Single, young mag seeks caring, compatible distributor

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Feb 1, 1997 by Ellen Mediati

Distribution is a sticky business, even for the most stalwart circulation veteran. And for start-ups entering the fray, finding reliable, economical service can be an especially beweldering process. With wholesaler consolidation lowering the odds of getting into large chain stores and regional distributors eliminating accounts, new magazines as well as established publications are trying alternative routes.

What's the current lay of the land? Independent Periodical Distributors (IPD) just shut down its one-year-old small-press division. Southland Corp., parent of 7-Eleven, has announced that it will start to trim unprofitable titles from the chain's 6,000 U.S. stores. (Magazines such as playboy and Penthouse are also on the chopping block for presenting the wrong image, although individual franchisees still will be allowed to buy those titles from other wholesalers.) And Los Angeles-based distributor ARA-Mark is closely monitoring 1,700 of its 4,500 titles, while insisting that it hasn't made any plans to drop any poor performers yet. (See "L.A. distributor reassesses title mix," Folio:, January 1, 1997, page 24.)

Meanwhile, as publishers nervously weigh their newsstand options, smaller-scale distributors are preparing to step in and pick up new business.

"We're scrambling to get these big magazines [that others may drop]," says Janice Chan, director of operations at Newsways Distributors in Los Angeles. The secondary carrier currently distributes about 800 titles to 4,000 California outlets, from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Though the five-year-old company includes Rolling Stone and Raygun among its clients, Chan says that Newsways has "never been able to get our hands on a lot of other accounts before because the [independent distributors] blew us away."

Another secondary, Speedimpex U.S.A., headquartered in Long Island city, New York, also is optimistic about cashing in when other distributors cash out. Carmine Castellano, national sales manager, says a reduced clientele at ARAMark would leave "a vacuum that hopefully we'll fill." With branches in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Orlando, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Speedimpex distributes between 400 and 500 titles, including Adweek, Country Life and George, among various smaller and foreign magazines.

But where secondaries envision new business, small publishers still see lots of obstacles. Paul Wilcox spent three months shuffling between wholesalers, directs and outlets trying to drum up interest in Strive, a career guide targeting twentysomethings that launched in November. "I approached independent bookstores and retail outlets directly at first," says the New York City-based publisher. But his efforts to promote Strive on his own were in vain. Only Mitchell's Newspaper Delivery, a small local secondary that handles just a dozen or so magazines, agreed to take on the publication. So a discouraged Wilcox sought the help of BigTop Publisher Services, a broker in San Francisco that handles distribution duties for a percentage of sell-throughs. Now, with 5,000 copies in chain bookstores and career centers, Strive is beginning to get the exposure it needs.

Jon Wilson, the Brooklin, Maine-based publisher of 22-year-old Wooden Boat, has faced similar difficulties in getting attention for his new publication, Hope. Launched List February, the 12,500-circulation monthly is distributed by Hackensack, New Jersey-based Curtis Circulation Co. and Lavergne, Tennessee-based Ingram Periodical Distributors, the same companies that service the 106,000-circulation Wooden Boat. But while the older title is doing well on newsstands, Hope has been experiencing growing pains.

"A new magazine needs tremendous support," says Wilson, but distributors "aren't able to spend enough time and energy on our title." If sales remain slow, Wilson thinks he'll eventually have to take greater control and increase his reliance on small-scale directs and secondaries like Desert Moon Periodicals in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Small Changes in Seattle, both of which carry Hope. Wilson bemoans the whittling down of nontraditional titles on newsstands. "Diversity brings customers to the stands," he says. "But my concern is that large distributors will only carry those magazines that sell big, and small magazines will be pushed off."

IPD backs out

Small magazines have already been eliminated at Solano Beach, California-based IPD. At the end of 1996, the company permanently shut down its year-old small-press division, which serviced 50 to 60 publishers. We're in business to make a profit," says Jim Gustafson, vice president of marketing for IPD, "and we couldn't figure out how to make money off these titles."

Scram, a Hollywood-based zine with a circulation of 2,000, is one of the titles being dropped. "I feel like I can take them or leave them," says editor Kim Cooper. Only 200 copies of Scram were distributed to the national bookstore chains that IPD services. Several other smaller distributors, including Newsways and Fine Print Distributors in Austin, Texas, also carry the publication. "It just shows [IPD is] not committed to the small press," says Cooper, "and I don't know why they took it on anyway."