Dead Tree
I received a copy of a letter from Andrew M. Molchan of the American Firearms Industry and publisher of the American Firearms Industry Magazine. Well, used to be. Seems the magazine has stopped publishing for a few reasons outlined in the letter:
I stopped publishing AFI for a number of reason. First, 90% of all print media: magazines, newspapers, books, trade shows, etc., are obsolete. Although AFI was still the best home on the block, the entire block was going downhill fast. Frankly, the product (AFI) no longer represented what I thought was good value for our clients. In my opinion, ALL of the gun publications, including AFI, no longer represented good value for the money.
Twenty years ago, AFI would have its special January AFI SHOW Issue, and get over 200,000 inquires. They were all real inquires for a specific company & product. No funny games. AFI helped to make several start-up companies successful. However, by 2010 it was clear that the landscape had radically changed, and the Business Model for print trade magazines, and specialized gun magazines in general, and trade shows, was obsolete.
95% of all magazines have significantly LESS circulation today than 15 years ago. Most trade shows are dying. The very over priced SHOT Show’s days are numbered. Sales, advertising and marketing are all moving to the Internet that has proven itself to be much MORE effective, and for a lot LESS money.
While I agree with the general sentiment, seems there’s still good marketing potential in magazines. As I’ve said before, the day a gun blog can get $20K for a front page ad for a month is the day I’ll believe all this internet superiority is really real.
January 24th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
I agree completely with you. Plus, bloggers are going to have to learn how, as a group, to give ‘treats to the dog’.
They certainly know, as a group, ‘how to beat the dog’, but they have yet to learn the opposite.
When they do that, then you might see that $20,000 back page ad payment. Otherwise, the ‘dog’ is continue to give money to those that do give it ‘treats’ and don’t beat it or throw stones at it all the time…
All The Best,
Frank W. James
January 24th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Funny that they say it…I found that going to SHOT and meeting people face to face was good, even vital for business.
January 24th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
His rant sounds like sour grapes. Print media failed to adapt, they saw the internet as a fad – something like CB radio. When they did finally come around to new media they were too late and playing in a game where they did not understand the rules. They didn’t understand the instant nature of online media. They didn’t understand the market reach or the advertising model. The didn’t understand how to strengthen a brand while giving up the subscription revenue model.
They were and in some cases are still fixed on once a week newspaper column model of published. In magazines, they’re focused on one a money articles that are a month only when I get the magazine. They never diversified into video news and educational clips. They only have themselves to blame for the road they’ve taken.
January 24th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
One of the reasons the Internet is kicking print media’s ass is that you don’t HAVE to pay $20K for that kind of exposure.
January 24th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Think about a small firearms related business owner who has a new shooting related widget… He has a choice: Spend several thousand dollars going to SHOT to be ignored by lots of industry & magazine people ogling the booth babes for the outside chance of getting a single picture and a single paragraph in the back of one of the magazines… OR spend a few hundred dollars sending T&E samples to a few dozen of the better known bloggers who can take it to the range, try it out, and tell all their readers about it directly. I know which one I’d pick.
January 24th, 2012 at 2:00 pm
@Oleg Volk: You’re almost certainly right, for you, but your customers ARE the industry people. For someone trying to reach the end consumer, things are very different.
Added to my previous:
Even if a little guy gets that holy grail national magazine exposure, it’s in one one issue, for one month, and then is for all intents and purposes gone. A good mention online gets indexed by the search engines, and he’s in like Flynn.
January 24th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Gun rags are usually a sort of gun sales ad YOU pay for.
They are so general, so non-critical, and well just a bunch of bull.
I rarely buy them now.
January 24th, 2012 at 2:24 pm
On the web, I can pull up pictures and product specifications in whatever detail the company or a reviewer wants to provide to the public, read multiple reviews by various groups of individuals, see aftermarket accessories linked to a product, comparison shop for direct delivery to my home or a local ffl or retail purchase from a store, find advertisements for products in direct competition with the one I have looked at, and find the lowest price available.
With a magazine, I can read in the tub or on the john without worrying about dropping my laptop.
I think I see why he is quitting. I hope he moves to the web.
January 24th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
#4 Alan nails it.
#8 mikee: there were at least two vendors at CES 2012 selling waterproofing for Ipads, one of them is even aftermarket — send them your doodad and $50 or so, it comes back dunkable.
January 24th, 2012 at 4:19 pm
Went to my first SHOT Show this year. It ain’t going anywhere.
January 24th, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Shows are one thing, but I don’t think print is suffering because they haven’t adapted, I don’t think they can adapt. The metaphor is so different that there’s simply little place for print in it. They’re buggy whip makers in the automobile age. They’re AM radio in the age of digital multimedia. They’ll continue to exist, but in the margin. That’s nothing against them, nor their prior success, it’s just that they’re going to have to realize that time has passed them by.
January 24th, 2012 at 9:06 pm
Help! the price of advertising has fallen and it can’t get back up!
January 24th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Not sure what world that guy is living in, but I can tell you that the “Jane’s” magazines (dealing with defense/security issues and expensive as hell) are apparently doing just fine.
January 25th, 2012 at 5:41 pm
Right, because those bought-and-paid-for “reviews” that are nothing more than multi-page, effusive advertisements for the product in question have nothing to do with print media’s declining readership.
Oh. Wait. Was that too much of a “stone”?
January 27th, 2012 at 12:18 pm
@Linoge,
That’s why I haven’t bought a gun mag in years. Motorcycle magazines can be just as bad. But you can dodge a lot of that “paid advertisement camoflaged as a ‘review'” stuff in RoadRunner and some of the British motorcycle magazines.