In another impassioned opinion piece, Bo Sacks, publishing analyst and board member of the Magazine Innovation Center, argues that while magazine media has lost its dominance, it has something it can’t buy: reader trust. In fact, he argues, we may be on the cusp of a new golden age of publishing. if we want it enough…
A Substack writer, Ted Gioia, wrote an article titled The death of the magazine in which he talks at length about the death of the magazine industry. It’s an interesting and misinformed read.
To paraphrase Vizzini from The Princess Bride, the author made one of the classic mistakes! The most famous is: “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well known is this: one should never predict the death of the magazine industry by looking only at the success or failure of major publishers. Gioia confuses the health of major publishers, most of which are in decline, with the assessment that the entire industry is dying. He is clearly wrong.
Mark Twain once said, “The fear of death follows from the fear of living. A man who lives his life to the fullest is always ready to die.”
I’m not sure if this is too metaphysical for these pages or not, but I’m referring to all the absurd talk about the death of print that we read in so many trade magazines and blogs. What the print industry is going through has nothing to do with death. It’s all about a direct loss of dominance. This loss of dominance is not synonymous with death – it just feels that way.
Don’t compare your company or titles to anyone other than your last and next issue. Industry averages and how other titles are doing are rubbish. The only thing that matters is how your book sells. And many titles sell great. Established major magazines like the New Yorker and Vogue cling tenaciously to a global readership, both in print and digital. And there are other examples, but the industry as a whole exists and will exist for many generations to come, thanks to thousands of niche titles.
Yes, not the bigger titles, but the industry as a whole exists and will exist for many generations to come.
Boasting about the size of September fashion issues seems to have degenerated into a quaint custom from the days of irrational exuberance. Perhaps the arrogant approach this industry once took to size comparison is now a mere shadow of our former vanities. Who but a tyrant needs to brag?
We are no longer the dominant medium as an industry that we once were. We need to accept that and get over it. Once we do that, the talk of our demise will stop. We have to give up more of the advertising dollars than ever before. We are clearly not used to that, and it still hurts.
But as an industry we are neither dead nor close to it. We should live/work and be creative to the best of our ability and fear nothing except a lack of creativity. I believe that with creativity today there are ubiquitous and great opportunities and that an era of great expansion in publishing is underway. That would be the expansion of the media world, delivered to various devices via multiple methods, only one of which is paper.
The golden ticket: reader trust
We have something that very few online competitors have: trust. We have spent generations slowly and accurately vetting our editorial products. The result of this hard work is an enduring public sensitivity to the integrity of our print products.
I am saying that today, right now, is the dawn of the next golden age of publishing if we want it. Leave the past behind and live in the here and now. Think like an entrepreneur and adapt to the conditions you find yourself in, not the ones you wish you could. We don’t need a “thud” when we drop magazines on the table, because that’s no longer relevant. We need the sound of “ka-ching,” and that’s an achievable goal.
Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “There are no facts, only interpretations.” That’s pretty close to how we understand the magazine industry today, at least when you consider the various reports we constantly read on the subject. How many headlines have you seen that say, “Print is dead,” “Print is alive,” “Print is dynamic,” and again, “Print is obsolete”? Headlines like that appear incessantly every day. That’s enough to make a grown man cry, and in fact, some do.
So what does this mean? Can both concepts, death and aliveness, be correct? The obvious answer is yes. It’s all a matter of perspective. To refer to another famous but underrated quote from the prophet George Carlin: “Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.”
And there you have it. The expectations and glass that surrounds the printing industry need to be put into a smaller container to accommodate the current conditions we operate under. Based on all relevant data, that glass needs to be at least half the size it was ten years ago, as we now print, mail and use only half the advertising we once owned and valued.
I offer this perspective because the only way to maintain sanity is to question the things we have long taken for granted.
Absolute size alone is not an indicator of success and performance, let alone leadership skills. The right size is what matters.
Peter Drucker
Bo Sacks
President, Precision Media Group
This commentary originally appeared in Bo Sacks’ daily newsletter and is republished here with permission. You can subscribe to Bo’s e-newsletter here..
