Good ideas never die
But they do need a refresh
This newsletter is an old idea.
The original Magazine Diaries project was an A5 publication sharing the thoughts of 100 magazine professionals about publishing’s digital transition.
This incarnation is a Substack sharing ideas that those people and others like them are implementing as they try to survive and thrive through that transition.
The good idea (I think) at the heart of both incarnations is sharing the wisdom that lives in the magazine community.
Would that wee blue book work 10 years on? I have no idea, but this Substack refresh lets me do different things, with more frequency and a much better feedback loop.
I’ll be talking about all this in a workshop at Magazine Street in Edinburgh on the 29th of September. Come along if you can and bring along an old idea that we can refresh together.
What’s 30 years between friends?
While I’m banging on about brand refreshes, this is a doozy.
Rock magazine CREEM has published its first print edition in 33 years.
The magazine’s reboot started with an online archive spanning the counter-culture title’s 1969 – 1989 run. For $5 a month, subscribers get access to the articles, reviews, pictures and ads from 224 issues.
Now subscribers can upgrade to add a print quarterly too or take o,n a fan club membership $129 to get ‘exclusive cool shit’.
FIPP’s Jamie Gavin nails the thinking behind CREEM’s reboot.
Bringing together the enticing ingredients of legacy archives, smart subscriptions strategy, quality-over-quantity-print runs, and of course an indie allure that delivers ‘exclusive cool shit’, the rebirth of CREEM represents perhaps the quintessential moment in the evolution of the modern print-digital relationship.
Take a look at CREEM’s relaunch trailer and remember… either you’re in on the joke, or you are the joke.
Recommending referrals
I got invites to participate in two very different referral programmes this week.
The first was from Freelancer Magazine’s Sophie Cross offering cold-hard cash in return for referring people to her most excellent LinkedIn for Humans course*. I have taken the course and have no hesitation in referring it to anyone who wants to get more from their turn on the LinkedIn merry-go-round.
*the link above is not a paid referral link. I just love the work Sophie does.
The other was from a content discovery service I’ve just started using. Refind* sends me seven links every morning based on preferences I set when I joined. It then refines my recommendations according to what I click on or save. The guys at Refind are now offering a premium upgrade if people sign up from my referrals and coins that they have promised to buy back when they are profitable.
*I get stuff if you sign up for Refind using this link
While these two schemes are very different, they both harness the power of peer-to-peer recommendation to basic arithmetic. If every one of your readers, followers or users signed up just one more person, you would double your reach.
So, figure out the best incentives for your readers to refer you to their contacts and set your programme up pronto.
Magazines for good
Charity founder John Mennel got in touch a couple of weeks ago and I’m hoping to speak to him for the Media Voices podcast next year. But for now, I’d like to introduce the work he does with MagLiteracy, a US charity effort to get magazines into the hands of people that otherwise wouldn’t have them.
We know that literacy ends poverty of the mind, heart, and pocket, and that print magazines are uniquely powerful for literacy.
Working in the magazine industry, we take the ability to read as a given, but there are too many people out in the world that just don’t have the skills we take for granted. If magazines can help fix that, then I think we’re obliged to help.
I’m not quite sure how we steal John’s idea yet, I just know it’s important that we do.
This week’s magazine song was suggested by Steven Short. It’s Wire tearing it up with ‘12XU’, singing about seeing someone in a mag, kissing a man and smoking. Nice!
What’s your favourite magazine song? Just reply to this email to get it added to the Magazine Songs playlist.
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.