When we started Colophon, it was soon after the closure of CMYK, a Barcelona-based magazine event that took place in 2004 and 2005.

Other independent magazine-based events and exhibitions (distinct from mainstream industry gatherings with paid-for booths in huge conference centres) have also cropped up, including this year’s OK Festival in the Netherlands, the Magazine Library in Japan, the ever-moving Kiosk and most recently, De Zines in Madrid, which closes this Sunday.

The more the merrier, we say. Such events are wonderful opportunities to discover new magazines, meet magazine makers and forge new collaborations. As we plan more Colophon events (suggestions still welcome here), and hear rumours of more magazine-focused excuses to get drunk invaluable industry events to come, I’m delighted to offer you the catalogue from De Zines as a PDF download, thanks to co-curators Roberto Vidal and Oscar Martín.

Filled with independent magazines and thoughtful reflections on publishing outside the mainstream, it’s a lovely document, and a taste of what those of us who haven’t been able get to De Zines have missed out on. (The first pages are in Spanish, but there’s a full English translation at the back.) The exhibit is about to close, but its spirit lives on in the fantastic magsite No.Zines, which I’m told is about to get the RSS feed it lacks. Felicidades, gentlemen. Hasta la próxima.

Click here, download the catalogue, and enjoy. (9.8mb, PDF)

Yes, I am excited to see what the iPad will bring in terms of new ideas surrounding interactivity, storytelling and location-based media.

That’s because I’m a consumer. From a publishing perspective, however, here are five reasons why it’s best not to get too carried away by the pre-release hype.

1. Pre-rendered is not publication

First there was the internet browser, then WAP, then smartphones, now tablet computers and the iPad. It’s fair to say that the publishing industry has never had so many platforms to adapt to. However, another consumer-facing industry has faced even more platform changes and new interaction tools over the past two decades or so: that of videogames, from which I’m borrowing the word “pre-rendered”.

The term “pre-rendered footage” refers to the visuals most companies use in trailers for forthcoming games – it means that the footage isn’t actually taken from the game itself. Instead, it’s an animation created on a top-end PC to build up the hype around what the game might be like. What they’re showing you may not even be possible on the console’s hardware.

Which is what we’re seeing with all these fancy iPad magazine videos. This one, for instance, includes videochat, while the iPad doesn’t even have a camera. I’m all in favor of big thinking and big dreaming – just be aware that we may see very little of this expansive interactive magazine reality in the first 18 months of development. It may not be possible, and it almost certainly won’t be affordable.

Anything gorgeous that does emerge will most likely be eyewateringly expensive to produce, at least for the next couple of years. We might get a few sponsored gimmicks, but don’t expect our entire iPad magazine future to look like Viv‘s prototype.

2. The revenue model is not proven

I’ve been doing some consulting recently for three different clients who wanted to create iPad apps. Two of them have never had their own publications before.

Why their sudden interest? Because the feeling is that the iPad is the place to be, and that there’s gold in them thar hills. There certainly is, for those select people who can code Objective C at least, which is the language that iPad apps are written in. Beyond that… well, it feels like we’ve been here before. Welcome to 1998, the year we were told that every company needed to have its own website in order to make money, and it would take an expensive agency and an overpriced coder to do it for you.

There are crucial differences between then and now, it’s true: iTunes has seemingly cracked the micropayments issue, and advertisers are no longer so digital shy.

However, the iPhone app marketplace shows that making money is far from certain, even for big names. GQ sold 12,000 copies of its January iPhone app – respectable in context, but I’ll wager that the income doesn’t nearly cover half the money they paid for the prototype.

Monthly magazines face another problem: that of limited shelf life. If you’re selling a regular app, game, or even an iBook or an iTunes album, you will hope to recoup your money over a period of several months or longer. But who’ll pay for last month’s Wired, or January’s Cosmo? All of which suggests that regular publications will have two choices: make specific themed apps designed to have longer shelf lives (as Rodale did on the iPhone, apparently successfully) or opt for template-based solutions that aren’t nearly as glamorous and individually tailored to each feature as most of the pre-rendered videos suggest.

