So, yes, it turns out that running the world’s most popular Books section (no exaggeration, I’ve seen the numbers) is somewhat time consuming.

Which means no frequent magazine-themed blogging in the mainstream for me. But I did manage to somehow squeeze one out before the end of the year, and more will emerge before too long.

For now, you may satisfy yourselves with my newest missive, “11 Amazing Magazines You’ve Never Heard Of“, a title that regular Magtastic readers will find inaccurate, and grammarians will find ends with a preposition. Still, plenty to enjoy by clicking through. It will also surprise no-one that it’s a slideshow. We have company standards to maintain, you know.

AND! It gives me a further opportunity to keep up with an annual tradition here on Magtastic, which is to remind you all that a Stack America subscription is an excellent last-minute gift for anyone Stateside. Just sayin’.

So here’s something: I have a new job. And a new ebook out. The two might be connected.

The job: The image above might be a clue. Yes, from this coming Monday, I will be the Books Editor of The Huffington Post.

I’m excited. I’ve never worked full time for a major brand before. This one is, unusually in this climate, both ambitious and expanding. There’s some fascinating things that can be done in the area of online reporting and aggregation. I hope, nay expect, to be doing some of them. Give me a few weeks to get used to things, but watch this space.

The book: Somewhat fortuitously, this morning my new ebook, Reading in Four Dimensions, went live on Kindle (here’s the UK link) and Nook. People can read it via pretty much any device via the free Kindle and Nook apps.

The book – well, long essay really – looks at how the physical and digital worlds interact through the medium of storytelling. It’s an explanation of social reading, and why it’s going to change publishing. It’s a story about time travel. And it’s only 99c (or its equivalent in your territory.) There’s also a page of related links.

If you’d like to know more, below are a few Probably Asked Questions.

PAQs

Q: Why did you take this job?
A: Because it’s a genuinely exciting company. Because I think I can do something fantastic with the role – editors get a lot of editorial independence within their sections, which means I’ll stand or fall on what I do with it. And I have plenty of ideas for what I’m going to do with it.

Also, I’m excited by their frankly immense readership figures, their current ambitions, and about being a tiny part of a major news operation. This is going to be fun.

Q: Aren’t you the magazine guy? What do you know about books?
A: Certainly, I have more experience and contacts within the global magazine industry than I do in the books industry.

I do have some experience with book publishing, as an author and a former Editorial Director of a publishing company that made books among other products; Reading in Four Dimensions was written following three months working at Brown University on a lecture and workshop series about the future of the book, and I’ve also been following book industry news for some time among my RSS and Twitter feeds, as part of my ongoing fascination with new and unusual storytelling.

However, it was made clear to me that I was hired for my editorial vision, rather than my insider contacts. This does mean that I have some catching up to do in getting to know all the relevant people, but I have a feeling that the HP name will help me get my phone calls returned.

Q: Will you keep running Stack America and Colophon?
Yes indeed. You’d have to pry those from my cold, dead hands.

Q: What’s going to happen to this blog?
More exciting news: I’m going to be cross-posting magazine blogposts between here and The Huffington Post. This means, a) the blog is about to come back in a big way, and b) yes, my pretties, these reviews, rants and witters are getting a mainstream audience. Bonus points for readers who click on both versions.

Q: What does Reading in Four Dimensions have to do with the new job?
I wrote the first draft in April, based on a talk I gave at Brown University in early March. It probably helped me get the job, but otherwise the timing of its publication is a rather happy accident. It wasn’t intended as a manifesto to the books industry as declaimed by the new Books Editor of The Huffington Post, but there you go.

Q: I’m a book industry PR/have written a book I think you should feature/want to tell you some industry gossip. Can I email you?
Not right now. My first day is this coming Monday, much of which will probably be spent meeting people, learning where to store my umbrella, and trying to remember the location of the restroom.

