Re: another garden magazine ceases

**"Gene Bush" g*@otherside.com**

Hello Brook,
    Thank you for taking the time to spend a bit of depth on this issue with
us... some good "stuff:" in the part deleted for this message.
    I keep files here and subscribe to most of the gardening mags...
including English. You can almost watch the rotation of subject matter from
one magazine to the next... same plants over and over. Suggest something you
have not seen anyone tackle and the answer is thank you but no thank you.
Takes a while and some hard shopping around to sell an article on plants not
already popular. No one wants to take a chance.
    I have been told that a rut is a grave with the ends kicked out. Believe
it firmly.
    Nursery trade is the same. Small individual family owned nurseries can
not compete with the big boxes. You must find your own identity and niche,
then fill it. No one can be all things to all people. That includes business
plans. The two can not truly be separated in reality. We all depend upon
each other and are related closely.
    Like they say over at Taco Bell... step outside the bun.....
    (do not eat there, but like this ad)
    Gene E. Bush
Munchkin Nursery & Gardens, llc
www.munchkinnursery.com
genebush@munchkinnursery.com
Zone 6/5  Southern Indiana

----- Original Message -----
From: <BrookBarb@aol.com>
snip.....snip...
> 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.
> Brook


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