And by the way, if you’re looking to make a fast buck, I promise you that creating a new magazine, even on the iPad, is not the answer. Costs for editorial are entirely upfront and some are fixed, even without printing costs; returns are highly uncertain even in times of prosperity, and if you’re not passionate about what you want to say, readers will smell it from a mile away.

3. Nobody knows the answers to the following questions:

4. Everything else on the iPad is your competitor

One of the principle reasons that magazine sales have dropped over the past decade is because they are now competing with newer forms of technology for our attention. Where once only a book or a magazine would occupy a plane ride, now many people pass the time with laptops, videos on iPods and games consoles, not to mention the inflight entertainment. On the train, more people today listen to iPods and check emails than read publications. It’s not that magazines have no future, merely that they will never be as popular as they once were, because there are more choices available to us, all the time.

The iPad is a microcosm of this, and one that we already suffer from with our computers. The question publishers have to answer is this: Why will people pay to read your magazine app when they also have the option, with no effort at all, to be on the internet, watching movies, reading books, checking email on the very same device?

5. Your advertisers may also be your competitors

Until the internet age, companies advertised in newspapers and magazines because it was the only way, beyond billboards and direct marketing, to talk to their customers. Also, people engage on a deeper level with something that they have chosen, rather than with ads that invade their space uninvited.

However, on the internet, and now through iTunes as well, companies can talk directly to their consumers, and create their own experiences, be they editorial or otherwise, without the interference of editorial independence or ads for competing brands. The Art Of The Trench isn’t just a natty website – it’s also where Burberry’s advertising dollars went, and fashion magazines felt the pinch. Others will follow.

iPad magazines may soon find that the ads they carry will be in the form of links to other applications, this time created by brands – all of which compete with the magazine itself for the iPad user’s time.

Conclusion

I’ve very much enjoyed consulting on a few products that I hope will actually appear on the iPad, and am very happy to speak to more companies about helping them achieve something remarkable on the platform. It’s an exciting space with a lot of possibilities, and despite my skeptical tone above, I do firmly believe that certain content for particular audiences will flourish on the device. Please, ignore me, prove me wrong and create something wonderful.

However, if you’re a publisher considering an iPad edition, I do believe that you should think carefully why and how you will enter the iPad platform, and whether what you want to achieve is even manageable on the device right now. So far, I’ve seen far too many Underpants Gnomes business plans*. Just remember: an iPad overspend could critically damage what might otherwise be a moderately successful print product.

* The underpants gnomes business plan:

1. Build iPad app.
2.??????
3. Profit!

As I flew Lufthansa, I got a stop in Frankfurt. There were three Relays within about 500 feet of each other, all of which had a remarkable selection of magazines. It was good to see independents such as Kaiserin and S(nsfw) sitting alongside the usual fare. Here’s what else I spotted, and snapped with my iPhone:

Business magazine Brand Eins continues to stand out for its beautiful simplicity.

Sleek is doing something lovely with the page edges in their latest issue, themed ‘Food’. You can download it for free if you register here.

Swiss design mag idPure is always worth looking at. They’ve had a redesign of their cover since I last saw it. I like it a lot.

The first issue of Business Punk, the new G+J magazine that tries to meld economics and ladmags, was there. Lots of bright colours and shouty design about the most unexpected topics inside. However, I wasn’t able to find its stablemate, leaving me asking ‘Where’s the Beef?’

At least two charities have their own newsstand titles, both cleanly designed and filled with more content than just money-raising fayre.

And finally, a piece of honest explanation for the store’s top shelf. It was 6am, I was surrounded by wide-eyed people who, like me, had taken overnight flights, and yet I was in a happy place. Yes, I am a cheap date.

“The idea was to find a solution to the problems plaguing the magazine industry”

To finish up my roundup of the launch of MYMAG (parts one, two and three), I’m delighted to offer a Blogsplosion magsclusive interview with its creator, Magnus Greaves, where he reveals how the idea began with ‘make your own’ magazines, explains how he’s trying to take the risk out of publishing, and tells us exactly what he looks for in a guest editor.

