Interesting strategy by Future’s Mollie Makes magazine, which mirrors the way I teach online journalism (community first, then content, then platform):

“Future employed a Community Editor to engage with the online craft audience and build a buzz in the months leading up to the launch of Mollie Makes.

“This was achieved through a Mollie Makes blog, Twitter account, Facebook page and YouTube channel and meant that before the magazine even hit the shelves, Mollie Makes already had a strong online following and an existing customer base.

“The number of people engaging with Mollie Makes online has continued to grow, and Mollie Makes now has over 26,000 Facebook fans and 10,000 Twitter followers.

“Mollie Makes also broke Future’s new subscription record, achieving 3,000 subscribers before issue 2 went on sale, with the majority of these subscriptions driven through online channels.”

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Before the internet made it easier for advertisers to become publishers, they were already growing tired of the limitations (and inflated price) of traditional display advertising. In the magazine industry one of the big growth areas of the past 20 years was client publishing: helping – to varying degrees – companies create magazines which were then given or sold to customers, staff, members, or anyone interested in their field.

With some traditional advertising revenue streams dropping like a stone, newspapers belatedly started to see similar potential in their own markets. Trinity Mirror’s Media Wales are among a few newspaper publishers to sell video production services and the organisation has followed US newspapers in selling SEO services; while the FT followed Conde Nast when it recently bought an app production company.

While the execution varies, the idea behind it is consistent: this is no longer about selling content, or audiences, but expertise – and quite often expertise in distribution as much as in content production.

But the picture continues to change. And a new initiative from Facebook is worth watching closely in this regard:

“Facebook is encouraging advertisers to create ads based solely on the content they publish to their own Facebook pages

“… what Facebook really wants is for advertisers to spend time creating stuff that looks and acts just like the stuff Facebook users already like. (Worth noting that this is quite similar to Twitter’s ad strategy, which treats ads like tweets, and vice versa. Also worth noting: Just like Twitter’s ad strategy, this one should work very well on the limited real estate available on mobile phones.) It’s supposed to promote “earned” media — the industry’s name for promotion that fans/users/consumers end up doing for free, on their own.”

This is a natural extension of owning the platform. But whereas traditional publishers might try to sell users’ content (and, significantly, always feared Facebook staking a claim over their own), Facebook recognises that selling its distribution is the business they’re really in.

This starts to put Facebook in more direct competition with traditional media organisations, and has some significant potential implications:

• Firstly, it weakens publishers’ offerings on social media optimisation – they may have to advise clients to pay Facebook (and Twitter) as well as themselves.
• Secondly, it makes news organisations more direct competitors. In the same way that Apple initially blocked publishers from directing users to subscriptions outside apps, Facebook may see itself squaring up to media organisations.
• Finally, there’s always the chance that this will drive some advertisers out of the walled garden of Facebook and into the arms of the open web where they have more control. Maybe.

Whichever it is – and the whole project may fail to take off – publishers need to watch what Facebook is doing in this space, and adapt accordingly.

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UPDATE: Readers of this blog can now get a 20% discount off the book by using the code ME1211 when ordering on the Routledge site.

Magazine Editing is one of those books that I’ve used for years in my teaching. Unlike most books in the field, it has a healthy focus on the less glamorous aspects of running magazines, such as managing teams and budgets, editorial strategy, and the significant proportion of the industry – B2B, contract publishing, controlled-circulation, subscription-based – that you don’t see on supermarket shelves.

For the third edition, publishers Routledge approached me to update the book for a multiplatform age. That work is now done – and the new edition is now out.

Although it now has my name on it, the book remains primarily the work of John Morrish, who wrote the first two editions of the book. Editing his work gave me a fresh appreciation of just what a timeless job he has done in identifying the skills needed by magazine editors – as I write in the introduction:

“It is striking how much of the advice in the book is more important than ever. In a period of enormous change it is key to focus on the core skills of magazine editing: clear leadership, effective management, people skills and creative thinking around what exactly it is that your readers are buying into – whether that’s printed on paper, pixels on a screen, or something intangible like a sense of community and belonging.”

So if you can find one of the older editions cheap, you’ll still find it useful.

