Alaska Mag Scores With Sarah Palin Cover

When John McCain picked a certain vice presidential candidate out of the blue, Alaska garnered some unlikely attention because of its cover subject last February: Governor Sarah Palin.

The MPA’s latest newsletter has a four questions feature with editor-in-chief Andy Hall (Editor’s note: actually eight questions) in which he discusses the controversial decision to put Palin on the cover, why ABC News and 60 Minutes have come calling for back issues, and how it became the mag’s best-selling issue of all-time.

When Palin was elected, she came out of left field and beat a veteran politician [Jay Knowles]. We felt she was capturing the imagination of the community in the state. We did get a little bit of grief because we’ve historically been an outdoors magazine. We thought that cover story was the right thing to do, but a local newspaper tweaked us about our “America’s Hottest Governor” cover line. I guess they didn’t get the double entendre. [laughs].

There’s a lesson for all aspiring editors out there: Get lucky.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.