According to the website, idea came about in 2007. Why did it take two years to put together?
The initial idea behind MYMAG was to find a solution to the many problems plaguing the magazine industry. We had a vision of individuals creating their own print magazine using content from established publishers. We pursued this for a long time — looking into the challenges of technology, on-demand printing, how to acquire the content and so on. One day we realized that MYMAG was not about magazines in general; it was about personalized media in a way that takes advantage of the print-magazine format.

Once we made this shift in our thinking, we decided to focus on working with people who already had a following, as opposed to people making magazines purely for themselves.
 

Why print magazines? Why not books, websites, iPhone apps, something else? 
MYMAG is about the connection between a tastemaker and their fans, and creating a print magazine adds something new to the tools they use to do this. Plus, our limited-edition approach adds a certain level of intimacy that those other formats don’t offer. We use Web sites and apps and Twitter and the rest to promote each issue, but there’s just something special about the tactile magazine experience, especially when you’re deeply interested in the individual who created it.

 
How often will MYMAGs come out? Will they always appear in batches of three?
We decided to launch with three to emphasize the diversity and personalization aspects of MYMAG. Readers seeing just one magazine at first wouldn’t get the full picture of how different tastemakers can use the platform simultaneously to reach completely different audiences. We will continue to launch in series of three for a while, and then we’ll simply add individual tastemakers as they come onboard. As a company, we have no set schedule for when we’ll release each MYMAG, although many of the tastemakers we’re speaking with want to time their participation to coincide with other projects they have going on.
 
 
How much start-up capital did MYMAG require, and where did it come from? How many full-time staff work on MYMAG?
The initial capital came from me personally, and I continued to fund the business for the first two years. I then asked several of my friends to participate — which was great, as it allowed our little team to have outsiders to bounce ideas off and to share in all the excitement. We have four full-time staff — me; our COO, Phil Rugile; our creative director, Warren Noronha; and our marketing-and-sales coordinator, Vanessa Fuller. We also have an incredible group of experts who work with us on art direction, production, PR and logistics. And, of course, the amazing printing team at Fry.
 
 
What did the experience of Doubledown Media teach you about magazine publishing?
Doubledown was my first experience in the media business, so it taught me a lot! Probably the most meaningful lessons, in terms of the subsequent development of MYMAG, would be what I learned about the inefficiencies of the magazine business and its awful financial model. We actually had a pretty decent model at Doubledown — as far as magazines go, anyway — but I was able to witness how crazy magazine publishing is when it comes to building an audience, the painful distribution models (both newsstand and subscription) and the suicidal dependency on advertising income.

The MYMAG model aims to address all three of these problems — we work with tastemakers who have an existing audience; we use their existing channels to reach that audience and sell them the magazines; and we create a high-quality product that the fans are willing to pay $10 for.
 
 
What do you look for in a MYMAG guest editor?
We’re looking for well-known individuals who have something interesting to say, and an existing fan base that wants to hear it. We’re not looking purely for the most famous people, as popularity alone is no guarantee that they’ll create an interesting magazine. It’s also important that the tastemaker have a direct channel to his or her fans, whether through social media or live events such as concert tours. When we do the series of three, we might occasionally try to group the tastemakers so that the fans of one will presumably have some interest in the others we’ve selected. But those connections will be subtle.
 
 
How exactly does it work? Does the editor simply send a list of what they want, or does MYMAG work with each editor make their choices? And do they choose the individual articles or just the magazines themselves?
Warren sits down face to face with each tastemaker to hear what they want to communicate to their audience. He then finds out what their favorite magazines are and, specifically, which content they want included. Each tastemaker has 100 percent control over their MYMAG, and the more detail-oriented they are about the articles, the better. After the initial consultation, we work with the tastemaker and their team to establish the marketing plan and our sales strategy. MYMAG does most of the heavy lifting, but the process ends up being so personal and enjoyable that the tastemakers are willing to give us a lot of their time, which is how we can create great experiences for the reader.
 