So what did I add to the new edition of Magazine Editing? It goes without saying that digital magazines (web-only, apps) are now covered. The diversification of revenue models – the increased importance of events, merchandising, data, mobile and apps – is now explored, as well as how online advertising works, and how it differs from traditional advertising. How to use online resources, including web analytics, to better understand your audience and inform your editorial strategy; and how magazine campaigns are changed by the dynamics of the web.

The chapter on leading and managing now includes sections on managing information overload, social bookmarking and social media policies, and there’s a new section on legal guidance on placements and internships. The budgeting sections now include online considerations, and there’s an exploration of the pros and cons of using free or minimal cost third party services against building tools in-house. A passage from the section on ‘Making money online’ is illustrative of the shifts facing the industry:

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Given I’ve already linked to Tony Hirst twice this week I thought I’d make it a hat-trick. Last month Tony wrote two blog posts which I thought were particularly instructive for magazine publishers organising blog awards.

In the first post Tony complained after seeing Computer Weekly’s shortlist:

“Why, oh why, don’t publishers of blog award nomination lists see them as potentially useful collections on a particular subject that can be put to work for the benefit of that community?

“… There are umpteen categories – each category has it’s own web page – and umpteen nominations per award. To my mind, lists of nominations for an award are lists of items on a related topic. Where the items relate to blogs, presumably with an RSS feed associated with each, the lists should be published as an OPML file, so you can at-a-click subscribe to all the blogs on a list in a reader such as Google Reader, or via a dashboard such as netvibes. Where there are multiple awards, I’d provide an OPML file for each award, and a meta-bundle that collects nominations for all the awards together in a single OPML file, though with each category in its own nested outline element.”

I’d suggest something even more simple: an aggregator widget pulling together the RSS feeds for each category, or a new Twitter account, or a Google Reader bundle.

In a second post the following day Tony finds a further way to extract value from the list: use Google Custom Search to create a custom search engine limited to those sites you have shortlisted as award-worthy. His post explains exactly how to do that.

Tony’s approach demonstrates the difference between story-centred and data-centred approaches to journalism. Computer Weekly are approaching the awards as a story (largely because of limitations of platform and skills – see comments), with the ultimate ending ‘Blog publisher wins award’. Tony, however, is looking at the resources being gathered along the way: a list of blogs, each of which has an RSS feed, and each of which will be useful to readers and journalists. Both are valid, but ignoring either is to miss something valuable in your journalism.

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Tony Hirst points my attention (again) to Yahoo! Clues, a tool that, like Google’s Insights For Search, allows you to see what search terms are most popular. However, unlike Insights, Yahoo! Clues gives much deeper demographic information about who is searching for particular terms.

Tony’s interest is in how libraries might use it. I’m obviously interested in the publishing side – and search engine optimisation (SEO). And here’s where the tool is really interesting.

Until now SEO has generally taken a broad brush approach. You use tools like Insights to get an idea – based on the subject of your journalism – of what terms people are using, related terms, and rising terms. But what if your publication is specifically aimed at women – or men? Or under-25s? Or over-40s? Or the wealthy?

With Yahoo! Clues, if the search term is popular enough you can drill down to those groups with a bit more accuracy (US-only at the moment, though). Taking “Emma Watson haircut”, for example, you can see that a girls’ magazine and one aimed at boys may take different SEO approaches based on what they find from Yahoo! Clues.

Apart from anything else, it demonstrates just what an immature discipline web writing and SEO is. As more and more user data is available, processed at faster speeds, we should see this area develop considerably in the next decade.

UPDATE: After reading this post, Tony has written a follow-up post on other tools for seeing demographics around search behaviour.

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UPDATE 2 – from Cathy in the comments (Nov 11): Dave Belanger has now paid the fee.

UPDATE – thanks to Vicki in the comments (Nov 11): Dave Belanger has responded to Suzanne, reinstating the image on their website with a credit and link, and offering to pay. However, he has refused to pay the amount requested by Suzanne, and Suzanne is now planning to take the magazine to court. Her reasoning is admirable, and it’s fair to say that contributions of commenters have helped her to make a well-informed stance:

“Countryside Publications is a five million dollar company. He accused me of being opportunistic by asking for an increased fee for the unauthorized and uncredited use.

