If Paul Cloutier’s to be believed, the demise of print magazines is vastly overblown. The CEO of San Francisco’s 8020 Publishing launched two print magazines, JPG and Everywhere, using user-generated content submitted to Websites and then voted upon by the online community at large. Both publications feature stunning photography and thick glossy paper stock, referencing the golden age of magazines. JPG‘s about to be profitable, while Everywhere‘s debut issue recently hit stands. We caught up with Cloutier via email to ask him about his vision for the printed page.
You started JPG and Everywhere by publishing a print magazine using content submitted by users of the magazine’s respective Web sites. Tell me a little bit about the genesis of the idea and then the implementation of it.
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The basic idea was that we wanted to bring the passion and vitality we were seeing online back to magazines. More and more people were getting information online, but while most people just assumed that meant print was dying, we felt that just meant print needed to evolve. Our first magazine was JPG, a photography magazine where anyone could upload their photos to our Web site. Anyone could then vote on what they thought should be in the issue and then we made the printed magazine out of the best of what the community liked. Making a magazine like this meant that we could produce something that was far more in touch with what our readers were interested in, as they helped make it.
Were you ever worried there wouldn’t be enough content to produce a magazine? Is this still a fear?
Not really. We saw communities like Flickr, and were overwhelmed by how many great photos there were out there, and how many new blogs start up every day. In fact, our fear is the opposite, there is always way way too much great stuff submitted. Every time we get down to closing an issue, there are hundreds of great photos that don’t make the cut, and our challenge is finding ways to recognize all of the great work that doesn’t make it into the magazine. Recently we have started doing Issue Outtakes in PDF that represent what the issue would be like if we had no limitation on printed pages.
| Any magazine can benefit from the expertise of its readers. |
One of the primary ways content gets chosen to run in JPG and Everywhere is by user votes. Do you think having the level of community involvement has helped sell the print magazine? If so, how?
Everyone who participates on the Web site, whether by submitting a photo or a story, voting for something or even by viewing a photo, has played an active part in helping to make the magazine. We feel like it is this engagement with the magazine that makes us so unique from a growth and circulation standpoint. Everyone involved has a vested interest in the magazine. Certainly the engagement has a viral effect as well, as people tend to want to tell everyone about their photos in the issue and on the site.
The current trend for Web sites of print magazines is to run original content that doesn’t appear in the mag’s print pages. You’ve gone in the opposite direction — creating a print magazine around user-generated content submitted to the Web site. Do you see print magazines following suit, either by having user-generated content on their Web sites or in their print pages?
I think that any magazine can benefit from the expertise of its readers. Which is not to say that all magazines need to be completely Community Created, but that the opportunity is to find ways to break down some of the walls between editors and readers.
As more and more people move online, I think we are seeing the beginning of a huge audience that is unwilling to passively consume their media. They want to participate whether by tailoring it to their interests, sharing their opinion, or simply feeling they are a part of something.
I think many magazines will look at this and see cheap content, but the reality is that the cost structure is only a small part of the story, as we do pay all of our contributors. Ultimately the real benefit to a magazine is the authenticity, the more engaged audience, and the passion that this approach can bring.
JPG and Everywhere both rely heavily on photography, which is generally thought to work better in print than on the Web. Do you see newly launched print magazine increasingly focused on this area?
We feel like print does photography really well, but more importantly we believe our magazines should be about inspiration, and photography is a great way to draw people in. Online communities have become particularly good at creating high quality images, and we focus on the things that the community can create well. However, passionate communities of people are also really good at short-form written work like reviews, comments, and blog-post-like overviews, which we also make good use of.
Anyone can download a PDF of JPG for free. It’s worked out (subscriptions jumped 10 percent soon after), but when you originally thought of the idea, were you worried it would hurt subscriptions? What’s the advantage of allowing people to download the magazine for free? Did you ever consider charging for the PDF version?
No, and really for two reasons. One is that the community helped make the magazine, and they deserve to see where their contributions have gone. It serves as a sort of preview of what the issue looks like, which often times inspires people to subscribe. As well, it gives people an idea of the kind of contributions we are looking for.
Secondly, we are confident that print exists for a reason and we design the magazines to take advantage of what print does well. If we can’t compete with a PDF then we have bigger problems to worry about.
JPG‘s about to be profitable for the first time. What’s been the key to this?
Organic growth. One of the most expensive parts of making a magazine is circulation development, which often involves the waste of unnecessary copies to newsstand, or direct marketing to an indifferent audience. For us we start with the Web site and the interest of the community and the circulation grows out from there. Because of this we have been able to eschew most of the normal bureaucracy of publishing a magazine and can produce a magazine that has a circulation that only counts real people that have a passionate interest in the topic of the magazine.
What tips do you have for launching a print magazine in the digital age?
1) A good magazine is a community.
At their hearts, all magazines are basically artifacts of the interests of their readers. Good magazines embrace this and recognize that those readers aren’t just silent, passive consumers of content.
2) Don’t forget that there is an Internet.
Most magazines were launched before the Web existed and most that have launched since then still tend to act like it doesn’t exist. Look at what your people are doing online before you launch a print magazine. What parts of their behavior and interest are being under-served by the Web? Is there something that print could do better? Good print magazines are going to be hybrids that let the Web do what it is good at and let print do what it is good at rather than treating them like competitors. Start the process asking how the Web can make your magazine better.
3) Beware of “The Right Way to Do Things.”
Magazines have been made the same basic way for a long time, and many of the problems that they are currently faced with are caused by resisting change, and not recognizing that parts of the model are broken. If your only reason for doing something is because that is the way things are done, then you should consider if things have changed since that rule was made. Some of the smartest people in publishing right now are people who have come from outside of the publishing world.
Noah Davis is mediabistro.com’s associate editor. You can reach him at NOAH at MEDIABISTRO dot COM.
[This interview has been edited for clarity and content.]
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