 
I read that you don’t pay the publications that are featured. Is it easy to get the magazines to say yes? Was it easy to get the reprint rights for Spy, a now-defunct publication?
I’m happy to say that the overwhelming majority of the magazines we have approached have been very enthusiastic about contributing content. Given that we’re approaching each publisher on behalf of a well-known tastemaker, receiving such a personal, celebrity-driven endorsement of their magazine is obviously very appealing to them. We then continue to work with the publishers to promote their involvement in the project, and we see them as partners.

The only problems we’ve encountered so far have been trying to get to the right person at one of the major magazine companies — they seem to have so many people on staff that they don’t know who’s responsible for participating in an innovative project! In the case of Spy, we dealt directly with the gentleman who now owns all the rights to the content, and he was terrific in helping us out. For me, seeing the final Spy pullout in movie director Brett Ratner’s magazine has been one of the highlights of the entire MYMAG journey.
 
 
Are the intros actually written by each editor? How about the handwritten covers?
Every word you see comes directly from the tastemaker. We are not interested in working with anyone who doesn’t want to write their own intros and letter, as it defeats the purpose of MYMAG and would result in a magazine that the fans right away would recognize as inauthentic. The handwriting was a great feature for the first magazines; it really helped highlight the intimate and personalized nature of the project, although I’m not sure we’ll necessarily do that every time.
 
 
How do you decide how many copies to print of each magazine?
We agree on the issue’s print run with each tastemaker. MYMAG is a premium product in terms of content and quality, so the goal isn’t to sell as many as we can. Also, the brand sponsors we work with love the association with the tastemakers — that is, the ability to reach their most enthusiastic fans — so it’s not a numbers game to them, either.

Sales have been very strong across the three magazines. Fortunately, each MYMAG is about the tastemaker and not a collection of time-sensitive news items that will be stale in 30 days. This allows us not to be panicked about selling each magazine before the end of the month.
 
 
Why aren’t you distributing more widely?
Our job is to get the magazines into the hands of each tastemaker’s fans. Given that we select tastemakers who have existing channels to their audience, we have a very efficient distribution model. We’re having interesting conversations with tastemakers about leveraging their wider networks — tying in with their fashion labels, for example — and brand sponsors are interested in doing in-store sales of the magazines.

We will explore anything as long as it doesn’t involve putting 10 copies on a newsstand, hoping to sell three of them and collecting a tiny fraction of the revenue six months down the road! We ship internationally as well — and we’ll be launching in the United Kingdom within the next few months, so that will expand our visibility.
 

Magazines generally rely on a regular subscription base, in order to make money. Your model seems to be completely the opposite, with each magazine aimed at a completely separate audience of your editor’s fans. Doesn’t this repeated uncertainty bring with it great risks?
Personally, I feel the deeply discounted subscription model is much riskier, as is using that subscription base to try to sell more than 40 ads every month! When we start working with a new tastemaker, we do so on the assumption that they will create just one MYMAG, and we’ll later determine whether an opportunity exists to create another. It would therefore be very hard to sell a subscription.

Before I got into magazine publishing, I was a futures trader, so I always look at the risks — and how best to reduce them — before anything else. Here’s what we’ve done: First, we work with tastemakers who have an existing fan base, so there’s no time or money wasted on trying to figure out who the audience is and how to reach it. Second, we print a limited run of issues — a number, whatever it is, that’s a fraction of that tastemaker’s known fan base, so we don’t have to convert many of them in order to sell out the print run. Third, we’ve specifically avoided creating a business model that’s advertising-dependent, as that route is difficult even in the best of times and would be nearly impossible with a limited-edition product.
 

What are your ambitions and hopes for MYMAG in the future?
We just want to keep working with interesting people to help them connect with their fans. Our goal is to work with as wide a range of tastemakers as possible, from athletes and actors to academics and politicians. It’s also going to be fun to explore how we adapt our approach in other countries. Finally, we’ve been creating an amazing database as fans purchase issues on our Web site, MYMAG.com. That could lead to many interesting opportunities in the future.

When I moved to the USA nearly 18 months ago, I was particularly looking forward to two aspects of local cultural education: uncovering great new magazines, and discovering what the heck a Smore was.