Basically, if you already have a contact email address for the Books section at HP, stick with that until further notice. If you don’t, find one, and use it. Insider tip: annoying me at my personal email address doesn’t increase the likelihood of favorable coverage.

Q: I don’t like The Huffington Post.
A: That isn’t a question. But keep an eye on the Books section anyway. You might just learn something interesting.

It promises to be a busy day or two on the blog, but first I want everyone who sends me lovely magazines/has me on their mailing lists to stop what you’re doing right now, and make sure you have a New York mailing address for me.

If you don’t, please drop me a line at andrew [at] losowsky.com so we can make sure that I actually receive what you send. And bless you for sending it.

Thank you!

DEBT from Dustin Grella on Vimeo.

I’m spending today/night/morrow helping out on Longshot, the 48-hour magazine that I like to think of Stranded‘s more famous half-brother.

The theme of this issue is Debt, and there are five simple challenges you can complete to participate here. Be quick though, the clock is ticking…

(Image from Pulp International)

You’ve probably noticed, this blog has been a little quiet lately. A major move, connection problems, a melted logic board, and much (fun) new work are all likely parents of this newborn infant of silence, but fear not! For the baby will start to bawl again very soon, with the full force of a metaphor stretched too far.

I have news, reviews, some strangeness, and even a pending new event to announce. The Blogsplosion will be blogsploding in your face again very soon. I’ve been busy, oh yes I have.

In the meantime, why not read the magazines that some of NYC’s leading media mogels are reading, courtesy of Ad Week?

A year ago today, Europe was dealing with a large invisible cloud looming over its airspace, and I was coming up with a crazy idea.

In the year since, Stranded magazine has been talked about on BBC online and radio, in The Independent, Conde Nast Traveler, El Pais, Wired, Nieman Lab… and so on. This showcase in crowdsourced creation, awesomely designed by Matt MacArthur, is, of course, still available.

Though the eruption and the photos/illustrations/writing all occurred a year ago, the magazine actually went on sale in September, which is how long it took Matt and I to pull all the content together. Here’s the stats from the magazine so far:

That $1,380 isn’t profit to me – it’s what the magazine has so far raised for the International Rescue Committee, who help people more permanently stranded around the globe (in fact, due to the way MagCloud distributes the money, I’ve been hit with a higher tax bill because of it!)

Anyway, it’s a great cause, so if you don’t already have a copy, why not?

If you happen to be in New England on Wednesday, you might want to come and see me speak on this subject. It’s going to be fun.

Info: Free entry, John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, starts at 6pm. Full details on the flyer (PDF; expertly designed by Benjamin Shaykin) I’m also maintaining a Facebook page on the subject for the library here. Come join the discussion.

If you can’t make it… things are in the pipeline to make some of my thoughts on this subject more widely available. More on that soon.

And while we’re on the topic, Jeremy has just posted some wise and not-unrelated opinions about iPads and magazines. Well worth a read.

By now, you may have caught up with my widely-tweeted article at the Hospital Club on the “failure” of tablet magazines, aka (by me at least) “maglets”. If not, it’s here.

I don’t have much to add to the topic right now, other than to say Adam of Exact Editions tries to cheer me up by refuting my points, and that the latest move today by Apple to add subscriptions isn’t quite what the industry has been waiting for. Oh Steve, you are a tease. The reader might not care about the finer points of this, but you can bet that the publishers do.

The headline problem is the legal obligation to offer the same subscription deal on iTunes as they do anywhere else.

Two issues with this requirement. Firstly, many mainstream magazines currently have hugely complex discounted subscription contracts with numerous sources, most of whose value is based on two things: being able to deliver the subscribers’ data to advertisers – either as demographics or mailing addresses, depending on which boxes were ticked; and on automatic renewals at a higher rate than hugely discounted “new subscriber” offers.

The thought of paying Apple 30% of all of that – almost certainly far higher than the other contracts are worth – without getting any of the subscriber data out of the deal, might make a few publishing execs turn a little pale. It also forces them to be up front about the discounting that goes on, and to simplify it hugely.

