Short answer: VERY
I've spent over 20 years working in print media and even own two magazines. So you can say I have a vested interest in this topic and this industry.
I want to deep dive into how magazines got themselves into the hole they have with subscribers and with advertisers.
Also I will explore what, if anything, magazine publisher's can do to help salvage (or even save) the industry.
You can listen to the Beyond the Image podcast wherever you get your episodes.
Connect with me on Instagram @JPatrickPhoto or my website www.JamesPatrick.com
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My name is James Patrick and I'm an internationally published photographer, media specialist and marketing strategist. As a creative entrepreneur, I face the same exact frustrations you have, being bombarded by generic advice that promises success but never lives up to the hype. We need to move beyond the posturing, beyond the facade, beyond the image, to navigate the unique challenges we face as creatives, together we're going to dive into real stories, real strategies and the real work that can lead to the real results. This is The On The Image Podcast. What is going on? Thank you so much for tuning in to our latest episode of The Beyond The Image Podcast. I'm honored that you could take some time to get some information and get a little inspiration to help you in your entrepreneurial journey. So talking about magazines, I have over two decades' worth of experience in print media and print journalism. My first jobs outside of being a reporter, my first jobs in photography, were I was a photo editor for a newspaper and then was a photo editor for a magazine. In my career, I've shot more than 700 magazine covers. My work's been published in Sports Illustrated, Oxygen, Maxim, FHM, Muscle and Fitness, Shape, Golf, and more. And I even own two magazines. So you could say, I have a vested interest in how the magazine industry is doing or how it will be doing. So let's look at how did magazines get themselves in a position of being so ultimately screwed. And the first is the thing that comes to mind right away for most listeners, which is well digital, digital media, social media, people just no longer get their information from tactile medias anymore. And you're not wrong, but there's actually a lot more to it. The big thing is publishers got lax. And when I say this, instead of delivering new creative and innovative content, lots of publishers just started repurposing and republishing previous content that they had already put out, charging full price for it and hoping or just not caring that subscribers or people buying off newsstands would not notice. And spoiler alert, they noticed. And it was really upsetting. It's really upsetting to pay for something that you've already paid for, that you've already received. The next up, number three, is you had a lot of fat cats and you had some bad leadership. And I'll give an example. I got hired to shoot a magazine campaign was across the country. They booked me for a full day. So they paid a full day rate plus travel plus my assistance full day rate plus my assistance travel. In this entire day, we shot for, and this is an exaggeration, maybe 30 minutes, maybe. And that's really pushing it 30 minutes. Why? Because the editors of the publication did a bad job at planning for this project. And they only were able to get 30 minutes out of production done in a full day's production. Also, we were shooting in Long Island. Their office was based in Manhattan. More than a dozen, more than a dozen staff members from the magazine showed up to the photoshoot being paid, but not working. So why were they at the photoshoot? In hopes to meet a celebrity, that was it. So they're charging the company to be at a production that they have no involvement in just in the hopes that they could meet a celebrity. And I guess as they probably expense their travel too. Number four, we went from lavish and abundant to strained and worn thin. And this happened basically overnight. Staff got overworked. Lots of staff members got laid off and remaining staff members were then given, well, two people's jobs, three people's jobs, four people's jobs, five people's jobs and expected to deliver the same amount of output. And at some point when you're being pushed that hard, like in the short term, yeah, you can deliver and then the publisher see, oh, well, they're delivering, let's just add a little more. Well, they're delivering, let's just add a little more, delivering, let's just add a little more, maybe you're delivering, but the quality's not there. And certainly the interest and passion you might have for whatever topic you're covering, that's going to get worn out. Number five is lots of magazines lacked focus. If a magazine tried to be all things to all people, it ended up being nothing to anyone. The more generic a publication was, the harder it was to stand out. When people had a finite amount of money that they are willing to invest in a publication, they're not going to invest in something that has a ubiquitous field. They are instead going to invest in something that is targeted, that is focused. Number six is sponsored content got really, really greedy. Now as a marketer, I can see value in sponsored content, but some publishers were purchasing international licenses for certain titles only to sell exclusively the cover. When I say this, there's no actual magazine behind the cover. The only thing between the cover and the back cover are licensed