BoSacks Speaks Out: Surviving Publishing's Perfect Storm?

BoSacks Speaks Out: Surviving Publishing's Perfect Storm?
By Robert M. Sacks
Let’s face it, traditional publishing is under serious attack. We are facing both the customary enemy of rising manufacturing costs and the nontraditional entry of strong digital competition where once none existed. And if that wasn’t enough, we have the increasingly evident disadvantage of a terrible carbon footprint. This is a perfect storm of tremendous proportions. What are publishers to do? How can we survive?

In the past few weeks, a couple of headlines have crossed my desk. Each alone is powerful enough, but when considered together they offer terra-forming, watershed moments for the magazine industry, and, if viewed correctly, financial hope and a foundation for a very successful publishing enterprise.

The first headline comes from a Media-Ideas press release that claimed that: “In 25 years, digital magazines will command 75 percent of the magazine market.” That is a powerful statement and, even if these calculations are off by 50 percent, it means that almost 40 percent of printed magazines will be gone in 25 years. Will yours be one of those missing titles? Are you gearing up for that kind of transformation?

Media-Ideas attributes this transition to the growth of new and more affordable, flexible e-reading technologies, some apparently ready for deployment as early as 2009. These devices will be full-color, flexible, e-paper-based reading instruments. There will be several stages to the development and release of these new products, but the results will be staggering. I believe that the 25-year time line is conservative, as technology notoriously proceeds much faster than anyone can predict.

The next headline is a statement from the United Nations communications chief, who predicts that more than half of the world’s population will be connected by some sort of mobile phone before 2009. That is a large number of people possessing Web-accessible, text-reading, communication devices. Can you imagine when flexible e-paper, digital-magazine-reproducing products get into that global equation?

The proliferation of powerful, handheld, supercharged communication systems changes everything, including our precepts and concepts of publishing. Technology is no longer only for nerds, or an indulgence for the rich. It’s who we all are and who we will be. It’s embedded in our lives and culture. It’s everywhere, it’s global, and there’s no going back to rolls of parchment, or mass-distributed, carbon-hogging magazine distribution.

Printed magazines will not disappear, but they will become the less dominant reading platform and perhaps exist only for those who can afford them. Of course, printed niche products will continue to thrive, though non-niche titles will not make it—according to Darwin’s law of survival of the fittest or, in this case, Bo’s law of survival of the most uniquely remarkable. And the subset of Bo’s law is that unique remarkability is in the eyes of the distinctive beholder (reader).
So, what am I getting at with this introduction of the new world order of communications? As new generations of e-paper reading devices enter the market, the relevance of digital magazines will take on a whole new importance.

If digital magazines have not made sense to you yet in the 21st century, they will with the advent and ubiquity of portable and flexible e-paper devices.

You can add to this conversation that digital magazines have the increasingly important advantage of being able to measure the impact of everything the reader does—the advertisements, the clicks, transactions, the reading time, the actual engagement of the consumer with the product itself. Publishers must act now on their digital-magazine implementation plans or risk irrelevance in the new media future. PE

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a printing/publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He is also the co-founder of the research company Media-Ideas (Media-Ideas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, circulator and almost every other job this industry has to offer.

Is Trade Publishing a Canary in a Coal Mine?

Is Trade Publishing a Canary in a Coal Mine?
Posted by Jeremy Greenfield
I had lunch on Monday with the Steve Cohn (EIC of min), and the editor, publisher, and president of a very big, very well-known, and very old gentleman's magazine at a restaurant in the McGraw-Hill building. Of course, we talked about their magazine, the Giants game, and consumer-side gossip. But one topic of conversation that kept on coming up was the state of trade publishing in 2008. We talked first about BusinessWeek and the plight of the weekly in general. Then we talked about M&A in the B2B space, and then, finally, the topic of whether trade advertising would be strong in 2008.

Alan Greenspan famously said while chairman of the Federal Reserve that he need only look at the price of scrap metal to determine where the economy was headed. The scrap metal business is a commodity based on several commodities: essentially, the profit that scrap outfits make is dependent on the price of various metals around the world as well as the price of oil, electricity, and various other commodities. Therefore, price of scrap can be a good indicator for the economy as a whole-scrap goes up, economy doing well, scrap goes down, who knows. (I got this from The New Yorker . . . see John Seabrook's article "American Scrap" (abstract) in the 1/14 issue for more. You should also read Ken Auletta's "The Search Party" (complete article) in the same issue-it's about Google's lobbying efforts in Washington.)

Like scrap, trade publishing can be a good indicator of how the economy as a whole is doing. When I look at our exclusive min's b2b Boxscores and see that the building and construction category is down as a whole about 10%, well, that indicates something to me. Just for fun, I'll give you a quick run down of how all of our categories are doing (change is in ad pages year-to-date through November 2007, Source: IMS/The Auditor, except Business/Horizontal, which is provided by min):

Advertising & Marketing: +1.66% (A strong year in advertising has bolstered some of the big books in this category)

Automotive: -2.32% (More on this category in this week's min's b2b)

Banking & Finance: -.60% (Something tells me that some books in this category will be hit hard in 2008)

For the roundup of the rest of our categories, click below . . .

Broadcast Video: -19.5% (This category has been hit hard by cable network carrier saturation. More in this week's min's b2b)

Building & Construction: -9.46% (This one's obvious . . . and is being bolstered by commercial construction)

Business/Horizontal (Jan-Dec, Source: min): -9.13% (More on this category in this week's min's b2b)

Computing: -22.96% (But, in related news, most of the books here are just killing online . . . so I hear)

Developers Technical: -3.77% (Some books in this category are seeing a resurgence in print)

Electronic: -8.54% (Internet)

Engineering & Manufacturing:-6.88% (This year's decline is part of a long-term trend in this industry-not as much in the way it markets: the big boys are still holding their own)

Fashion & Design: -7.22%(While the graphics/design books are doing well, the fashion trades aren't as much)

Food: Retail:-2.22%(While life has been tough on the supermarket industry this year, the convenience store/petroleum industry has benefited from high gas prices and innovations in basic business practices and store services)

Food: Service/Restaurants: +.82 (A few books that have had several bad years in a row are coming back)

Food: Processing: +3.66 (More on this category in this week's min's b2b)

Government: -10.54% (Gov IT books are computing books this year)

Healthcare: -3.32 (Pharm)

Pharmaceutical: -5.16% (Pharm)

Telecommunications: -12.40% (Wireless books are hard hit in 2007)

Transportation: -9.76% (Oil prices and Pacific port overcrowding have squeezed Pacific and air marketing budgets-Gulf is up)

Travel/Lodging/Hospitality: -3.29% (Travel agent books are bringing an otherwise healthy category down)

OVERALL: The min's b2b index of 300+ trades is down 8.17% in ad pages through November 2007. I smell gas.