Secondly, who is to say that an iPad edition is identical to one on Android? Or one on a Windows 7 phone? What happens if Time offers a year’s subscription with every Motorola phone, or National Geographic wants to do a deal with Verizon to bribe new iPhone customers? How far does the “same deal” requirement stretch? How that will be policed is going to be tricky – and maybe end up in the courts.

Possible consequences?

• Some of the industry pulls out of the iPad (Time is doing this already. As a rule, though, I’d say it’s only likely if another big player enters the tablet market and undercuts Apple significantly on price without compromising quality. Could happen);

• The industry succeeds in getting Apple to backtrack on the deal (out of Steve’s cold, dead hands – unless the above scenario plays out soon);

• The price of magazine subscriptions in the USA is standardized, and goes up noticeably to overcome the transactional losses that come from forced standardization (would create a societal shift, and probably hasten the decline of mainstream print – though that might not be a bad thing, as it would increase the perceived value of some titles, at the expense of the headline circulation figures);

• The mainstream magazine industry bets the house on the iPad, and Steve gets what Steve wants (likely for a few publishers, but not most);

• The industry sticks to an HTML 5 app standard, allowing them to sell across multiple platforms, and accepts that they make less on the Apple devices than anywhere else (probably the way it’ll go for a while – until the next thing comes along);

• Magazine subscription houses start to fade away (and about time too).

UPDATE: Google responds, and responds hard. The industry may be battling Google on syndication and advertising, but it can’t argue with this.

It’s supposed to be sunny in London this weekend, and I’m going to be there, albeit very briefly.

So I thought that on Saturday, around 11am, I might take a jaunt to a few central-ish magazine shops – say, The ICA, Magma, M2, perhaps pop by Dover Street Market if it takes my fancy – before grabbing lunch in a pub to survey my paper-based ill-gottens.

A few people have suggested they might come along – so I thought I’d invite you too. Drop me a tweet or an email (andrew[AT]losowsky.com) if you fancy it.

Come on, it’ll be enormously geeky fun.

(Also let me know if you’ll be at The Story – which is where I’ll be all Friday)

It’s been a fascinating year for magazines.

Redesigns from Creative Review (by Paul Pensom) and icon (by Ken Leung) have added new flair to two of the strongest design titles on the newsstand, while Grafik fell but will rise again very soon.

Elsewhere, Little White Lies reached five years of great covers and thematic movie coverage and then promptly changed its logo, Elle UK made some gorgeous subscriber covers and Elle Collections made me look again at the catwalk with fresh eyes, Monocle continued to defy expectations with further expansion and two newspaper-magazine hybrids for the sea and ski elite, Wallpaper* has continued to experiment boldly with form and content, and GOOD made a tiny shift in its vocabulary to turn its subscribers into “members” of their wider community, a move that others will doubtless seek to emulate.

Self-publishers were given a lift by an improved MagCloud offering, while The Newspaper Club got wider recognition and is now eyeing up an American expansion. And the whole Roger Black/design templates controversy faded away almost as quickly as it swept in.

Pop under Dasha Zhukova did some lovely things, and I’m looking forward to seeing how its former editorial director Ashley Heath will continue the bold, eclectic approach. On the geek side, Wired UK continued to differentiate itself from its American big brother with Europe-focused stories and graphic playfulness. Worth it for the Warren Ellis and Russell Davies columns alone.

So many smaller independent magazines have produced creative, exciting, groundbreaking work in print this year. The Kasino crew unveiled their new project, showing how they can still create an entertaining publication even while using all four colours. Residing several miles further west than leftfield, Dodgem Logic is silly, funny, angry, smart, and subversive in all the right ways – and highly affordable too, as is Manzine which gets better and better with every issue, reaching far beyond its early in-jokiness to become an essential and witty read for people of both sexes.

