A Bounty of Book A Zines

We've seen numerous reports of the remarkable growth of the Book A Zine category since the beginning of this no longer new decade. Most of the reports marvel at the tremendous elasticity of the category, the unit sales growth and the wide variety of titles that publishers are pumping out.

But unless you really go and look at a magazine rack today, you wouldn't really see and feel the impact of what this "new" category is doing to the rack.* Oh you can talk about it and read all about it, but until you really go and look and see, you might not understand it.

As our former Secretary of Defense and eloquent wordsmith Donald Rumsfeld once said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPe1OiKQuk

When there were more wholesalers to visit, distributions to work and territories to see, I always made it a point to spend a few hours at retail. Unlike some of the traveling pooh-bahs of the time, my goal wasn't to find an issue to use as a cudgel on the local rep. I really wanted to see and know the town. It was the only way I felt that I could know, understand and own what I was working on. The only way to know what I knew and know that I didn't know what I didn't know.

If you know what I mean. Because otherwise it was just a bunch of numbers.

We don't have that today. When was the last time someone other than the local merchandiser was in the Martin's on Route 20 in South Bend, IN?

The other day I spent some time getting acquainted with a new supermarket in the wake of my neighborhood store closing. While I still go out to retail, these days I'm usually just looking for one or two client titles. It was good to really stop, look, absorb, and spend time at the rack. It's a great way to learn a store.

And look how these "zines" have taken over the rack:

Who said "General Interest" is dead?

Cooking, cowboys...and ice fishing? Well, it is January, this is the Midwest.

Maybe there was nowhere else to drop the bridal mag?

While this part of the market is doing well, they can strain the distribution chain. If the store is part of chain that has "SBT" (Scan Based Trading), then the wholesaler owns that merchandise. These are annuals. Those are high cover prices and a long on sale. That's a lot of inventory to own.

There are fewer turns on the rack unless the publisher is pumping out a bunch of 'Zines. And while some publishers are (cough, cough) pumping out a ton of 'zines, it's not enough to replace the lost sales we see in the higher volume categories.

Lastly, not all magazine categories are naturals for these "Zines." And, more importantly, there are some economic issues to be concerned with. Without some existing clout behind you, a brand that is well established and has a significant newsstand presence, these aren't that cheap to produce nor are they that cheap to launch in the blind.

In the comments section of Dead Tree Edition's post about Book A Zines, industry guru Bo Sacks wondered if we would get too greedy and kill the category. I'm inclined to think not. Unlike a regular frequency title, you don't repeat a special edition if it doesn't work. It's just too costly. Unlike a monthly, you're not going to leave it on life support because there's no ad or subscriber revenue to prop it up.

Where will the category go? I don't know. But it was nice to stop and look, really look at the rack.

*For the record, back in the day, we called them annuals or SIPS. There just weren't as many of them, and they didn't have good press.