The second thing was, I have to say, a disappointment (Hershey’s being rather waxy for my taste buds), but the imagination and creativity I’ve discovered in magazines on this side of the Atlantic has been really rather fantastic. The question remained, however: what to do with this knowledge?

I’ve been a Stack fan since it started (and somewhat envious of those in Europe who can get it for less than the cost of a Royal Mail’s ransom), and so I bowed at the feet of Mr Stack, aka Steve Watson, when we met at Colophon earlier this year.

A few months later, we met again, and had a crazy idea. So here we are today, with the launch of Stack America.

It’s simple enough: Stack America is just like the Stack you know and love (ie. a curated magazine club, sending you remarkable independent magazines and more, direct to your letter box), but American flavored. Which means more magazines from America (that is, the USA, Canada, Mexico and further afield too, if I can swing it), sent out from an American address, making the whole thing more affordable for those of a west Atlantic geographic persuasion.

Though it’s mainly America-themed, I’ll also throw in occasional European delights that don’t often make it out here, just to keep my lovely subscribers on their toes.

The key points of difference:

- While the original Stack is monthly. Stack America is every two months.

- Stack and Stack America will send out different magazines, so a subscription to both means even more variety to your magazine reading.

- The first Stack America will be sent out in January. Which makes it the perfect Christmas gift for the designfreak/magazine-lover/doctor’s waiting room in your family.

- Stack America is run by me, not Steve. So if you have a complaint or a problem with it, please don’t leave poo on his doorstep. I’m at andrew@stackmagazines.com (though naturally we are working together to make it a success.)

- No magazine pays or gives us favors to be included. We only choose magazines that we love, and that we know you will too.

- We do also love online magazines, it’s just that the internet is harder to fit in an envelope.

- Members will also receive occasional bonus delights, including exclusive, mag-themed pieces. Yes, I’m commissioning, and there’ll be more on that soon…

- Yes, I am accepting submissions and suggestions! Lemme know what your favorite American magazine is, and just maybe, it might end up in an envelope near you.

- In general, I plan on only announcing Stack America magazines after the mailout, so that each issue’s contents remain a surprise. I’m going to make an exception for the first one, however, mostly because I’m really delighted about it, and also because it gives you a flavor of what to expect. Included in the first Stack America envelope will be a forthcoming issue of Meatpaper, the beautiful and provocative San Francisco-based quarterly journal covering art and ideas about meat, and the latest Megawords, a Philadelphia-based magazine about place and human experience. And more things I just can’t announce quite yet. Did I mention that Stack America is going to rock your world?

Any more questions, drop me a line or leave a comment. And do spread the word, and sign up. Stack America is go!

I’ve been having something of a clearout, and as an experiment, I’ve decided to sell some duplicate issues of magazines in my archive on eBay. Take a look, do.

This week’s specials:

Latest issue of FOAM

The 30th Anniversary issue of New York

The Hospital Club members magazine

First edition of T-world

This year’s Pentagram Paper: Signs

While the printer works his inky magic, Gestalten has officially been unveiled as the worldwide distributor of our forthcoming Colophon-accompanying book, We Make Magazines. And to celebrate, they’ve put some pages online.

Edited by your humble correspondent and designed by the one, the only Jeremy Leslie, It’s very different from We Love Magazines, but equally essential for magazine lovers. I would say that, wouldn’t I? Yes, I would, though the truth is that I’m rather proud of the thing. It’s very lovely, a fascinating and relevant read, filled with great imagery (and free to all Flash Pass holders at Colophon!)

More details over at Gestaltan’s website.

We’re hoping to organise a discussion panel on independent magazines in New York, to celebrate the book’s release over here in May/June. Any thoughts on where we should do it, though?

“I guess I started a magazine because I knew almost nothing about print.”

It may not sound like the best time to buy an entire magazine, but that’s just what Lothar Eckstein has done. Twice.

The founder and editor-in-chief of sleek magazine, in November he bought two of his favourite independent magazines, Qvest and Luna, from German company Mediakom, to create a stable of three fashion magazines under the umbrella of B20 Publishing.

He talked exclusively to the Blogsplosion, sharing tales of independence, economies of scale and the future of magazine advertising.

