In these Economic Times...Magazines Drop Like Flies

Wow. This is really bad.

Since this whole crapfest called the recession started, a handful of magazines that I read have already closed.

There's EGM, Plenty, Blender, Best Life, Men's Vogue, and PC Magazine. Other titles I'm familiar with but don't read that've shuttered are O at Home, Radar, Hallmark, Domino as well as a ton of others that although I don't pick up, it still is reflective of the industry I chose to work in.

Sucks.

On a related note, in the same way that writers and journalists back then have used and abused the word "juxtaposition," now you can hardly read a news article or blog post that doesn't have the phrase "In these economic times." Article here.

The Masthead: Myron's Magazine Roundup

Number of active subscriptions: 33
Men’s general interest
GQ, Men’s Health, Maxim, Esquire, Details, Men’s Journal
Science and Technology
Wired, Popular Science, PC World, Mac Life, Mac World, Seed
Lifestyle
Prevention, Marie Claire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Organic Spa, Blender, Town & Country, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle Decor, Tennis, Saveur, The Smithsonian, Interview, Nylon
Others
Art in America, Psychology Today, Ode, American Photo

(Not photographed: Harper's Bazaar, Saveur, Elle Decor, the magazines that have folded, Martha Stewart Living, American Photo, Popular Photography, and Body + Soul—these are all magazines that I haven't received my first issue yet.)

Number of magazine subscriptions that have folded: 3
Plenty, EGM, PC Magazine (although it still will continue as a digital magazine, I consider it a moot effort now)

Number of magazines that aren’t available as subscriptions, but buy on a regular basis: 5
V Man, Vogue Hommes International, Another Man, Fantastic Man, and GQ Style

Favorite coverline ever in a magazine: “Do you have douchebag hair?”, Details November 2008

Of the 6 men’s general interest magazines:
Best style advice: Details
Most memorable articles: Men’s Health
Widest breadth of articles: Men’s Health
Not interested at first but grew on me: Men’s Journal

Of the 5 science and technology magazines:
Best coverage: Wired
Interesting articles: Popular Science
Read the most pieces each issue: Mac Life
Widest breadth of articles: Wired
Not interested at first but grew on me: Wired

Of the lifestyle and non-categorized magazines:
Favorite publication to read: Psychology Today
Best in page layout: Town & Country (very clean, which is really how I like it—despite it being a women’s magazine, and I only get to read a page of it, Style: Men, each issue).
Has the most number of great-looking photographs: Art in America (come on, this one’s a clear winner. Even the ads look awesome.)
Not interest at first but grew on me: The Smithsonian
Title with the best of intentions: Ode (it’s the magazine for intelligent optimists, which is really just saying that we should stop looking at everything that’s bleak in life—there’s still a lot of good to look forward to and to smile about)
Women’s magazine I don’t mind reading: Marie Claire. I like their human interest pieces

Average price of subscription: $0/year. I get lots of free subs because I’m part of the industry.

Earliest magazine to arrive: Hearst publications—Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Town & Country

Magazines with the most prompt customer service: Condé Nast—GQ, Details, Wired, Domino

Magazines that arrive in my mailbox in the best shape: Condé Nast

Magazines that arrive in my mailbox in the worst shape: Hearst

Magazines that have the most number of subscription cards stuck in each issue, even though I’m a subscriber already: Rodale—Men’s health

Magazine I’d like to get a subscription to: Wallpaper*

Next in line: New York Magazine

And third: Best Life—not my market, but I like its fiction and interest stories the same way I like Men’s Health’s.

Section of my magazines I almost always get to read: The Front-of-Book (these are one-page stories that are found in the first few pages of the issue, usually has industry news, vignette-style reporting, or what’s new and what’s hot pieces)

Section of my magazines I almost never read: The celebrity cover stories. I don’t care about what the celebs are up to. And I really don’t like the fact they’ve invaded a lot of my magazines. I can count the number of exceptions with my hand.

Magazine that inspired me to become a magazine journalist: EGM. I thought playing video games for a living is the best job in the world—I still think so, although now it’s all about writing stories that would make a difference in the reader’s lives, whether it’s in giving a bad game a bad review just so they wouldn’t waste their $60 buying it at Gamestop the first day it’s out, or in reporting the latest breakthrough in curing or treating Alzheimer’s.

Best magazine article I’ve read: “Simplify Your Life,” Men’s Health July/August 2005. Full article can be found here.

Bye, Men's Vogue, I Barely Knew You

The magazine industry really is having a hard time.