“This is not about money. I may never see the $2100. If I do, it will be a long time from now. If I wanted to make a quick buck, I’d take the $500 [offered]. (I could use it.) But if I let him not only steal the photo but pay no penalty for it, there’s no reason for him to not steal again. After all, what did it cost him? He can steal photos all he wants and only pay for them (at a price he sets) if he’s caught. Just who is opportunistic? He published my photo without authorization or credit then says, here, take $500 or NOTHING.”

There’s also some detail about the possible impact on the publishers from Internet users:

“P.S. He mentioned receiving phone calls and emails from my readers and said he was not concerned about it. He admitted there had also been some subscription cancellations, but that people cancelled subscriptions and started subscriptions every day and that he had no reason to believe any subscription cancellations were related to his treatment of my work.”

The original post:

Oh dear. It appears another magazine editor is about to feel the force of a thousand emails following a blogger’s complaint of breach of copyright and – more importantly – said editor’s response to their request for fair payment and acknowledgement of authorship.

The editor in question is Dave Belanger who – apparently – hung up on Suzanne McMinn when she called to ask that her photo – used in Dairy Goat Journal – was properly credited.

With 80 comments already – many of them saying they have called and written to the magazine – and the case also being discussed on the fake Cooks Source Facebook page – you can only hope Dave looks at the Cooks Source and reacts quickly.

*All about this that I can find looks credible, but I’m extra cautious of this being an opportunistic hoax.

via Ulrike in the comments.

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It’s barely 24 hours since the Cooks Source/Judith Griggs saga blew up, but so much has happened in that time that I thought it worth reflecting on how other publishers might handle a similar situation.

Although it’s an extreme example, the story has particular relevance to those publications that rely on Facebook or another web presence to publish material online and communicate with readers, and might at some point face a backlash on that platform.

In the case of Cooks Source, their Facebook page went from 100 ‘likes’ to over 3,000, as people ‘liked’ the page in order to post a critical comment (given the huge numbers of comments it’s fair to say there were many more people who un-’liked’ the page as soon as their comment was posted). The first question that many publishers looking at this might ask is defensive:

Should you have a Facebook page at all?

It would be easy to take the Cooks Source case as an indication that you shouldn’t have a Facebook page at all – on the basis that it might become hijacked by your critics or enemies. Or that if you do create a page you should do so in a way that does not allow postings to the wall.

The problem with this approach is that it misunderstands the fundamental shift in power between publisher and reader. Just as Monica Gaudio was able to tell the world about Judith’s cavalier attitude to copyright, not having a Facebook page (or blog, etc.) for your publication doesn’t prevent one existing at all.

In fact, if you don’t set up a space where your readers can communicate with you and each other, it’s likely that they’ll set one up themselves – and that introduces further problems.

If you don’t have a presence online, someone else will create a fake one to attack you with

After people heard about the Cooks Source story, it wasn’t long before some took the opportunity to set up fake Twitter accounts and a Facebook user account in Judith’s name. (UPDATE: Someone has registered JudithGriggs.com and pointed it at the Wikipedia entry for ‘public domain’, while a further Cooks Source Facebook page has been set up claiming that the original was “hacked”)

These were used in various ways: to make information available (the Twitter account biography featured Judith’s phone number and email); to satirise Judith’s actions through mock-updates; and to tease easily-annoyed Facebook posters into angry responses.

Some people’s responses on Facebook to the ‘fake’ Judith suggested they did not realise that she was not the real thing, which leads to the next point.

A passive presence isn’t enough – be active

Judith obviously did have a Facebook account, but it was her slowness to respond to the critics that allowed others to impersonate her.

Indeed, it was several hours before Judith Griggs made any response on the Facebook page, and when she did (assuming it is genuine – see comments below) it was through the page’s welcoming message – in other words, it was a broadcast.

This might be understandable given the unmanageable volume of comments that had been posted by this time – but her message was also therefore easily missed in the depths of the conversation, and it meant that the ‘fake’ Judith was able to continue to impersonate her in responses to those messages.

One way to focus her actions in a meaningful way might have been to do a ‘Find’ on “Griggs” and respond there to clarify that this person was an imposter.

