Be Aggressive, Be Be...
Open Letter to Elizabeth Spiers
Re: Women's magazines
When you're done dumping on the mass market women's magazine audiences by claiming there's a pretty vacant slot for a "smart women's mag" (have you considered how a selection of current blogs by women probably fills this void collectively?), you might want to ponder some of the reasons behind Mirabella's failure and the same ones Bee Magazine will soon face. Or you could, I dunno, stop complaining about editors who are supposedly unwilling to take risks long enough to put on your own print entrepreneurial raincoat and see if you don't get struck by a lightning bolt of market demand reality.
Re: Women's magazines
When you're done dumping on the mass market women's magazine audiences by claiming there's a pretty vacant slot for a "smart women's mag" (have you considered how a selection of current blogs by women probably fills this void collectively?), you might want to ponder some of the reasons behind Mirabella's failure and the same ones Bee Magazine will soon face. Or you could, I dunno, stop complaining about editors who are supposedly unwilling to take risks long enough to put on your own print entrepreneurial raincoat and see if you don't get struck by a lightning bolt of market demand reality.
Comments:
Bee (which I've seen a mock up of) and Mirabella are not even remotely close to what I have in mind. And the deluge of emails I've gotten seems to indicate that there is a market. And I know from direct experience that there is financing available for the concept. Also: Esquire's readership is 40% female. That's a big market--especially when you consider that a lot of women feel a little self-conscious paying for men's mags on the newsstand and would be more inclined to buy said magazine if it weren't packaged as a men's mag. So until you have some market evidence other than "your magazine doesn't currently exist" I'm not convinced by your supposed rebuttal. At one point, not so long ago, Lucky and Cargo didn't exist and laddie mags didn't exist. It's a good thing you werent' on the research teams for those launches complaining that their absence in the market was indicative of a lack of demand.
-Spiers
What sound and robust market research you have on your side! You posted on article on Mediabistro, an industry site, and you got emails (from how many? 1000's? 100's? in the 10's? single digits?) supporting the idea. I'm sure that's a reeeeal representative sample, especially when I wouldn't be surprised if everyone who wrote in would actually like to WRITE for said "fictional" magazine.
Also, what the hell does "40% of Esquire's readership is women" actually mean? I'll tell you what it means, women make up 40% of Esquire's readership. Period. I don't see how this proves your point at all. This only implies Esquire is doing a pretty good of delivering the right editorial mix for to attract those women. You have NO basis to prove or even make wild-assed conjecture about these women (40% of Esquire's readership) would even want the kind of magazine you describe.
There's financial backing for this? Well holla up a flagpole! There was financial backing for Talk magazine and thousands of others too. A fool and his money are soon...published...and then departed. Like I said sister, prove me wrong. But until this make-believe fantasy magazine of yours hits the newsstands you have nothing to stand on.
As for the magazines you mentioned (again, how you can you recklessly assume I would apply the same logic I am for your women's magazine to those?? that's apples and peach pits) if I could actually talk about them, current job prohibits me, they would actually make my point even stronger.
Corner, meet Elizabeth. Hello Paint.
Er, faith no more.
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