Re: another garden magazine ceases

**B*@aol.com**

Well, I guess it's time for me to take a shot at this. I write for magazines, 
in several subject areas. In addition, I spent many years as a magazine 
editor. And I used to be a consultant; what in New York they call a "magazine 
doctor." So I bring a little more to the table than the parochial view of 
just being a garden writer. In fact, as a relatively new garden writer, maybe 
I can provide insights that those too close to it are missing.

Magazines fold for numerous reasons, but they all add up to insufficient 
generated revenues. And that problem can be caused by both the business side 
of the office, and by the content side. And, of course, a combination of the 
two.

I won't go much into the business issues----which range from lack of sales to 
poor management practices, to rotten vision. But much as we hate to admit it 
as writers and editors, the content side often is more of a problem. This 
doesn't necessarily reflect on the abilities of the editorial staff. Doesn't 
matter how talented the editor is if he or she has to implement a policy that 
is wrong. And if, as often happens, the policy is right but the editor is 
wrong, that magazine isn't going anywhere unless it changes editors.

Before going into that, however, let's talk about the internet. The Net has 
negatively affected the total readership of magazines. In other words, the 
total population of magazine readers is down significantly. But for the Net 
to affect the readership of a specific magazine means there is something 
wrong with the content. "Why should I pay for XYZ magazine when I can get the 
same, or better, information from the web?" typifies this problem.  

Virtually all of the problems which can lead to failure can be seen in three 
magazines we're all familiar with: Kitchen Gardener, which folded; Organic 
Gardener, which is likely to; and Mother Earth News, which could have, but rev
ersed direction. 

Kitchen Gardener had world-class content. It dealt with subjects important to 
its readership, was well written, and was illustrated lavishly with both 
high-quality photos and art. In short, as near perfect content as you're 
likely to get. So why did it fold? On the content side, it spoke to a rather 
limited audience, not because the audience wasn't there but because it wasn't 
marketed to the millions of vegetable gardeners who might have enjoyed it. 
Combine this relatively small circulation with an incredibly 
expensive-to-produce editorial package, and you need either a readership 
willing to pay the costs (almost never happens), or a solid ad base. And 
Kitchen Gardener lacked that. So, with low revenues and high costs, it had to 
go. Didn't matter a bit that the content was excellent.

Organic Gardener has been on a downward spiral for a long time. It's content 
had become, at best, superficial and flip (that's a summation of reader 
comments, not my opinion). Thus, it had been steadily loosing readership all 
through the '90s. And a significant number of those who stuck with it did so 
out of a sense of loyalty, rather than because they were getting anything 
meaningful from its pages. Ad revenues reflected this loss of readership. 
Then, with the advent of Organic Style, even those loyal readers were turned 
off---both by the marketing policy made at Rodale (i.e., to automatically 
switch readership to the new book, without asking), by the very existence of 
OS---which has to be one of the silliest concepts ever thought up in an 
industry notable for silly concepts---and by the continuing downward spiral 
of OG's editorial quality. Thus, in the absence of any significant changes, 
if OG lasts another year it will surprise an awful lot of people in the 
industry.

Mother Earth News was following a similar path to OG. It had lost its 
direction, and become just another yuppie urban gardening publication. And 
tended to be superficial at that. So it lost its original readership without 
actually picking up the upscale readership it hoped for. Ditto the ad base, 
which was shrinking because the hands-on, homesteading types stopped 
advertising, and the upscale advertisers never jumped aboard. When it was 
sold, however, the new owners were dedicated to returning MEN to what it had 
been---the preeminent publication for those wanting to live wisely with the 
land. As a result, both the readership and advertising base returned and 
increased. And the readership is being retained (last figures I saw showed a 
75% renewal rate on subscriptions; an almost unheard of figure). 

On the face of it, gardening magazines should be thriving. Gardening itself 
is at an all time high. But this isn't being reflected in readership. Yes, 
the Net has contributed to this. But the magazines are, themselves, their own 
worst enemies.

There are two content issues that are especially pertinent. One is that many 
gardening magazines lack a clear-cut image. "Gardening" is a pretty baggy 
term---you can put anything into it you want. And many gardening magazines 
do, which makes them good candidates for poor readership.

A second issue is that many gardening magazines are samee-same. Take off the 
cover and the masthead and you can't tell one of them from another. So what 
we have is a bunch of magazines competing for the same readership base, and 
the same ad base. And, frankly, not doing all that good a job of it, IMO.

What's needed, frankly, is for the industry to take a close look at niche 
magazines. The trick with them is to have the niche defined broadly enough to 
encompass the necessary readership, but not so broadly as to become 
superficial; nor so narrow has to not have a wide enough appeal. 

There are numerous possible niches here. I suspect, for instance, that Jere 
Gettle's new The Heirloom Gardener is one that will make it providing he does 
the marketing properly and that the content delivers what has been promised 
(nobody's seen it yet). 

Well, I've babbled on long enough. So I close now, and leave myself open to 
the potshots I know will be coming.

Brook

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