Booking right along: Library Journal has surprised Cahners with explosive growth

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct 1, 1990 by Robert S. Burroughs

NEW YORK CiTy-In 1985, when Cahners Publishing bought the Bowker Magazine Group, the company was primarily interested in Publisbers Weekly, an all-paid journal for the book trade that carries more than 2,500 ad pages a year. But as part of the deal, Cahners also got two profitable but sleepy journals covering libraries: Library journal (LJ) and School Library journal.

Contrary to expectations, the two tagalongs have turned out to be sleepers. in little more than two years, for instance, publisher Fred Ciporen has managed to boost Library journal's ad pages by more than 50 percent, making it the fastest-growing of Cahners' 75 magazines.

In 1989 alone, LJ increased its ad pages by 455, raising its share of market by 6.2 percent. The magazine has continued that frantic pace into 1990, with ad pages up by 200 in the year to date and market share up by 5 percent. At that rate, LJ could rack up close to 1,800 pages for the year, almost doubling its 1988 ad pages.

An invisible market

When Ciporen took over as publisher in May 1988, he was faced with a formidable problem. The magazine was a very mature product-111 years old-in a market perceived to be stodgy and stagnant. Book publishers, who represent the market's largest potential ad category, were virtually ignoring the magazines serving them. The large trade book publishers-Random House, Harper & Row, Bantam Doubleday Dell, Simon & Schuster-concentrated their sales efforts in bookstores and their advertising in Publishers Weekly, newspapers and some consumer magazines.

Although libraries contribute about 10 percent of the $13 billion spent on books each year, they were of marginal concern to the publishers. Library sales are difficult for book publishers to track. Unlike bookstores that order directly from publishers' sales reps, libraries order most of their books through wholesalers. The result: "Libraries became an invisible market to book publishers," Ciporen explains.

And even though LJ has a frequency of 20 times per year, advertisers perceived the market as small and unchanging. "We needed to get publishers' attention," Ciporen says. "We needed more currency."

To do that, he and editor in chief john Berry began to change LJ's editorial direction. They began with the book review section, hiring Nora Rawlinson, a prominent librarian who headed book buying at the huge Baltimore County Library system. She brought a new sense of mission: "We began to see that our job was to help libraries buy books, not just review them," she says.

Because libraries purchase books by subject, more useful subject categories were put in place. New departments were added: one notifying librarians of upcoming blockbuster titles their patrons will be requesting; another helping them replace classic titles coming back into print.

Meanwhile, Berry recast the magazine's cover, abandoning illustrations in favor of photographs of librarians. The move helped boost readership: "Readers wondered who would be on the cover next," notes Ciporen. "It also had the effect of showing advertisers the professionalism of the market."

Selling 'real estate'

Ciporen set about marketing the revamped magazine, starting with a new rate card. LJ's salespeople had been using a standard 8'/2" X 11" folded card that emphasized special editorial features in specific issues and encouraged issue-by-issue selling. The new, much larger card (three standard-size, folded sheets) lists all departments, columns, reviews and features, emphasizin the breadth of the magazine's coverage.

To promote 20-time contracts, Ciporen sold positions in the magazine. "We began to tell advertisers that they could buy a piece of real estate in the magazine" where readers would expect to see their ads.

Once advertisers were sold on the real estate concept, "we had to show them what kind of edifice to build," Ciporen says. Rather than simply run product ads, he advised them to plug into the industry issues the magazine was covering. EBSCO, the large magazine subscription agency, used its space to conduct a "Focus on Serials" campaign, explaining its escalating journal prices. Warner Books' ads countered negative impressions of its books.

From the top

That kind of marketing required a lot of top-down selling. "We were asking book publishers to create ads especially for our magazine," Ciporen says. "It meant creating a whole new marketing budget."

But the efforts paid off. LJ now has about 40 advertisers on 20-time contracts, many of them book publishers. And many run ads specifically designed LJ.

Ciporen and his staff are still learning. "Our method is to develop the finest editorial for the market and then find new ways to help advertisers use the magazine to sell to the market," he says. "We think we can hit 2,000 ad pages by next year. " And there's nothing stodgy about that. Robert Burroughs is a New Jersey based freelancer specializing inpublishing and education subjects.