BoSacks Speaks Out: The Dogs of War in the Single Copy Business. 

I have a magazine tale to tell. It started with a re-rant from a longtime reader of this newsletter. A re-ranter is, of course, someone who rants in response to one of my rants.

He brought up one of his favorite topics about our poor and apparently unwashed, non-audited titles that by any account are at least half of the printed magazine industry and could be upwards to 65% of our business based on the number of titles printed each year. I believe that Professor Samir Husni puts the number of printed magazines somewhere near 10,000. Other organizations and media trackers put the number considerably lower.  But whomever you seek for a meaningful number, the total number of printed magazines is astonishingly and, dare I say, still wonderfully high.

My re-ranter wonders how is it possible that an inclusive and noble industry like ours never talks about the unaudited among us? 

Only a few public discussions or organizations reference unaudited titles. As a former publisher of several unaudited titles and an industry insider who knows hundreds of the unwashed and unaudited, I know they are, for the most part, honest hard working information distributors who basically can't afford the audits or feel that for their business models or sectors, they just don't need or want them.

Now I have no problem at all with auditing. It serves an honest function for those titles that require it. But my observation is that most of the print industry isn't audited and that they deserve that same respect and coverage that their audited fraternity brothers and sisters get.

All printers gladly print copies of the unaudited. These copies are, in fact, the backbone of many a publication printing plant. Which makes sense since the majority of titles on the newsstand are, in fact, totally unaudited.

And all of that brings me to the soon-to-implode newsstand industry. Here is my concern when it comes to unaudited titles:

Gil Brechtel of MagNet recently reported that "final 2013 newsstand magazine sales were $3.119 billion, and that for the sixth year in a row, sales had declined. Contrast that with 2007, when newsstand magazine sales in the U.S. and Canada were nearly $5 billion dollars, having actually increased in both unit and dollar sales over the previous five-year period. Unfortunately, when the economy, home prices, and the stock market plummeted in 2008, the newsstand business went with it, and hasn't recovered since..."

Gil went on to say that "The newsstand business is very fragile. I believe that a continuation of this (newsstand) dysfunction will, in the near future, limit the ability for publishers of small niche products to get their titles into the traditional magazine retailer accounts, and will also cause some retailers to give up on the category."

Let's face facts, the big guys - you know who I mean, Conde` Nast, Hearst, Time Inc, Meredith - have nothing to worry about for the foreseeable future. They are a huge enterprise that can weather many a disrupting storm. The smaller, unaudited titles are fragile and at the mercy (and they shouldn't expect any) of the winds of a changing unforgiving environment.

Am I off base here? I don't think so. Why do you think we as an industry have this bias against the majority of our brother publishers? They are indeed the ones under the greatest threat, and their loss impacts distributors, wholesalers and printers alike.  I do solicit your opinion.  

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

William Shakespeare

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On another topic, I am very sad to report that I can't make the IMAG-MPA event this week in Washington DC. To be truthful I was scheduled to speak and designed an entirely new talk for a room full of my publishing friends.  It was a month ago when I realized that I had a scheduling malfunction and was committed to be elsewhere on the same day. 

IMAG-MPA is one of the highlights of my year and I will dearly miss seeing old friends and catching up on the real nitty-gritty of the magazine business. I will also miss reporting on the event and sharing with my readers a snapshot of what occurred.