Recently while sifting through our monthly allotment of motorcycle magazines, (we get like 24 or so of them) we had to ask the question, “Why don’t magazines do what they use to do, which was write articles on “How To’s” and “Bike/Builder Features”? Why are they focusing on trends and forecasting of industries or the drama associated with those featured on TV? Then it hit us….the reason is that the main producers of trade rags anymore are large conglomorates who’s only interest is the all mighty “buck”. Few and far between are the guys/gals that focus on the industry and are truly making their living by producing an informative and relevant magazine for our industry. These editors, who also double as photographer, writer, ad layout and salesmen, have slowly been run out of business (or bought) by the larger companies. Sort of like the small family owned local drug and hardware stores alot of us grew up with in America. Just a memory now.
If you look closely, all of the major mag’s are into some sort of “Breaking News” format that harkens to compete with the online world (which they can’t and shouldn’t try to compete with). Thus what comes out monthly in these mag’s are articles that are dated by the time they hit the stands, thus not relevent. For the majority of readers like us here at Guilty, these articles are a rehash of news we’ve already picked up via the internet, chat boards, blogs, etc. So all this to say….Mr. Magazine Company….concentrate on the in-depth articles which you can do very well and stay away from trying to be our 6:00 news source. Ink will never flow as fast as pixels on screen so step back, think, gather the story and write it well. I’ll enjoy your magazine when you do longer articles that have relevence to our industry….not some feature on stuff i already know about.
Hey Magazine Companies!!
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