Print publishing death watch

[doug maverick]

yeah man gotta make sure the only REAL kung fu magazine. doesnt disapear.

[Egg fu young]

Unfortunately I haven't received my last two issues I can see why it's a death watch. (and yes I already contacted Gene) but Gene is not a mailman.....stupid mailman.

[GeneChing]

Did you contact sales@martialartsmart.net? That's who really handles subscription fulfillment - it's our TN office. If you emailed me, surely I referred you. If it didn't get handled, let me know via email and I'll see what can be done. Gene@KungFuMagazine.com.

Thanks for the support SLL & doug. That is appreciated.

[David Jamieson]

Man, it's a good thing you are a total niche market!

distribution would be your greatest bane I would think.

advertising should be fairly simple enough and subscribers and newstand buyers can be increased with more provocative covers. lol.

less old men in pajamas with fierce faces and more hot chicks beating the crap out of toadies would be a jump I'll bet.

[doug maverick]

Man, it's a good thing you are a total niche market!

distribution would be your greatest bane I would think.

advertising should be fairly simple enough and subscribers and newstand buyers can be increased with more provocative covers. lol.

less old men in pajamas with fierce faces and more hot chicks beating the crap out of toadies would be a jump I'll bet.

actually acording to gene. people by more copies of old men in pajamas then hot chicks. when it comes to kung fu magazine.

[GeneChing]

And doug is right - women do poorly on our cover. Old Chinese guys do great. That's the thing about niche mags - our readership is specific.

Ads are about the same, but given that we are driven by our own retail, we don't carry a lot of competitors ads. How the economy is affecting our retail is a different matter entirely.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping for that niche mag bump... I'm hoping...

The niche magazines riding out the gloom
By Charlotte Philby
Monday, 16 February 2009

Something is happening in the West End of London. It’s a brisk morning in Covent Garden, and while business is slow at the boutiques and cafés, an impressive number of shoppers are finding their way towards the doors of the specialist bookstore Magma.

Inside, browsers gather before a great wall of magazines, about 80 titles – obscure fashion glossies beside self-published literary reviews. At the till, a rakish Scandinavian man hands the Muslim fashion journal MSLM to the cashier, while his partner peruses the children’s lifestyle manual Milk.

For many reasons, this doesn’t make sense – not least because we’re in the throes of a recession, the banks are teetering on the brink of collapse and, along with so many industries, the magazine market is in crisis. Isn’t it?

According to the bi-annual report from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, released last Thursday, magazine sales in the UK are indeed down. But, while many publications are struggling to survive in this economic chill, certain areas are bucking the trend – not least, a wave of emerging titles.

Sales of self-published, niche-interest magazines are thriving, according |to the assistant buyer |for Magma, Kate John. “These magazines exist apart from the mainstream,” she says. “When something is produced |as a work of passion, customers feel passionately about the product. As |a result, there is a constant audience.”

The independently funded “tattoo/crossover” journal Sang Bleu is an example. “A labour of love,” according to its creator, it is now in its third edition and boasts a fiercely loyal fan-base. It would have to: the latest copy – a 600-page double issue – costs £33 a pop, a pretty hefty sum by any standards. And yet it’s selling.

The title’s translation from French – “blue blood” – is not only a reference to one of the magazine’s main themes, tattoos. Sang Bleu’s founder and art director, 30-year-old Maxime Buechi, reveals a further relevance: “This magazine is essentially about the invasion of temporary, ‘underground’ cultures, some fetishist. Sang Bleu is making the statement that these are not vile things, as perceived by parts of established society. These are important subjects, and they deserve to be seen as noble.”

Whatever his message, Buechi is clearly not alone in his opinion. His magazine has sold 10,000 copies per issue so far, and four have been published. What’s the secret? “Sang Bleu touches people living between cultures, those who aren’t addressed by other media. People who buy the magazine need things like this. It’s not a commodity, it’s a voice.”

The idea of representation is significant, but it is the tone as much as the voice that is important. Philip Diprose set up the fixed-gear cycling magazine The Ride with his brother Andrew and friend Dean Taylor in order to complement, not compete with, existing cycling publications.

“Of what was available, nothing spoke to us,” says Diprose, 34. “We appreciate what they offer, but we are interested in the experience of cycling. Other magazines do reviews and products, but we wanted to address the soulful aspect.” The aesthetic was important, too, so Diprose enlisted a design team who were also cycling enthusiasts to create an ethereal cover illustration.

Nurturing a relationship with the cycling community was a primary objective. “Everyone who contributes to The Ride has a keen interest in cycling. Technology enables us to reach enthusiasts across the world.” |

A significant community there is, too. Only one issue of The Ride has been published so far, and 2,000 copies – at £7 each – sold out in six weeks. There were internet sales in Honolulu, Malaysia, Africa and beyond.

UK-based FUN magazine is also making a stir worldwide. Distributed in targeted bars, cinemas and shops across Europe and the US, this is essentially a satirical cult rag, with a clean, thoughtful design. The independently funded project has a fast-growing niche following. It is a free publication in several senses: it doesn’t cost readers a penny, and carries no advertising so can say whatever it wants. The integrity that comes with this is fundamental |to its appeal.

“We are answerable to no one except our consciences,” says co-founder, Ben Freeman, 30, who is responsible for editorial, while his partner, Deano Jo, 22, oversees publishing. FUN gathers content from established journalists who, under pseudonyms, address issues that have no other platform. So far, interviewees have included the BNP’s first elected member of the London Assembly, Richard Barnbrook, and the UK head |of the Chinese Falun |Gong movement.