Instead, by being passive Judith created a vacuum. The activity that filled that vacuum led in all directions, including investigating the magazine more broadly and contacting advertisers and stockists.

Climb down quickly and unreservedly

While being passive can create a vacuum, being active can – if not done in a considered way – also simply add fuel to the fire.

The message that Judith eventually posted did just that. “I did apologise to Monica via email, but aparently [sic] it wasnt enough for her,” she wrote, before saying “You did find a way to get your “pound of flesh…”".

This “blaming the victim”, as one wall poster described it, compounded the situation and merely confirmed Judith’s misunderstanding of the anger directed at her.

An apology clearly wasn’t what people wanted – or at least, not this sort of reserved apology.

A quicker, fuller response that demonstrated an understanding of her community would have made an enormous difference in channeling the energy that people poured into what became an increasingly aggressive campaign.

UPDATE (Nov 9): As of a few hours ago Cooks Source appear to have published an official statement which includes a more fullsome apology. The statement doesn’t help, however, partly because it doesn’t address the key issues raised by critics about where it gets content and images from, partly because its sense of priorities doesn’t match those of its audience (the apology comes quite late in the statement), and partly because it is internally inconsistent. Commenters on the Facebook page and blogs have already picked these apart.

There’s also a wonderful ‘corrected’ version of the statement which does an impeccable job of illustrating how they should have phrased it.

Engage with criticism elsewhere

The Cooks Source Facebook page wasn’t the only place where people were gathering to criticise and investigate the magazine. On Reddit hundreds of users collaborated to find other breaches of copyright, put up contact details for the copyright holders, and list advertisers that people could contact. Someone also created a Wikipedia entry to document Griggs’ instant notoriety.

Even if Judith had shut down the Facebook page (not a good idea – it would have merely added further fuel to the fire), the discussion – which had now become a campaign and investigation – was taking place elsewhere. Engaging in that in a positive way might have helped.

A magazine is not just content

One of the key principles demonstrated by the whole affair is that magazines are about much more than just the content inside, but about the community around it, and their values. This is what advertisers are buying into. When I asked one of Cooks Source’s advertisers why they decided to withdraw their support, this is what they said:

“I would estimate that between the emails, [Facebook] messages, calls, and people following us on Twitter, we’ve been contacted by more than 100 people since I first heard of this about 5 hours ago. That doesn’t include many many people who commented on fb to our posts stating that we had requested to pull our ads from the publication. We are just simply trying to run our small business, which by most standards is still in its infancy, and being associated with publications like this that don’t respect its readers (who are all our potential customers) is unacceptable to us in light of their practices. What angers me even more is the fact that it is being made light if by the Editor herself. It is disrupting our business and linking us to something we do not support.”

Postscript: How it unfolded, piece by piece

Kathy E Gill has a wonderfully detailed timeline of how the story broke and developed which offers further lessons in how a situation like this develops.

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UPDATE 7: The official Cooks Source webpage now features a rather confusing statement on the saga, apologising to Monica Gaudio and saying they have made the donation asked for. The page claims that their Facebook page was “cancelled” and “since hacked”. It’s not clear what they mean by these terms as the original Facebook page is still up and, clearly, could not be hacked if it had been “cancelled”. They may be referring to the duplicate Facebook page which also claims (falsely) the original was “hacked”. In addition the statement says they have “cancelled” their website – but as the statement is published on their website it may be that by “cancelled” they mean all previous content has been removed. This discussion thread picks out further inconsistencies and omissions.

UPDATE 5: The magazine’s Facebook page has now been updated with a message from editor Judith saying she “did apologise” but “apparently it wasn’t enough for her”, shown below:

UPDATE 2: Reddit users have been digging further into the magazine’s use of copyrighted content. They’ve also identified a planned sister magazine, whose Facebook page has also been the recipient of a few comments.

UPDATE 6: Edward Champion has chased down the copyright holders of both text and images found in Cooks Source which appear to have been used without permission.

UPDATE 4: A list of mainstream media reports on the story is also being maintained on the magazine’s Facebook page.

***ORIGINAL BLOG POST STARTS HERE***

For much of today people have been tweeting and blogging about the magazine editor with 30 years’ experience demonstrating a by now familiar misunderstanding of copyright law and the ‘public domain’.

