars.
I think both newspapers and magazines are in for very hard times. Many will fail, and those that survive will be much leaner. I think this does not bode well for writers. Yes, there will always be a market. But how much will they be willing to pay? There was an interesting article in the November 18 New York Times about “insurgent” online newspapers that are springing up. Journalists at these operations earn roughly half of what journalists on established newspapers make. I think this is going to be the trend, both for newspapers and magazines. You can see some related links in this post:
http://editorunleashed.com/forum/showthread.php?t=235
~jon
This is scary, folks. The magazines and newspapers in Minneapolis are in trouble. One city magazine recently folded. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the Tom Petters debacle here. He was recently arrested for bilking investors out of billions of dollars. One of the companies he owned published several city magazines in Minnesota and employed many writers and editors. That whole company was shut down and the entire staff let go. There’s currently a flood of unemployed writers and editors in our market. Yikes! I find myself focusing more and more on all the other ways writers make money via their platforms.
Jacque
http://www.101smackdowns.com
Thanks for clearing that up, Charles.
Thanks for all of the engaging responses. I find it very telling that no one has yet chimed in with an affirmative, “Magazines are here to stay!”
Very sad-making. This is depressing and hard to talk about but I think it’s really important to do so for those who love magazines and especially those who rely on magazines for their income.
I think as long as there are airplanes, trains, waiting rooms and other places where there’s not much to do, there will be magazines…how MANY of them survive remains to be seen. But the industry was WAY overdue for a market correction. Let’s face it, when you can find Mary Kate and Ashley magazine on the newsstand (remember the Olsen twins?), SOMETHING is desperately wrong.
Magazines ARE here to stay; it’s the business models that support them that are facing some involuntary systemic changes that will dramatically alter the landscape. Some will be able to maintain a print presence, some will shift online entirely, and many will simply disappear as has been the case throughout the history of publishing.
I read an interesting analogy somewhere the other day that I think works pretty well: CDs may have replaced vinyl as the format of choice, but they didn’t kill it completely as many DJs still prefer their wax. Digital music is steadily eating away at CD sales but is nowhere near replacing them as the primary format (or revenue stream), while 8-tracks and cassette tapes are little more than nostalgic bullet points on the music industry’s timeline.
PS: Strother’s point about writers getting paid less is very likely, and it will mostly affect the mid-tier writer with a solid track record but no independent platform as they will lose assignments to hungrier, less-experienced writers more willing/able to work for less.
At a large bookstore yesterday, I browsed an entire wall of magazines addressing a wide range of topics. And there are the grocery store magazine racks and checkout lanes. So it seems there is, as yet, a healthy market for copy.
In addition, the Internet will continue to intrude as some print/paper versions go digital (in part at least) and new “webzines” come online. This is likely to expand the possible outlets for writer output – but probably reduce the remuneration also.
Maria, I’ve found a major difference in querying magazines in the past year; so many of them don’t respond at all (and these are both small and large magazines). Or, as you suggest, response times are dramatically delayed. We all know what’s happening to newspapers too: personally, FOUR larger California papers I’ve published in told me that they had no freelance budget this year.
And of course, the online market is a different (read: lower-paying) one: I did sell a piece to the Guide to Literary Agents blog, but at about half of what I’d get for print. (By the way, I probably have you to thank for that, since having published things in Writer’s Digest undoubtedly got me an in, so thanks!) And so many magazines seem to be going on a diet, with their advertising shredded. However, I still see fine writing in many magazines. Perhaps there will be new playing fields when the Kindles and Sony Readers catch on….
One of my first non-fiction sales was to a new glossy national magazine that requested submissions in the newsletter of my professional association. I submitted an article and they bought it — that is, they contracted to buy it. They also asked me to write a number of other articles for them. It was a beautiful magazine, and it was available for sale everywhere. Only problem, they decided not to clutter up the beautiful photography with advertising.
If I’d been more experienced, it wouldn’t have come as such a surprise when they went bust before anyone got paid. They’d been publishing for almost two years by then and some very big names were among those who got stiffed. There was a class action suit by the unpaid authors, photographers and others, but as far as I know, no one was ever paid. Since then, I’ve never been burned again. But several magazines have come and gone, and editors for magazines are constantly changing. I’ve come to believe that constant upheaval is just the status quo for magazine publishing.
But all this shedding of staff makes it a great time for freelancers. As a full-time freelance reporter I have had no problem placing my stories/ articles despite cut backs.
Editors as ever are always open to great ideas (it saves them having to think them up!)
I think there’s something tangible about reading a magazine that the web will never be able to fully emulate. At least, as a magazine lover (and full time writer), I hope that’s the case.
The same thing happened to me last year. My brother’s frat was doing a magazine fundraiser (why a fraternity needs to fundraise, I don’t know), so I bought a subscription to Jane and he subscribed to Business 2.0. Both were gone within the year! But there are still dozens of magazines to write for, and I think trade or custom pubs tend to be less susceptible to economic downturns.
PS Just saw your post on Copyblogger. Congrats!
This is a tough question that is going to pop up more…are paper-based magazines etc. headed the way of the dinosaurs, and that may be the case given the convergence of information online and much of it for free.
I just wonder what that means for writers.