Publishers meet at MU to discuss magazine industry

Success in the magazine industry is not an easy feat.

“There are a lot of people coming into this business thinking that it looks easy,” Springfield Magazine publisher Gary Whitaker said. “It becomes like a hobby to them, but they end up bailing out because they’re not ready to work.”

Whitaker is the president of the Missouri Association of Publications, an organization established in 2004 to serve as a resource for members of the publishing industry in and around Missouri. The group is holding its second annual summit today and Friday at Memorial Union on the MU campus. The event is open to the public.

The Feb. 27 edition of Capell’s Circulation Report reported that newsstand sales of best-selling magazines have declined 58 percent during the past 20 years.

Dan Capell, editor and publisher of Capell’s Circulation Report, said the top reason for the decline is the attractive nature of subscriptions. While newsstand sales are decreasing, subscription numbers are increasing, he said.

“We’ve been discounting subscriptions forever,” Capell said. “They’re always a better deal.”

With the number of titles increasing, typically in the same display case, an attention grabbing cover is the most important part of the magazine, Capell said. “Magazines are an impulse buy,” he said.

At 9th Street Bookstore, bookseller Bill Oliver estimates that the magazine racks have 600 titles.

“Some we never run out of, and others we can never get enough of,” Oliver said. A February issue of ESPN Magazine, featuring NASCAR driver and Columbia native Carl Edwards was a hot seller.

In January, Capell’s listed People magazine as the No. 1 newsstand seller, followed by Real Simple and Us Weekly.

“These magazines are carrying the rest of the industry,” Capell’s said. Although the celebrity and entertainment category “exploded at the checkout” in 2005, the circulation of city-state-regional magazines is up 75 percent in the last decade, according to Capell’s report.

Whitaker’s 417 Magazine covers the arts, events, dinning, entertainment and home, catering to its more than 130,000 readers in southwest Missouri.

With competition everywhere, John Fennell, an associate professor at the MU School of Journalism, said more publications are moving into niche topics.

Reiman Publications, launched in 1964 by Roy Reiman, has been successful at finding a niche that readers will continue to subscribe to year after year. With titles including Birds and Blooms, Farm and Ranch and Cooking for 2, Reiman Publications has grown to include 12 national consumer magazines with a combined circulation of more than 16 million paid subscribers — and no advertising.

Reiman will share his experience today with guests at this year’s MAP Publishing Summit.

“The summit,” said Whitaker, “offers people who are not necessarily competitors to get together and discuss common issues without giving away any secrets.”