To the writer whose material they used without permission she apparently responded that “the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it!”

What makes this of particular interest is how the affair has blown up not just across Twitter and Reddit but on the magazine’s own Facebook page, demonstrating how this sort of mistake can impact very directly on your own readers – and stockists and advertisers:

Meanwhile, others were suggesting investigating the magazine further:

It all adds up to a perfect lesson for magazine editors – not just in copyright, but in PR and community management.

UPDATE 1: It seems that users are going through the latest issue and suggesting where the content may have been taken from.

UPDATE 3 On a separate topics page on the Facebook page the details are being collated.

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Suzanne Kavanagh reports on key insights and highlights from the Periodicals Training Council (PTC) Academies and Industry Forum, at Bauer Media’s central London office.

Editorial is at the heart of management at Bauer, said the company’s CEO, Paul Keenan, who explained how they work across media and events for brands and are embracing digital.

Keenan provided several insights into the industry and Bauer’s business – helpful information for anyone applying to get into the industry:

• There are 3600 consumer magazines published each year; 85% of revenue comes from the top 250 titles
• And of the top 250 titles, 50% are new
• 500 magazines are launched each year; 500 magazines fail each year – there is a high churn rate
• New launches are the lifeblood for creativity & help advertisers reappraise their strategy
• Digital is either an extension of editorial strategy and added value or a business with a model & multiple revenue streams

Recent brand extensions and product developments have included:

• The launch of a new online luxury shopping site Cocosa, born out of Grazia, with 250k members in UK
• The Grazia Live office at Westfield shopping centre
• Motorcycle News, which sells 110k copies per week, has set up a transactional money making website selling bike insurance
• Motorcycle News also has an iPhone app on way which will provide the average and top speed per journey and – crucially – how far over you leant on your bike!
• The More Facebook Group Challenge where readers adopt a newsagent, improve the presentation of More instore and submit photographs, going out to over 50k Facebook group members.

There were some useful tips on what Bauer looks for in new entrants to editorial from Keenan and Matt Swain, editor of Trail magazine: there have been structural changes in the industry – there are now fewer people with increased demands on their time – which has led to a shift in working. Journalism courses need to shift how they prepare students for working in the industry.

4 skills to get in and get ahead

Matt Swaine, former Cardiff University lecturer, outlined the four skills students need to get into the industry and get ahead:

1. Understand design (including how print can excel, how good design can save time, and the curatorial role of harnessing the power of great images)

A good writer needs to be able to visualise what a feature will look like – even at the initial stage. Pictures are as important as the words in telling a story.

Be able to sketch out feature openers. Headlines need to work with a strong opening visual.

Make collecting and assessing published magazine spreads an integral part of the course and design awareness should be part of the final assessment of *every* course.

2. Get to grips with digital (what it can and can’t do)

Understand what print does well and what the web does well (e.g. SEO). It’s *not* about repurposing content anymore. Anyone can set up a really meaningful web presence in under two hours now and it’s not worth teaching HTML anymore (you wouldn’t teach students how to make paper…)

Trail has experimented with video starting with a video camera and higher post-production values, but it took too much time and only gained 5k views. So they moved to a reader competition to shoot a video of favourite walks. They received c.100 entries and the shortlist was shown at the Kendal Mountain Film Festival. It plugged into a community of enthusiasts and was a great way to get content cost-effectively. A great example of exploring the strengths of different platforms and user generated content and how they can drive subscriptions.

Courses need to encourage digital experimentation. However, good ideas should be judged by how they meet reader needs.

3. Know your readers

A typical question in an interview (for Men’s Health magazine): who reads this magazine? The answer? It’s not just about demographic info, it’s more about getting under the skin of the reader: their hopes, their fears, their needs. Be able to conceptualise who they are and communicate that. Encourage students to describe readers in these terms.

Get students to expose their work to real readers (you can do this via Twitter, online forums and via a website). Get them to go out and meet readers and let them assess the quality of their work. Build your contact book for your niche, get round an over-reliance on the web. People are where great stories lie.

4. Entrepreneurial skills

Develop business sense. How do you extend brands? How do people make money from online? What other titles could be launched? What else do readers want and how do we provide in ways that generates revenue? How do we extend beyond print?

