Another one bites the dust

Well this sucks. Finally found out today after a couple of weeks of silence that one of our clients has given up and closed his magazine after only two issues. Apart from the loss of income which of course is not good, it’s generally demoralizing to hear that another publication isn’t going to make it. I don’t know the details yet but I’d guess that it’s due to lack of advertising sales and lack of interest in general. Then I read a story this morning about single copy sales showed that 7 of the top ten magazines showed decreases in sales in the last six months of 2007 versus the previous year (-17.57% in one case), and that the top 25 remain the top 25 but have all shown losses (except for some in subscription rates). Bah.

New Year, Strep Throat, Media Kits

It was one illness after another in our house this holiday season. Flu followed immediately by strep throat. I never saw my own tonsils before, but they had swollen so large they were almost touching! Nasty. Had an opportunity to re-design the media kit for my full-time job magazine, which was fun. It was necessary as almost all our staff were at CES this past week, including the sales staff, and I think the previous version had been created in 1982! I was all for creating a digital version of the media kit that we could email to clients as well, like I have for many of my own clients, but alas, the powers that be deemed it unnecessary and a waste of time. Such a shame, there’s so much you can do with a simple PDF nowadays to make the reader experience so much more than just another boring media kit.