Being a writer for many publications means a lot of interviews either by phone, email or in person. I never know what kind of interview subject I will get or how receptive they will be to what I would like to know.
Finding “the scoop” can prove difficult for some interviewers, because it all lies in the hands (or mind) of the interviewee. I’ve come to find some quick tips in coaxing the story out of subjects.story out of subjects.
Field & Stream is making a defiant challenge for the superiority of print. The editors have literally turned their magazine into a target, and made it interactive to boot! An inside page of the “gun nut” issue has been designed for target practice. The magazine asks readers to submit pictures of themselves shooting at the target page for the chance to win a gun.
According to a report just released by GfK MRI (formerly Mediamark Research & Intelligence), magazine readership in the United States is slowly growing – a fact that is worthy of grand celebration in an industry often declared as “dead.”
How did your favorite magazines perform over the past year?
I am happy to announce that Parthenon Publishing has expanded its relationship with TravelCenters of America LLC (TA). We have […]
I am a print magazine person. I love getting lost in a well-written story, and though I now read as many blogs and news sites as print publications, I strongly defend print to those who tell me that the format is in its death throes.
Naturally, the magazine industry wants to fight the notion that it is a dinosaur fighting extinction in a new media age. So a group of powerful publishers came together on a multi-million dollar campaign to promote “The Power of Print,” kicking off with a video on YouTube. Hmmm.
This week the Parthenon staff viewed Wired magazine’s video detailing how the publication might appear on a tablet computer.
The title got me, and I immediately clicked through to read a health newsletter’s article about the “25 diet-busting foods you should never eat.” Strangely enough, the most valuable information was in the comments.
Our last Parthenon Post (our enewsletter) featured an article about how best to present print magazine content in a web format. Our basic take is this:
“What readers want from a print magazine is not the same as what they want from a digital experience. People enjoy the portability and tactile experience that magazines offer. No matter how jazzy the user interface, digital editions cannot replicate the experience of consuming a physical magazine. And, while computer screens are getting larger and more brilliant, the basic design — “the user interface” — of a magazine feature story is not ideal for consumption via a computer screen.”
Basically, we are not huge fans of typical “digital editions” of magazines.
But what if a client wants to produce an online magazine?
Who would you rather do business with – an expert or a novice? Unless you are craving a challenge, working with an expert is usually the better choice. But, how do you position yourself as an expert in the world of social media.
In the world of print production technology, most magazines go to press in the form of a PDF document. On the web, that same PDF can be uploaded into an online template so the pages can be flipped and read online. One of the largest sites magazines are being uploaded onto is Issuu.com. Once uploaded into the Issuu site it can be read in their archive or the user can paste the magazine onto their own site.
I was excited about the UPS driver training school story for Road King as soon as I assigned it. Here was a place that took truck driving safety so seriously that they brought an elite group of driver-trainers to a three-week boot camp on driving safely. Our writer, David Kolman, nailed the details — rules of the road shouted out on demand, timed inspections, barked orders and exhausted trainees pushing themselves so they wouldn’t wash out.
Publication redesigns should be done in order to better serve readers, but you can’t expect readers to realize it’s time for that change. That is the role of the publishing team — to identify reader needs, then lead them through an engaging publication that meets those needs and even addresses a few they may not know they have. That is part of the art of creating a great publication.
