Magazines

This pretty much never happens, but after a six-month contract with Hanley Wood, consulting firm Innovation recommended that the trade publisher focus more on editorial.

As a result, Hanley Wood hired its first-ever senior-level executive to focus entirely on editorial: Bob Benz, president of content.

“The editors felt they didn’t have a voice in a lot of important decision-making that affected editorial and that they were represented in a proxy way,” CEO Frank Anton said of what Innovation found. Benz is also charged with transitioning Hanley Wood to a digital-first operation.

Meanwhile, the company is consolidating its editorial offices to its D.C. headquarters, with employees working from remote offices being asked to relocate to HQ.

Hanley Wood is the publisher of more than 30 magazines related to the construction industry.

(Via Minonline)

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This powerhouse editor has five successful mag stints under her belt, and The Hollywood Reporter marks a successful number six. So what does Janice Min believe is the key to success?

“A lot of it is making yourself indispensable to somebody or the organization. Honestly, it has nothing to do with titles or where you are. Everyone should try to find ways to be distinctive and valuable in an office and without being annoying,” she said in our So, What Do You Do? interview.

And she’s got some advice for those ambitious Millennials who often think a top executive position is their birthright.

“When [interviewees] say ‘I want to be an editor-in-chief one day,’ it’s such a turn-off. Immediately in your mind you’re like, ‘OK, this is someone who feels entitled who is not goig to want to work very hard.’”

Read more in So What Do You Do, Janice Min, Editorial Director of The Hollywood Reporter?

Mikki Taylor spent over 30 years at Essence, first in the mag’s fashion and sewing department in the early 80s and most recently as its cover and style director. You’d think leaving such a prestigious job for the uncertainty of entrepreneurship would come with some trepidation, but Taylor says stepping down to an editor-at-large position just felt right.

“I think for about 60 seconds I had the fear that ‘what if Mikki Taylor doesn’t make it with Mikki Taylor Enterprises?’” the style and beauty expert explained in our Media Beat interview. “Well, what if this doesn’t work? Then, I’ll do something else, because I’m always going to find myself in the place of empowering women. And I know too much to stop now.”

Watch the full video for more of Taylor’s tips on climbing a magazine masthead.

Part 1: Mikki Taylor on Her 30 Years at Essence
Part 2: Essence‘s Mikki Taylor Takes on Casual Fridays

In her new book Commander in Chic, Essence editor-at-large Mikki Taylor doles out fashion and beauty tips for the everyday woman based on examples from Michelle Obama.

“I love her clear cut assurance, the way she owns her style from within,” she explained in our Media Beat interview.

And one thing FLOTUS has done, according to Taylor, is inject a much needed sophistication into America’s dress code. Casual Fridays? No, thank you, she says.

“I think that we’re a little too relaxed. I think a relaxed nation creates other kinds of flexibilities that shouldn’t exist. Let’s treat each other with the respect and the honor that we are due, and so the subliminal things play into that. If we’re coming to work in sneakers, if we’re coming to work in ripped jeans and plaid shirts, who are we representing?”

Part 1:Mikki Taylor on Her 30 Years at Essence
Part 3: Mikki Taylor Reveals Why She Left Essence

Quinstreet’s purchase of Ziff Davis Enterprise, announced yesterday, will result in up to 100 layoffs, Folio reports.

Yesterday 30 people were let go immediately and 70 will be cut in the coming weeks, sources told Folio. That leaves just 20 ZDE staffers who will keep their jobs with their company’s new owners.

The people who haven’t yet been laid off are being retained to “help transition the ZDE assets and ongoing business operations to QuinStreet,” Folio says. But “given the size of the cuts, it’s hard to see what QuinStreet has in mind for ZDE’s brands, because content-based operations require content creators.”

The people being retained are a mix of editorial, sales and marketing.

In a New York Times interview with Amy Astley, the Teen Vogue editor says that she likes to hire people who can prove they like to work hard.

“I’ll see someone who was a waitress for many summers and I’ll say, ‘Well, tell me about that,’” she says. “In today’s upwardly mobile résumé, you don’t always see that. You often see kids who’ve never had a job. But I love seeing someone who scooped ice cream or was a waitress. To me, it means they had to make some money and they had a job dealing with the public…I had jobs like that, too, when I was a kid. I respect it. I respect all forms of work, and I don’t see it on a lot of résumés anymore.”

According to parent company Conde Nast’s careers page, there are no openings at the teen magazine right now, but certainly keep an eye out.

When Mikki Taylor first started working for Essence in the early 80s, there weren’t nearly as many images of black women in the media as there are today. In our Media Beat interview, the fashion and beauty maven credited longtime EIC Susan Taylor for instilling staffers with the mag’s mission early on.

“I just remember her saying to me, ‘We come to this magazine to contribute,’ and it was something that she instilled in me that day that I walk with to this day,” Taylor recalled. “In fact, when I got the job, I was ready to go on a mission. It became more than a job from the moment I walked in the doors and began serving black women.”

Watch the full video to find out which Essence covers Taylor found most difficult to direct and what she has to say to the magazine’s critics.

Part 2: Essence‘s Mikki Taylor Takes on Casual Fridays
Part 3: Mikki Taylor Reveals Why She Left Essence

Elle China has doubled its frequency to twice monthly, only the second Elle edition to do so, minonline reports.

The magazine was averaging 500-800 pages per month; the size will now be reduced to 280-400 pages and the cost will be cut in half.

In a perhaps related development, the magazine is hiring but unless you’re fluent in Chinese, we wouldn’t bother.

The only other Elle edition that publishes more than 12 times a year is the original Elle in France, which has been a weekly “for decades” and remains owned by Lagardère. Ownership of Elle China transferred to Hearst Corp on Dec. 6, 2011.

Ziff Davis Enterprise, publisher of IT magazines Baseline, CIO Insight, eWeek and ChannelInsider, was sold Friday to lead-generation company QuinStreet, Folio: reports.

ZDE was created in 2007 when Ziff Davis Media sold its enterprise division. The remainder of Ziff Davis Media, publisher of PC Magazine, entered bankruptcy a year later. Presumably the enterprise half was also not doing so well, so the purchase was likely a steal.

“It was unclear whether there were layoffs associated with the acquisition, or what QuinStreet planned to do with ZDE’s media brands,” Folio: adds.

Quinstreet’s release says: “With a current estimated annual marketing spend of $8 billion in North America, of which $3 billion is spent online, B2B technology is an important area of opportunity and growth for QuinStreet.”

The Quarterly Review of Wines, a 35-year-old wine bible, ceased publication at the end of last year, a move that went unnoticed by the press until now, minonline reports.

Why? Well, the usual, said publisher Richard Elia recently: “upcoming retirements, the magazine world is in perilous shape, advertising is down, the digital age is king, out-of-state wine delivery problems.”

That, and the romance is just gone, he says. Since people are more concerned with toys and being able to quickly look up a wine’s score on their cell phones, it just isn’t fun anymore.

Tell that to the magazine’s 25 contributors, though, and they’ll probably say they wished the magazine had stuck around, “romance” or not.