Over the past 12 months, Mono.kultur and Gym Class have exemplified how fantastic one-person operations can be, when that person has talent, a clear vision and the confidence to make what they want to read, while Put A Egg On It deservedly got enough attention to turn it into a going concern.

Apartamento‘s star continues to rise, taking over the mantle of Fantastic Man as the hip mag to be seen with first – only because FM has now all but established itself as a fixture in the alternative mainstream. It continues to innovate with features that merit its chosen adjective. Its new sister, The Gentlewoman, has yet to settle, but there’s certainly an audience for it out there.

OK Periodicals has moved forward boldly, and now runs its own events as well – bravo, say I. Independent publishing needs as many gathering points as it can get. Elsewhere, my fellow Colophon curator Mike’s Nico gets better and better, and The Gopher Illustrated is a top tip to watch in 2011. Its first issue was adventurous, entertaining, and featured stickers of all the images in colour, for you to place on the pages (or elsewhere) yourself. Its creators recently moved from Venezuela to the creative hub of Austin. I’m looking forward to seeing the results.

Elsewhere, IL, Eureka and the Suddeutsche Zeitung Magazin‘s designs this year suggest that the golden age of magazine supplements isn’t over. Freed from the pressures of the open newsstand, supplements should be brave and bold enough to drive the purchase of the newspaper. And speaking of newspapers, i has had another great year of design work. Its art director, Nick Mrozowski, is on his way back to the States – but we should certainly keep an eye on what his successor gets up to.

As for myself, this was the first year of Stack America, and I’m indebted to the makers of Meatpaper, Megawords, Pin-Up, d[x]i, Beautiful/Decay, Little White Lies, GOOD, Embrocation, Put A Egg On It, The Oxford American, PWR Paper, Bad Day, MYMAG, and Abe’s Penny for agreeing to let me share their creative work with subscribers. Choosing the right publications hasn’t been an easy decision, not because they’re hard to find, but because so much fascinating work is out there. There will be plenty more of that to come in 2011. (Subscribe now!)

I’ve also given talks in Bulgaria, Spain and the USA, written about magazines and associated industries for Eye magazine among many others, and wrote the copy for Turning Pages, a weighty tome filled with snapshots of inspiring contemporary editorial design. We also announced a bold new move for Colophon – lots of excitement around that, some of which should bear some fruit soon.

And of course I got trapped by a volcano and made Stranded, a print-on-demand magazine about the experience, created by those in the same situation. Sales continue to come through; so far, it’s raised more than $1300 for the International Rescue Committee. (Buy one now!)

I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of great work that I really should have mentioned. Apologies if I didn’t include something you’ve worked on – please excuse it as an omission of forgetfulness, and not any kind of implied criticism. I hereby endeavour to review more titles, and faster, than I was able to this year.

There are, however three magazines that have had an outstanding 2010, and which I haven’t mentioned here. This was deliberate, because in the coming days, I’m going to announce my personal top three magazines of the year. It’s an individual selection, and entirely dependent on my mood at the moment of writing.

Though quite different in subject matter, what they have in common is an ability to make my brain expand and my fingers tingle when I turn the pages. No perspex blocks or shiny designer trophys will be handed out, only my respect and admiration.

And of course, there’s been the iPad. We’re in its early stages, but Letter to Jane, The New Yorker, Flipboard, Mag+ and my favourite mainstream magazine app of the year, The Times’ Eureka point to some fascinating new strides in publishing on their way very shortly. I haven’t written too much about iPad publications on Magtastic this year, a function of real-life preoccupations rather than a philosophical standpoint. That will change, quite significantly, early in 2011 – but not here. More on that very soon.

Recession be damned. It’s been a heck of year, and I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has shared their projects with me. Here’s to an even bolder, better year for contemporary storytelling in 2011. As I said in my intro to Turning Pages, this is truly The Golden Age of Print.

So what did I miss out?