I just read from Condé Nast Portfolio's website that Men's Vogue, the barely two-year-old Condé Nast title that was supposed to be the more upscale brother of GQ and Details, announced that it's going to fold. Read the blog post here.

Although the really young publication won't be closed completely, existing instead as a biannual supplement to Vogue, which really was how Men's Vogue came to be. (Rumor has it that it's only doing such for Anna Wintour, the magazine's Editorial Director, to save face. Even then it's not really a good sign: Anna's Vogue also is losing revenue while its fiercest rival, Elle is gaining.)

News like this is very disheartening especially for someone like me who works in the publishing industry. (Numerous publications have folded this year due to economic hardships and the shift in viewer's reading habits from print to digital.) But I also have to realize that a lot of magazines come and go each year, regardless of market conditions. Maybe it came out at the wrong time (Rodale's Organic Style), didn't establish its target reader quick (Condé Nast's Cargo), or it simply competed with a similar title in the same publishing house (Hearst's Cosmo Girl).

Men's Vogue was quite the promising publication, targeting the older, more established men that found GQ's articles too pop-py or too fratboy; and is scared by Details. (Coverline of the year: Do You Have Douchebag Hair?)

Question is, is there such a reader? I mean, will the older, more established men that Men's Vogue is catering to, buy the magazine?

Maybe there was and still is—after all, Best Life still remains a healthy publication, as evidenced by second quarter reports from Rodale.

So what happened?

Methinks it suffered from the Cargo syndrome. It took its time to find its voice, and unfortunately, publishing houses can't afford to do it now when things are so crazy. Men's Vogue did finally put an end to the question of who its readers are, saying that by the November issue, it's going to go with the tagline "Style is how you live." (Link here.) But it's too little, too late—by the time this new tagline is rolled out, the magazine's gonna cease to be a monthly. (There's also the issue with declining ad pages, but you probably already know how much magazines depend on advertising to survive.)

Pure speculation, but I do think it makes sense. (I also want to say, it's a pretty dry, staid publication. But it's most likely because I'm not its audience.)

Oh well. Now I gotta give a Condé Nast customer rep to not give me GQ or Details as replacement subscription. I'll take Vanity Fair, thanks.

Image from USAToday.net

Site Check: The Read Green Initiative

No matter how much flak I'll get with killing so many trees, it's really hard not to enjoy a printed magazine. You can bring it everywhere, it won't strain your eyes with UV rays, and the photographs never looked better.

Besides, I'll recycle them once the year's over. Calm down everyone.

To sort of "counter" this, I signed up for the The Read Green Initiative. This organization, lauding the efforts of the magazine community to encourage readers to recycle print magazines when they're done reading them, hopes to add to this noteworthy cause by offering digital subscriptions. You get the first one free, and if you decide to purchase another title, a portion of the price goes to planting more trees.

I like the cause, but couldn't wrap my head over the fact that subscription prices are almost the same as its dead-tree format. Why? Let's not forget that we're also paying for electricity from opening the computer and actually reading the magazine.

By the way, I subscribed to Layers magazine, a digital art tutorials publication. There are some that are NSFW.

I'm Sorry for Killing Trees

Sometime during the (current) length of my stay here in the US, I've amassed quite a number of magazine subscriptions. I was organizing my room one day and realized that, damn, that is a lot of subscriptions!

Some of them, I've paid for—publishing companies slash as much as 80 percent of the newsstand price when you subscribe—others I get from work, and others, well, I get them for free.

See for yourself. And there are 5 more that's going to start some time in November or December.
From top to bottom, left to right: Cosmopolitan, PC World, Men's Fitness, Town & Country, More, Wired, Maxim, Interview, Details, Psychology Today, Country Home, O, Organic Spa, Best Life, Mac World, Men's Health, Parents, GQ, Vogue, Seed, Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens, Metropolitan Home, Women's Health, Tennis, Country Home, Men's Vogue, Popular Science, and PC World.

Not photographed but am subscribed to: Esquire and EGM.

Due to start soon: Mac Life, Ode, Prevention, Men's Journal, and Shape.

With the exception of the women's and shelter/home decorating magazines, and Tennis (the first two I give to my mom, the last is for my Dad and uncle), I've read much of each issue. If there's one title among all these that I'm reading a lot more than others, it's Psychology Today. (Don't ask me why.)

Crazy, huh? But I like it—there's always something new to look at and read that doesn't take too much of my time.