Now in its third (quarterly issue), FUN has a DIY approach to getting things done. “Deano and I share the attitude that if you want to do something, you can’t sit around and wait for it to come to you,” Freeman says. “Rather than worrying about demographics, target audiences and business plans, we just got on with it.” The appeal of FUN lies in its uncompromising approach to issues sidelined or ignored in mainstream media, according to its fans, and this relies on its independence.

So could it be that we are witnessing the dawn of a new media age, where ideals and passion trump financial targets and cynical boardroom tactics, a brave new world that finds the little men beating the fat cats at their own game? Perhaps not. Maybe this is just another cycle of naive idealists, doomed eventually to succumb to the lure of advertising.

But one thing is for sure; for the moment, these guys are not feeling the pinch. And that, at least, is something to celebrate.

I don't think raising our price to £33 ($47) would help...

[GeneChing]

The AnCo closing has rocked the magazine publishing world. Some say it's the harbinger of the coming print apocalypse.

Here's an update of the situation.

The News Group Moves Forward After Anderson News Acquisition
TNG president described process as "a major undertaking."
By Chandra Johnson-Greene
Wednesday, March 25, 2009

At the 2009 MPA Retail Conference on Monday, News Group president David Parry outlined the company’s acquisition of assets belonging to Anderson News, which was forced to shut down its magazine distribution operation in February. Anderson’s exit from the market created a distribution nightmare that the supply chain is still digging out of. Parry described just how chaotic the scene had become.

Anderson, which co-owned the Prologix distribution service with The News Group, shut down its operation on February 7. Two weeks later, News Group made the decision to buy Anderson’s assets.

Parry said that the company wanted to find a way to get business back up and running in a responsible fashion. “We could have easily taken our time and opened new centers, or we could acquire assets from Anderson,” he said. “It wasn’t until Feb. 20 that we decided to take possession of most of their assets and begin the process of interviewing employees.”

Parry told attendees that the conditions were dire when they walked into Anderson’s warehouses. “It was about finding product inbound on trucks and in warehouses in return processing rooms,” he said. “There was product outbound too. And about 20 percent of that product was encumbered, and we could not find a distributor to do anything with it. So we had to process all of the product out, and return it using specific standards in order to get the distribution system to where it was able to report. It was a major undertaking.”

In order to accommodate the acquisition of distribution centers from Anderson, Parry says that The News Group interviewed and hired 3,800 people (it is unclear if any of these employees are from Anderson News), purchased 1,300 trucks and acquired 15 distribution centers and 50 depots to serve its retail customers and suppliers.

With the new infrastructure created, The News Group now has 27 distribution centers, 8,600 employees, 2,500 trucks and 120 depots between its five separate ownership groups, which together, Parry said, operate in markets representing about 90 percent of the population of the continental U.S. and Alaska.

“That claim is a little high since they don’t have locations in the population dense Northeast,” John Harrington, publisher of the New Single Copy newsletter, wrote in an email to AD. Harrington estimates that The News Group currently has approximately 40-45 percent of the magazine market share, but it would be a while before the company's market share could be accurately measured.

Parry told attendees that The News Group would now focus on investing in category management, the professional development of its employees and getting the product to flow. “We need to get product flowing,” he says. “We’re 100 percent up and ready to go, but we need to the right product shipped out to the right places as soon as possible. Our retail customers have suffered heavily since Feb. 7. Consumers have come in expecting to find their favorite magazines, and retailers have been unable to deliver, so we need your help.”

This is one among many reasons why we've launched our facebook and myspace sites.

[GeneChing]

RIP Maxim UK.

Beer, babes and good-bye for UK Maxim
Sir Felix is closing the print edition of the title
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Apr 2, 2009

The concept was nifty, playing upon the scruffy tastes of Britain's young men, and Felix Dennis did so well at it that many think he invented the entire laddie category of men's magazines when he launched Maxim in 1995.

In truth, it was already booming. Dennis just gave it more oomph with features on beer, babes and bathroom humor.

Now it's over.

The original Maxim is folding, it was announced today in London, its legacy living on as a web site. The last print issue goes out later this month. In its place on UK newsstands will appear the American edition, launched in 1997, which Dennis sold off several years ago.

At its peak in 2000, the UK Maxim reported a circulation of more than 300,000 but by late last year that had shrunk to under 50,000.

It was a slow but sure decline for the title, as well as for so many similar titles, trailing down each year as more and more young men moved online.

“The community that buys those magazines is moving to the internet,” Lorna Tilbian, media analyst at Numis Securities, a London investment bank, told Media Life almost two years ago. And by then circulation for men's title was already tumbling, falling 14.4 percent in the second half of 2006. Hardest hit were the lad titles.

But other forces were at work as well.

There was a flush of new titles, many weeklies, that overcrowded the market, making a shakeout inevitable. Almost all have seen their circulations tumble.

The few magazines to report gains were more upscale, traditional men's titles like Men’s Health and GQ, which remained above the fray.

But also hurting lad titles like Maxim was the rise more recently of free men's titles with far larger circulations, such as Sport and ShortList.

As freebies, handed out at train stations and the like, they didn't need to run racy covers to drive sales, making them more appealing to advertisers as well as readers.

The lads craze in the U.S. market has similarly ended. Maxim is still published but ad pages are well down. Sister title Stuff and arch-rival FHM folded two years ago.

[Shaolinlueb]

gene if you put my sexy picture on the cover in the sports bra with doug pile driving me through some bricks, i gaurentee you will sell 1 million issues.

[doug maverick]

gene if you put my sexy picture on the cover in the sports bra with doug pile driving me through some bricks, i gaurentee you will sell 1 million issues.

im down, you can pay us in nacho ninjettes!!!!!