Your background is in advertising – what made you first want to get involved in magazines?

I started in advertising 20 years ago. But in advertising, you are always working on someone else’s baby. In the end, the client builds something, not you. Fifteen years ago, I moved into working in television and then the internet.

I guess I started a magazine because I knew almost nothing about print. I knew all the risks in television and the internet, and didn’t dare [create my own venture]. In print, it was the opposite.

When did you think you could make independent magazines your main business?

When I was working for big German publisher, Axel Springer.

Describe your magazines.

Luna is the only high-end children’s fashion magazine in Germany.

Qvest shows forward-looking fashion in a visually distinctive way, and will include some exciting new features with the launch of issue 37. With a circulation of 80,000, Qvest is by far the biggest serious magazine in its segment, in the German market.

Sleek is unique in exclusively combining art and fashion. Each issue has its own theme.

Why did you decide to acquire Qvest and Luna?

I always felt that it would be worth trying to strengthen independent titles by giving them a chance to profit from economies of scale. Like: Buy paper together. Print together. Distribute together and sell ads in Italy or France together. But remain editorially fiercely independent.

How much did you pay for the titles?

We paid too much, of course! What else can I say as a buyer?

Is B20 owned by you alone? Why the name B20?

I have two partners, Matthias Düwel and Marcus Meyer. The name? We wanted something modest. The brand is just a vehicle for business to business affairs. B20 stands for the 20s in Berlin, a time and place that the three of us are impressed by.

Did you change the editorial teams after taking over?

Yes. Annika von Taube moved up from Managing Editor to Editor in Chief for sleek – she replaces me. Adriano Sack will be in charge of Qvest as of Edition 37 together with Clark Parkin. They will take over from Tamara Rothstein and Ashely Heath, who I want to thank for what they achieved for Qvest over the last two years, very impressive work.

Have you made any changes to the magazines themselves?

There will be some changes linked with the new teams. But it is too early to tell what they will be.

Have you started to gain the economies of scale you had hoped for?

There are amazing savings, more than we expected.

Are you planning to create any new magazines? What kind of magazine would you like to add to these three?

Yes, we are. Or rather: Yes, we were. But given the financial crises, who knows what will happen…

What is the future of magazine advertising?

It helps to have a good online model to go with the print model. Being visually driven and using “haptics” to the max also helps. The most important thing is being small, though. The market will shrink, but it will continue to be big enough for small players to continue for a long time to come, especially in high-end, quality niches.

Esquire puts a hole in Obama’s face
For $250,000, who wouldn’t? There could be some neat creative solutions made using this alongside the cover image in the future, like a Mad magazine-style trapdoor; though knowing Esquire US, there won’t be. A pull tab for BMW is to follow. “I think you can smell a gimmick a mile away,” says the VP of Discovery channel. I’m sniffing one from here

Papercamp highlights the future of tech and paper
Less gimmicky, more geeky. Originated by Dopplr’s Matt Jones; some of the ideas can be seen here. There’s a New York-flavoured edition coming up next month

Ads in PDFs scrapped by Adobe
Between them, Techcrunch and Nxtbook have it about right. However, I’m not convinced by the phrase “A true digital magazine is designed to be an elegant reading experience. While some are better than others, most all are more engaging than the PDF format” – PDF Mags begs to differ

Taschen’s London store gears up for a warehouse sale
Takes place on 23-25th January. Plenty of pulp mag books with slightly scuffed covers on offer on day one, fewer bargains by the weekend I’ll bet

Adbusting protests against Photoshop use
Fabulous in-joke fun

And the obligatory crisis roundup:

Jeans brand scraps magazine advertising
“Magazines will always be relevant. We are just trying something new this season.” And cheaper. Goes instead for marketing on its own website and instore

Arthur goes into hibernation
The community funding only postponed the end. The blog has been busy since, though. If you prefer a fictional version of this story…

…Bad Idea creates miniseries about print and the money pit
Occasionally amusing. “How about Kabuki theatre for the disabled?”

Funniest line of the magazine crisis so far
Though I’m not sure it’s true. But who cares?

The picture’s her, not me, btw.