content that was created years ago that they're just stuffing a cover feature into. It doesn't appear on newsstands, it doesn't go out to subscribers. There's no mailing list. So if you were to buy one of these sponsored covers, you're paying thousands upon thousands upwards of $7,000 to $9,000 for pretty looking JPEG. And in instances like these, if it smells like fraud, well, next up, number seven is independent publishers really got bent over by wannabes. There has been a growing market of small niche titles from independent publishers that for a while were actually doing really well. They were creating innovative content. They were developing ways to connect with audiences. They were more agile and quicker to respond to what they believe their audiences wanted than a larger publishing house could do. And thus you were seeing some momentum. But it got really crowded with a lot of wannabes publishers designing magazines and what looked like Microsoft Paint from Windows 97 and then asking people to pay to be placed in their crap. And to add to that, a lot of these publications are, it's hard to argue that they're actually publications because there's zero editorial. There's no attention to detail, there are no professional staff, no one with any journalistic background, any design background, arguably any photography background. It is simply a picture book that you have to pay to place your photos in. And you would think, well, how possibly could a publication like that even begin to stand out because marketplaces were designed that allowed them to. You look at a marketplace like Caviar, which in theory was a good idea, which was to assist independent publishers with content creators, whether it's photographers or models or writers, and be able to pair them together, whether it was for genuine editorial opportunities or for sponsored content opportunities. And in theory, that works until Caviar gets super greedy and lets everyone on. And now it is incredibly difficult for a quality publication to even stand out on a site like Caviar. We pulled off most of our publishing of Caviar. We have one magazine that we still use it for, but the threshold we've been able to achieve has decreased significantly simply because there are too many, I'm going to say illegitimate publications on that platform. And a lot of these go so far as to try to sound like larger, legitimate publications. An example would be, oh, did you get published in Billboard? Well, that's a big magazine. I believe Billboard is a big magazine. No, it's not Billboard, it's Billboard Lifestyle. Oh, wow, you got into entrepreneur magazine? That's really impressive. No, it's actually entrepreneurs magazine with an S. Yeah, they got a cease and desist. And I am waiting for Billboard Lifestyle to get their cease and desist. Ultimately, people don't want to buy crap. I'm not going to invest in recycled content that's cheaply thrown together, regardless of whether it's on a newsstand or whether it's an independent publication that I have to go out and pay more than I would on a newsstand to get. Or if I'm looking to play sponsored content, I'm not placing a stuff that does not look good without an audience, especially if your publication seems to be on the verge of getting sued for trademark infringement. Our turned off is consumers on both sides of it. We're turned off buying magazines that just are putting out crap. And if we want to place our content in magazines, and all we have are the options of really cheaply thrown together crappy magazines, yeah, we're going to be turned off from that as well. Get published live earlier this year. We asked all the attendees, we asked them to recall the last time any of them purchased a magazine off the newsstand or at a grocery store where they bought a physical copy of a magazine, not a single person could remember. So magazine must be time to pack it up. Well, not so fast, actually, hyper local magazines are still doing pretty well. Trade magazines are doing pretty well. Hyper niche publications are doing pretty well. Well, how and why? They're doing this little thing called giving value. And maybe it's not a little thing. It's actually a really big thing. They know their readers. They work to give them the content that they know their readers are craving. They work creatively to find new, exciting and innovative ways to tell stories and to get their content in front of their audience, both in traditional medias as well as digital medias. But as a result of doing these things, audiences are responding positively. So you're thinking, well, is that all publications have to do is create good editorial content and don't cut corners? Well, for now, yeah, do that until all the others mess it up even more. 3D independent publishers, these international license titles, publishers overworking their staff members to just turn out content as opposed to delivering quality editorial. As long as the market continues to have saturation with that element, all magazines are going to continue to struggle. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I appreciate your reviews on the Apple Podcast. After sharing this podcast with a friend, we'll talk to you all in the next episode. Take care of you all. Thank you so much for tuning in to The Beyond the Image Podcast. As always, we appreciate your reviews and for sharing this podcast with a friend. To learn more or to connect with me personally, please visit jamespatric.com. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
