It's Tuesday: Time Passages - Time for a new model - Issue #57
In the early years of my consulting career, I was on the road three weeks out of four. Monday through Thursday each month I was in my car, or at O’Hare or Midway airport. My second home was my suitcase. I knew all of the short cuts at the airports: The best places to park, the quickest way through security, the best place to pick up a cab. I knew long ago that you wanted the first flight out each morning if you wanted to avoid delays. On any given Monday you could find me slicing through the crowds, first to gate, first onto the plane.
I visited all of the major cities (and many of the smaller towns) in the midwest. Midtown Manhattan was my special playground when it was time to call on publishers, distributors and the bookstore headquarters.
One of my best travel friends was the O'Hare airport Chicago Tribune delivery person. Every morning she was there just before 6:00AM with a giant wheeled pallet of fresh Tribune newspapers. A lot of us business travelers would flock to her as she rolled up and started to unload the papers. Even before the newsstands opened up, she sold dozens of papers to us early travelers and we were off into the air to Detroit or Columbus or Minneapolis or Manhattan with our morning papers.
All of that is gone now. According the Curbed article below, it's hard to find a newspaper in a New York City newsstand. And in the BoSacks opinion piece, you can't find a newspaper at Hudson retail (I'm traveling today and I can confirm that fact.)
Is that sad? Yeah, I suppose so. But we've known that print newspaper circulation has been declining for a very long time. So has print magazine sales at retail. Newspapers and magazines are not much of an impulse buy for quite some time and the COVID-19 pandemic escalated the decline of retail sales for newspapers and magazines.
My suspicion is that we've passed the tipping point and we'll see an acceleration of the decline of these sales moving forward. Time moves on. The declines of these industries is sad. The way it's happening could have been avoided, but we don't live backwards so there's no sense in going down that road.
It's time to recreate these businesses. It's time for a new business model. What that is, I don't know just yet.
1___Because there's no longer any money in it...
Why Is It So Hard to Buy a Copy of the New York Times? — www.curbed.com As newsstands slowly stop selling newspapers, it has become more difficult, and sometimes impossible, to find a paper copy of the New York Times in your neighborhood.
I'm not so surprised that the circulation department was reluctant to talk openly about the number of retailers or what their home delivery numbers looked like. Why would you. However, I do wish that the article had offered a little more insight into how newspapers market and sell their product.
2___Speaking of which, you can't get a paper at the airport either...
An Airport Sans Newspapers — www.bosacks.com By Edson Atwood My cherished ritual just ended. Thank you, Hudson News—I mean Hudson! (Hudson News rebranded as Hudson a few years ago.) Its slogan: “We ...
I'm traveling this week so I was able to verify Edson's discovery that newspapers are no longer available at Hudson. Magazines are also a little scarcer at the airport. Travelers in O'Hare will no doubt notice the open pockets, thin racks and boxes of unpacked merchandise stacked in front of the magazines. People are not buying as many magazines at airports as they used to.
Again, it's a question of how you're going to spend your time. Videos downloaded from Prime or the latest issue of Time? Free shows on AA.com or the latest hardback from John Grisham or Jodi Picoult? A hard copy of the New York Times or another round of Candy Crush?
3___A Book Bar at your wedding? Well, why not?
Log into Facebook — www.facebook.com Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.
I found this link on Shelf Awareness, a daily independent bookstore newsletter that reports on industry trends, new store openings, changes in ownership. Importantly, they also report on some of the very creative ideas that some bookstores undertake to further their relationship with their communities.
This wedding/bar-bat mitzvah "book bar" program is a brilliant idea and I hope that the Little Shop of Stories has nothing but success with it.
4___Crunch Time For Unicorns...
Fallen unicorns: 9 retailers that have recoiled from sky-high valuations | Retail Dive — www.retaildive.com Retail industry news, voices and jobs. Optimized for your mobile phone.
Allbirds lays off 8% of its global corporate workforce | Retail Dive — www.retaildive.com Retail industry news, voices and jobs. Optimized for your mobile phone.
More layoffs at Glossier as the brand moves into wholesale | Retail Dive — www.retaildive.com Retail industry news, voices and jobs. Optimized for your mobile phone.
Retail Dive is an essential read for me on a regular basis. As a part of my business relies on understanding the trends in retail, it's important to know what is happening.
I suppose there's a certain schadenfreude in seeing these unicorns unmasked as nothing but painted donkeys. However, I think the moral of the story is a reminder that if it looks to good to be true, it is.
5___Cherry Bombe uses email to make customers smile
How Cherry Bombe uses email to make customers smile — martech.org Email technology is helping Cherry Bombe consistently produce relevant, original content that increases audience retention.
Cherry Bombe magazine is an absolutely stunningly beautiful creation. Like many publishers the magazine is now also an online shop, a newsletter, a podcast and a presence on social media.
The article above talks about how this publisher successfully made their email campaigns all about both entertaining their readers and motivating them.
For Your Moment of Magazine Zen, Please Consider
And For Your Moment of Magazine Agita
It's hot. It's muggy. It's August. Head down to the break room and turn that hot coffee into iced coffee.
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I hope you have a great week.