God Help Us

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec 1, 2002 by Teresa Palagano

Byline: Teresa Palagano

Given the competition at the newsstand, we're pretty sure that even agnostic editors sometimes find religion on closing nights. What editor (or publisher) hasn't prayed that his latest cover won't bomb in the Midwest or begged for a little help with sell-through numbers in the South? Now that we're headed into the holy season (yes, we know, all seasons are holy in the parlance of creative editors), we decided to see how much help God really has to offer. Weeklies are planning their Christmas covers; monthlies are thinking about Easter. What will sell? Who will sell?

Turns out, Jesus rocks on the newsstand. Evoking the Almighty's image, or even just His name, on a cover moves copies, according data from Cover Analyzer, an information network that measures single-copy sales on 300 of the top selling consumer magazines. On average, sales for magazines featuring Jesus as the primary cover subject increased by as much as 45 percent. Only one out five covers underperformed: "But you have to remember that [particular issue] was measured against September 11 issues," says Kara Wojciaczyk, director of information products for Source Interlink Companies, the owner of Cover Analyzer. Following the terrorist attacks, single-copy sales soared for the newsweeklies; as a result, some comparative sales data have been skewed. "That particular issue actually performed 40 percent better than the same issue last year," notes Wojciaczyk.

Jesus' numbers for the weeklies have been so heavenly that at least one monthly recently decided to take a leap faith. Popular Mechanics featured "The Real Face of Jesus" on its December cover, and while its too soon to get a solid read on newsstand sales, editor-in-chief Joe Oldham says he thinks it's a winner. "I can tell it's going to be a very good seller because we've already gotten hundreds of letters," he says. "In the first week we usually get maybe 50 to 75 letters responding to a cover story, but we've already gotten almost 300 letters."

Miracle of miracles, Jesus isn't the only sure-bet cover subject in the religious firmament. The Bible is also a bestseller. Magazines that featured the holy book witnessed as much as a 51 percent boost in sales. However, when it comes to Christianity and cover subjects, there is one topic that doesn't sell: scandal. Titles that depicted the recent pedophile-priest crisis in the Catholic Church consistently underperformed against annual averages, according to Cover Analyzer. Kind of makes you believe that God might really intervene at the newsstand.