Distripress looks at specialty titles; focus of international distributors shifts from currency rates to handling special needs of the special interest magazine

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Jan, 1988 by Ron Scott

Distripress looks at specialty titles

The annual Distripress Congress offers an opportunity to discuss the business of creating and distributing magazines, paperback books and newspapers with customers and clients from every part of the world. I have yet to attend a more productive and efficient convention for the marketing of magazines than this congress. And this year's meeting in Madrid was no exception.

Two factors were of primary significance--one because of its absence and the other because of its dominance. First, the relative currency stability of the past year freed us to discuss our products rather than attempt to forecast currency rates.

Currency movements' impact

I should note that currency stability is indeed a relative term. A reading of the financial pages of almost any newspaper might lead one to believe that currency stability is a myth. The financial headlines go something like this: Yen rises or dollar plunges or pound under heavy pressure. A more careful reading of the articles under these dramatic headlines usually reveals that the yen moved less than one yen vis-a-vis the dollar, or that the dollar moved five pfennigs vis-a-vis the deutsche mark, or that the pound moved one cent vis-a-vis the dollar. But because of the low price of our products, none of these currency movements has a particularly significant impact on the magazine, book or newspaper business. They are obviously important to banks and manufacturers of capital goods, and to the financial services--but not to our business.

The second significant factor to emerge was the further confirmation of the trend, which began in the United States, toward the gradual and graceful decline of the general interest magazine and the rise of importance of the special interest titles. I can see no reason why this trend will not continue, as it appears to be almost entirely consumer driven. (For another opinion on this subject, see Point of View, this issue.) As the number of specialty titles continues to grow, however, we are beginning to see challenges to the distribution systems that must select the retailers to whom these specialty titles should be allocated.

Perhaps a look back at how specialty titles increased in importance in the United States would be helpful. It is not, in my opinion, a coincidence that this growth began just as the book chains began to grow as an important retail outlet for magazines. The managers of these book chains realized early on that they could establish themselves as the source for unique and special magazines--meaning that the consumers in each of their market areas would come to them for narrow interest titles in the magazine field just as they would come to them first for narrow interest paperback books. By establishing themselves as the probable source for these products, these retailers created consumer traffic that they could then tempt with other products--such as discount hardbacks, calendars and cookbooks, and so on.

England, with its W. H. Smith and John Menzies book chains, became the second largest international market for the specialty magazine publisher. Those countries or markets with access to book chain distribution, or with independent booksellers who understand this marketing concept, are doing well with specialty magazines. But those countries that do not yet have these kinds of outlets available to them are having difficulties with specialty titles.

Who's reading them?

As I have suggested in earlier columns, specialty titles, in any country, are likely to appeal most to those who are more highly educated, are more affluent, and have both the added leisure time and the motivation to study a narrow field of interest. These people are also most likely to be fluent in English, the language in which a high percentage of the specialty titles are published. And these titles are usually based in the United States because it is one of the few markets large enough, affluent enough and literate enough to support a title covering a subject in which only 1 percent or 2 percent of the population has an interest.

If it is true that growth of magazine circulation in the international market is going to be dependent on the specialty magazine, then either the ability of international distributors to develop independent booksellers into specialty magazine outlets, or the rise of book chains like Smith and Menzies in the United Kingdom, or Dalton and Walden in the United States, appears critical. Perhaps publishers and distributors can be helpful by sharing with international distributors the sales and profit data from U. S. and U. K. book chains and independent booksellers.

The information explosion, driven by the speed with which information can be transmitted, is bringing the people of the world closer with each new technical advance. As we become more interdependent, we need to help each other more by such exchanges of information. If we choose not to do so, we weaken ourselves as well as those we deny the information. (I should also note that sharing information ought not be confused with imposing the use of the information.)