Swaine’s one key piece of advice? If you do one thing with your students, make sure they meet their readers, but not in focus groups, just talk to them.

Changes in production

Geoff Campbell, MD of the Mens division and Stuart Williams, MD of music & entertainment ran through some of the developments in the editorial production process since they’ve set up Bauer’s production ‘hub’. They have managed to streamline the reprographic house production process and have got picture editors working together on negotiation and supplier selection.

They manage variable production workflows while minimising freelance support. They still use freelance support for generating editorial content. Mojo, for example, has a core editorial team of 10, with two regular freelancers and a pool of 60-70 other writers they use.

Perhaps the most anticipated speaker of the day was Jane Bruton, editor-in-chief of  Grazia. She provided 11 reasons why Grazia has been so successful:

1. 10 hot news stories each week (mix of A list, high fashion + news)
2. Build a ‘no-brow’ team – the newsiest fashion tean + fashionable news team!
3. Create your own soap stories
4. Leave an emotional memory (people like us)
5. Nailing trends
6. Stimulate debate
7. Rev up the pace
8. Sound like a weekly
9. React to the times (recession response etc)
10. Have good covers and finally…
11. Be brave (cites recent Florence Welch augmented reality issue)

When asked about whether or not Grazia takes interns and work experience placement, she confirmed that they do, but advised hopeful applicants to not just approach the editor. Find the right person in charge of organising placements and make sure you do a stunning cover letter.

The final session was presented by Charlie Watson, head of digital content and Julian Linley, creative director. Watson outlined the four media trends for digital:

1. Google (friend or foe): an emerging tool. Google Trends allows you to compare key words/brand (inc. key word suggestion tool). A free tool that gives you an instant idea of what people associate your brand with.
2. Multimedia: they have defined 16 different types across their brands and markets which has an impact on the content distribution cycle
3. New revenue streams: revenue diversification – editorial and marketing have to increase their business and financial savvy. Watson has created the following graph to illustrate the different models. 
   
4. iPad – a mix of heaven + hell? Apple get 30% from app store and there are questions around the commercial reasons why they won’t support Flash.

Linley explained how most of their success online has been where they add value rather than replicating what’s in print and where they have a loyal readership. He cited the recent example from More magazine, where they asked their Facebook members to choose a cover star. They wanted Gaga. They got her. It was one of their bestselling issues ever.

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Here’s the strange tale of Blair and More! magazine. Blair is a fashion blogger who picked up a copy of More! magazine, didn’t like what she saw, and tweeted it.

More! then retweeted Blair’s critical opinions to their 11,000-plus followers – along with a couple of tweets that Blair had directed at a friend.

Blair explains “(The ‘tee hee’ at the top is in response to someone saying I ‘must feel stupid’ now. Sorry, More!, but I feel quite the opposite.)”

It’s a curious example of how Twitter can be used by a magazine. The platform is notoriously difficult to use as ‘an institution’. Who is @moremagazine? Is it ‘the brand’ speaking? The editor? A journalist? The publisher? Or someone on work experience? Is it the reader community?

Depending on your answer to the above, the tweets and retweets relating to Blair’s criticism can be anything ranging from a stain on the brand to a platform for readers’ opinions.

Blair puts it particularly well, and I leave the last word to her:

“It’s an incredibly interesting example of how the internet, and in particular the advent of social networking and the recent ubiquity of Twitter, has changed the interaction between publications and their readers in a relatively short space of time.

“Ten, even five years ago, something like this would have been unimaginable. Negative feedback would have either been ignored or taken on board and used to make changes, not advertised publicly so it could be mocked by other readers. (Not that this was actually feedback, of course; it would have to have been directed at the magazine for that, and it wasn’t.)

“On a larger scale, the recent Danny Dyer/Zoo magazine controversy is a great example of the changing relationship between magazines and their readers, a case in which the outrage of Twitter users and bloggers prompted public apologies and the sacking of Dyer.

“Is this change a good or bad thing? While I’d prefer my personal comments not to have been reposted like this, I can’t help but think it’s good; a strange sort of equality, in which readers and consumers are gaining power. I also can’t help but think if even a handful of people saw my comments and thought I had a point, this particular stunt has backfired on More! magazine.”

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