I’ve written a book called How to Write for Magazines. It’s flying off the shelves in Amazon’s Kindle store, where you can grab it for a measly $9.99.
[Don't have a Kindle? No worries. Amazon is all about access to books. You can read it on the free Kindle app on your smartphone or tablet . . . the Kindle reader on your home computer . . . or read it anywhere on the new Kindle Cloud.]
The book spells out the precise steps to take if you want to to make a living as a magazine writer. I spill every secret (almost) I’ve discovered over the course of 30+ years of writing for national magazines.
But first:
“Bob, you fool! They say magazines are dead. Print is dead.”
Who the heck is they? I’m not here to tell you about how I still love the experience of reading magazines, love their browsability, love the discoveries and inspiration I draw from them, love how easy they are on the eyes. I’m not here to tell you how irrelevant “navigation” is when you’re reading a magazine. (Uh, just flip the pages.)
Because none of that means a whit if the genre is dying. But guess what? It isn’t dying! They are wrong.
And that’s not just my opinion.
A few tidbits from the 2011/12 Magazine Media Factbook, published by the MPA (the Association of Magazine Media):
Magazine media audiences are growing and young adultsread heavily: Adults under 35 years old read more issues per month than adults over 35–93% of adults overall, 96% of adults under age 35, and 97% of adults under age 24 read magazines.
The number of magazine readers has grown over the past five years.
Magazine media engage readers: Magazines continue to score significantly higher than television or the Internet in “ad receptivity” and other engagement dimensions.
Everyone loves magazines: Reading a magazine is an intimate, involving experience, which is one reason the average reader spends 42 minutes reading each issue.
Magazines reach more adults and teens than television [does].
And dig this tidbit:
Magazines rank highest in interest in advertising compared to all other forms of media.
In other words, magazine readers don’t mind ads. In fact, 49% of them feel that ads provide useful information about new products/services.
Magazines rank higher than television or the Internet for influencing purchase intent.
That’s huge! You can be sure advertisers are paying attention.
And advertising is (duh) the engine that powers the magazine business.
For writers, this all means that magazines will continue to need us. Our writing. Writing that attracts and engages readers.
So don’t listen to doom-and-gloomers. Magazines are going to be around for a long time.
I love exploring new avenues, new markets, new media. But I’ll probably always be a magazine guy at heart.
That’s why I wrote a book about magazines.
Check it out (I think there’s a little ad for it over there to the right), and let me know what you think.
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