Taking a Lesson from a Magazine Legend

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, August 1, 2003

Byline: GEOFFREY C. LEWIS Editorial Director glewis@primediabusiness.com

A few weeks before I was asked to become editorial director of Folio:, I had the good luck to find myself on the same program with Richard Stolley, the legendary Time-Life editor. At the conference, sponsored by the Magazine Association of the Southeast, Stolley captivated his audience with tales of his remarkable career. From covering the civil rights movement for Life to dodging bullets in Eastern Europe to launching People, he has had an incredible ride.

The audience was appropriately impressed by the famous names, the glamour, and the derring-do. But the attendees really got excited when Stolley got down to cases. The 300 editors, designers, publishers, and production people were there to learn from a master of the game. In a workshop with designer John Miller of Garcia Media, Stolley provided instant feedback on more than a dozen magazines submitted by the audience. Asking pointed questions about circulation, advertising, and newsstand strategies, he and Miller quickly diagnosed problems with logos, headline type, cover images, section layouts, and story ideas - moving through the magazines like doctors performing triage in the E.R.

I was struck not only by how Stolley immediately got to the heart of the matter (often with an acerbic observation), but also by how he addressed problems common to all magazines. The submissions ranged from obscure b-to-b mags and esoteric enthusiast books to mainstream consumer titles. But Stolley's approach was that all these publications - and their editors and publishers - were part of the same universe: the magazine business.

You could see young editors lapping it up and older pros nodding knowingly. These were not folks you will see on the paparazzi pages with Anna and Jann. But they are eager to learn what their rich and famous colleagues have mastered: delivering useful, entertaining, provocative, well-designed, and carefully edited magazines that really connect with readers.

Which brings me to Folio:. The lesson that Stolley imparted in Atlanta is an important one for this magazine. Folio: is the only magazine that serves the entire community of the magazine publishing industry. From the glossiest glossies to the most nuts-and-bolts trade book, Folio: has always viewed magazine publishing as a single business. And, whether you're an editor, publisher, designer, ad rep, production manager, or circulation director, you should be able to turn to Folio: for insight into creating great products that build the audiences that draw the advertisers that make the business work.

I come to Folio: with more than 20 years of experience in magazine business journalism, having covered or edited coverage of virtually every kind of business - both in consumer (BusinessWeek) and b-to-b publishing (Fairchild, Cahners, Primedia). Magazine publishing is a particularly fun business to follow because of the boundless creativity that editors and designers wield, the unending supply of outrageous characters who are drawn to it, and the amazing and continuously morphing array of products they produce.

Folio: has a great history and an outspoken (you might say rabid) audience; to be a magazine about the magazine industry is to invite kibitzing. I look forward to hearing from readers in the coming months - and to meeting those who come out for the Folio: Show in October.