The secret to selling reprints: be proactive

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Annual, 1997 by Barbara Love

In 1990, Industry Week started a series of profiles on "America's Best Plants." IW decided at the time that some of the companies it honored might want reprints of their own installments for promotional purposes. So instead of waiting for them to call, IW called them. One of the first plants selected was IBM in Silver Lake, Minnesota.

IBM ordered 50,000 reprints. "That woke us up," says Chuck Day, former editor of Industry Week, who recently moved to Shore Communications. "We designated someone on our staff to go after reprint sales." Concerns that came up: Would the magazine jeopardize integrity or accuracy because it was pursuing reprint business? Would it cover a story to enhance reprint value? What if someone said they would buy reprints if the magazine took out one paragraph? The answer was always no, says Day. "The value in reprints is that you have all your stuff on press and you're just cranking out a few more copies. And if you know in advance you are going to make an extra run, you save some money in handling." Revenue from IWs reprint business is in the six figures, according to Day. The parent company, Penton Publishing, noted IWs success and started a corporate reprint program. Says Nancy Rouse, director of reprints at Penton: "The hardest part of selling reprints is convincing editorial and salespeople that the editorial has value beyond the printed page."