In Which I Disappoint (Maybe), the Mysterious Mr. Tree

Permanent musical accompaniment for this post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdLIerfXuZ4&ab_channel=TheWhoVEVO

Who is the mysterious D. Eadward Tree, the prognosticator and pundit of the lively and insightful Dead Tree Edition blog? There is some speculation about that in certain circles of the magazine industry. Maybe Mr. Magazine knows. Perhaps Bo Sacks knows. The team at Publishing Executive might know but they're not talking.

The interesting thing about the Dead Tree Edition blog is that Mr. Tree's anonymity lets him step outside his career path for a moment and speak openly about the issues impacting the magazine business. Honestly, I've learned more about the US Postal Service than I ever thought I wanted to. But I'm very glad I read his blog!

Last week, Mr. Tree published a piece, In Defense of Giving Away Free Magazines on the Publishing Executive website. The piece is interesting and I encourage you to read it.

In his piece, Tree announces that he has found what he thinks may be the lowest priced subscription offer to date, a $1.00 per year subscription to Entrepreneur Magazine. Yep, that's right. $1.00 for a years' worth of magazines.

Tree presumes that according to the rules of magazine punditry, "I'm now supposed to launch into a rant about how such bargain-basement offers undercut newsstand sales and reflect overinflated ratebases."

Well, yes, you could go that way. For the record, bargain basement subscription offers do seem to undercut newsstand sales. The good folks at MagNet have some interesting data on that. Do they reflect overinflated ratebases? Maybe. And maybe not. Personally I hate to see low priced subs. However unless I actually worked on the team that put the prices into effect, I'd have to admit that I don't know why the publisher is doing this. So when we criticize publishers for taking this path, what we're really doing is spitballing.

Pundits hard at work! Source: University of Kentucky

Tree acknowledges that the Entrepreneur team may have a strategy where the $1.00 sub price makes a lot of sense. The way I look at it, if you have a lot of other income buckets, a low priced sub might get people in the door and encourage them spend more money elsewhere more efficiently. It's a good strategy if it works.

Tree then suggests, "Why not give the copies away?"

Indeed. Why not?

Frankly, free is a great circulation model for many consumer titles. Free city, state and regional publications are a staple in many coffee shops, dry cleaners, hotels and even in supermarkets. I'd point you in the direction of the Where Traveler Magazines published by the Morris Media Network as an example of a very successful line of free consumer publications.

Free!

Free circ can save your bacon. Two years ago I launched an art magazine onto the newsstand. We were well funded, well edited. The publication was beautiful. I put together, if I may toot my own horn, a really good newsstand program focusing on chain and independent bookstores, regional distribution in areas where the publisher knew their audience would be. The launch model numbers worked. The launch issue was gorgeous.

The sales were terrible. Embarassingly bad. No matter how hard we tweaked things, the sales were not there.

The magazine is now free. It is a free insert in several local newspapers in targeted markets. The title is thriving. Free can work.

I can't continue on this train of thought without pointing out that much of the B2B publishing market consists of entirely free print and digital circulation magazines.

So I'm not entirely sure why Mr. Tree thinks publishing pundits will come after him. For sport maybe?

I don't like low priced subs because they can impact newsstand sales negatively and newsstand is where my history comes from. I don't like seeing my history (Or my people) trampled on.

While it may be personal to me, publishers have gone this way for a reason and what's personal for them is the survival of their magazine. Not just a piece of a larger business. The trade journals focus on the big publishers and retailers because they drive the business. The stats that get breathlessly repeated are their stats.

But many smaller publishers are doing just fine and making a profit. They don't devalue their subs and they invest in all of the things that the big publishers invest in. Their newsstand numbers are solid and reflect what's happening in their niche.

To repeat: Plenty of consumer publishers already have free distribution and they're doing just fine.

The energy drink, Red Bull, publishes a magazine called The Red Bulletin. For many years I got it for free. They never asked me to pay for a subscription. They do sell the title on the newsstand, but my guess is that is more for visibility purposes and to show off to some advertisers**. Here in the states, they print and distribute more than 500,000 copies. That sounds successful to me.

High energy and free!

So, Tree. Sorry. I don't think what you're suggesting is all that far off base. Some publishers will opt for free. Some publishers will continue with paid. Some publishers will mix and match and that may work. Or that may not work. My clients have a wide variety of models with varying degrees of success.

And I really hope no one comes after you. It's summer and it's too hot for fighting. How about some lemonade instead?

**: See? I'm spitballing there. "Pundit" at work.