Be surprisingly good
Turn readers into true fans
Doing a good job is the baseline for publishing success. I used to reassure newly promoted editors, nervous of the ultimate magazine responsibility, that “you can’t break a magazine with one issue”. I did follow up almost immediately with, “you probably can in two”.
The other side of that anxiety inducing coin is, if every reader gets just one story that’s perfect for them, you’ll get them back next time. Plan your issues properly and you’ve got half a chance of keeping most of the people happy most of the time.
No surprises so far, but this week’s first idea worth stealing was a big surprise to me and I loved it.
Doing a good job is table stakes. Doing a great job will get you through until your next issue. Surprising your readers can make them fans for life.
The Chronicles of Brian
If you don’t know Brian Morrissey, he is one of the smartest people in publishing.
The former boss at Digiday, he’s gone on to write The Rebooting, one of my favourite industry newsletters. I open every issue safe in the knowledge that I’ll learn something. The big surprise came this week when what I learned wasn’t about publishing strategy, it was about Brian, specifically about his time as a restaurant dishwasher.
In The dishwasher chronicles and previously in The paperboy chronicles, Brian took advantage of some Summer downtime to share a wonderfully written insight into who he actually is. And by letting me see behind the curtain, he’s managed to engage me way beyond the expertise I’ve known him for.
So, if there’s a gap in your schedule, risk filling it with something more personal and surprise your readers into becoming true fans.
Investors in ideas
Getting staff to share ideas is notoriously difficult. You either get nothing or you get bombarded with crackpot schemes worthy of Emmett Brown; they might shoot you into the future, but equally, they might blow your business up.
The answer, according to Paypal, is to get your staff to invest in new ideas.
As you can imagine, Paypal throws all sorts of money and tech at their Global Innovation Tournament, which had 2,500 entries in 2020. They supply staff with WoW tokens to build their good ideas portfolio and let them exchange these for rewards if they back winners.
For publishers with less tech, people and money - that’s all of you - the ideas worth stealing are:
a) frame the problems you want help solving before you ask for ideas
b) let staff ‘invest’ in the ideas they think will work best
c) create interesting rewards for the people that have the best ideas and those that supported them
Make a game
There was an interview in Press Gazette this week that blew up for all the wrong reasons. The editors of a magazine spoke about well known individuals who were on their email list (a big GDPR no-no) and Press Gazette published the names. Oops!
That initially sparked some feelings of ‘there but for the grace of God’ for me but then actually, once I’d thought about it, it was a really dumb move and all quite cringey. However, I did discover that the magazine in question had made a board game.
The actual game looked a bit complicated for me, and it seemed to be profiting from COVID, and it was £50. But I did like the idea of making games for readers; adapt an existing game - Snakes and Ladders? - and delight people with the opportunity to play a game created around your specialist subject. Expect more on this.
I saw the Flaming Lips at WOMAD last weekend and they played ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’, a strange little song that includes the word ‘MAGAZINES’ in the lyric.
Inspired, I have embarked on creating a Spotify playlist of songs that contain the word MAGAZINES or MAGAZINE and I will embed one in ever newsletter.
I’m not going to lie, I’m excited to see just how random this gets.
Thanks for reading
Please remember to send me any ideas that you think are worth stealing for future issues. And remember, if you would like any help finding ideas for your business, let's arrange a chat.