Is there a light for the publishing industry?
Brian Morrissey has just written a nice post quoted Fred Wilson and his ideas to save the NYT. It’s radical (stop printing, kill the sports and business sections, concentrate on political and world affairs)
The underlying idea is to focus on core advantage and brings people undeniable good content. For Brian Morrissey this shift would involve with drastic cuts in the staff.
A recent success in the french press magazine brings some light in this futur graveyard. XXI (launched one year ago) decided to adopt a very simple strategy : do the opposite from what your competitors does.
Be different, (whereas your competitors only seek differenciation) create original content, be a singular and honest voice. Charge for this content.
Focus on the print edition
- make a beautiful object
- use the website to promote the printed edition and give visibilty to the different stakeholders (for example your distributors)
Choose an original distribution channel : the booksellers. And empower them to build the brand.
Control the costs, with a light organization.
The result is impressive : very good (aka thoughtful stuff and long articles) content, embedded in a beautiful design, with very talented and well-paid journalists.
Numbers of sold issues: 44.000 (jan. 08), 31.000 (apr. 08), 27.000 (jul. 08), 37.000 (oct. 2008) and 44 000 estimate for the last issue (jan. 09).
2 252 people have subscribed (60 euros) without neither e-mailing nor reduction and the subscription rythme has doubled since september 2008.
Gross sales for 2008 : 1, 98 millions euros with 800 000 euros in net incomes.
The breakthrough for an issue is 31 000 sold with 47 000 printed.
Unsold issues represent 18% of the total printed.
Press costs represent 28% of the fixed costs, organization costs 21%, reportage and coverage costs 34%, layout and illustration 13%, shipping costs 34%, marketing, 4%
They raised 450 000 euros and spend 250 000 for the prepartion til the launch of the first issue.
Big thank you to Alain Joannes for these informations.
Tyler Brûlé, with Monocle, has adopted a very similar strategy with an even more original business model. They set up a weekly podcast. Monocle is also becoming a lifestyle brand, selling products that match with the content of the magazine.
It can’t be THE solution for all the press industry (and newspapers have different challenges to face), but it shows that media brand with a very strong sens of purpose can emerge very quickcly and successfully.
