A new kind of memorial is popping up online: a brightly colored tribute to now-defunct magazines. Domino, Best Life and Blender are among the latest high-profile casualties, with a stunning 525 titles dying in 2008, and another 88 this year alone.
But the picture is not as grim for niche magazines. Unexpectedly, the current economy is hiding pockets of success for independent magazines that serve a focused, dedicated subscriber base while keeping their operating costs and advertising rates low.
These may well be titles that most readers glide past on their way to buying the New Yorker or Vanity Fair. But magazines like Drum, EnlightenNext and Road may have something to teach the overstuffed matrons of midtown Manhattan.
Just as it has on the web, identifying and cultivating a devoted niche audience has worked for certain print products. They are holding up surprisingly well and have no plans to ditch their traditional medium.
“We are stable because our audience is loyal,” said Robert Heinzmann, publisher of EnlightenNext, a "practical spirituality" magazine that started as a newsletter in 1992 and now has a paid circulation of 25,000.
“Over half of our subscribers have been with us for over five years, and we are one of the best-selling titles in our genre at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Whole Foods and other chains,” he added. “We’re also a staple of independent bookstores. So among our subscribers and newsstand buyers, we have many good friends.”
EnlightenNext is weathering a slight advertising loss. “Circulation appears to be fairly stable, and advertising is more challenging, though we still fill our pages,” said Heinzmann.
Carrie Leigh’s Nude magazine, which features fine art nude photography, is actually growing, with a current print run of 80,000, four times its inaugural issue in September 2007. Gary Frischer, the magazine’s spokesperson, attributes it to a combination of new subscribers, larger store orders and Internet presales of individual issues. This has happened as traditional adult magazines like Playboy and Hustler have been shrinking radically.
With Nude, Frischer said, advertising was never a big part of the picture.
“Here is where we either got lucky or our original business plan paid off. When we created Nude, it was to place a quality product in the market,” Frischer said.
“We never counted on advertisers. Now it doesn’t matter to us that the advertisers have fled a large part of the print world.”
Indeed, the lower costs of running small magazines mean they charge advertisers less than their more sprawling competitors do, so advertisers have been more likely to stick around.
Some think smaller magazines have also benefited from the fracturing of the mass audience that used to support a land-grabbing publication like Life magazine, or the now-struggling newsweeklies.
The new indie arts magazine Tar, which releases its second issue this month, considers itself more “an art book of what’s happening in this moment,” editor Evanly Schindler told the New York Times this week. For the second issue, Schindler had to drop ad rates as advertisers balked, but kept the print quality by partnering with an art book company.
