Midsummer: it's murder

Hi Grub Streeter,

Nice weather we’re having, eh?!

If, like us, you’re stuck indoors most of the time, it’s the perfect opportunity to buy a copy of Grub (nah, we’re not gonna stop plugging it) and hunker down. Described by magCulture as “defiant and celebratory” – we’re fighting over who gets that on a t-shirt – our Jerry Maguire issue has, frankly, SHITLOADS for you to read, enjoy and absorb. For example…

💰 Rejoice! You can still make money in magazines, say FT Strategies’ Alastair Lewis and The Atlantic’s Jemima Villanueva 

🍆 The creator of the TV show Minx – hello, Hollywood! – talks erotic mags and seeing penises in public

🤓 “You’re either a media person or you’re not”: Chidera Muoka (Marie Claire Nigeria) on why pitting Boomers and Gen Z against each other doesn’t work

🧦 How to conduct a killer interview (with bonus sock puppets)

💩 Starting out? Getting out? Redundancy? You’ll need our bullshit-free careers guide

🥸 Before you hit ‘post’ – you need to know which LinkedIn cliché you are

🤖 Aunty AI answers all your publishing queries…badly

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Buy this

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Steal this

We did a bit of digging around before we got in touch with Vince Medeiros for our ‘Show me the money’ feature, and we rediscovered Club Little White Lies. The film magazine’s membership scheme is run through Steady HQ and offers readers Bronze, Silver and Gold membership levels, starting at £3 a month and going up to £12, depending if you pay monthly.

We were struck by how carefully aligned two very distinct elements of the sales pitch are…

1. “Support our work and help us keep doing great independent movie journalism.”

2. “Here’s some proper added value and the more you pay us the more you’ll get.”

It could be easy to see these two approaches as separate, the first targeting a philanthropic instinct, the second more crassly commercial. But with exclusive weekly film recommendations, cover-art prints and magazine subscriptions and master classes being added as you progress through the membership tiers, the benefits of membership are completely aligned with the mission of ‘championing great movies’.

The idea worth stealing? Align your mission tightly with your membership benefits to promote philanthropic giving and the delivery of real value.

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Read this

1. Edward Enninful’s last September issue of Vogue UK reunites four of the original supermodels from January 1990’s iconic (and for them, career-defining) cover. 

2. Don’t stop be-leaf-ing – bucking the print magazine downturn, the May issue of Gardener’s World generated £1.4m in sales, selling almost five times its usual number!

3. How do you continue to grow marketing campaigns in an economy where most seem to be slowing down? Peter Houston has some ideas…

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Shout about this

If you’ve ‘grabbed your Grub’, we want to know about it – and it’d be a huge help if you shared your thoughts about our Jerry Maguire issue on socials. Make us proud by posting your pic on LinkedIn or Instagram with the hashtag #IShowedGrubtheMoney.

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