The last of the small time spenders - Kearny Publishing - includes related article

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 15, 1994 by Michael Kaplan

Kearny magazines need to sell only 50,000 copies to be successful. They're staffed with acolytes turned editors. Hence, Iron Horse is manned by a bona fide biker; Prison Life was run by a former prison commissary manager (to whom it was sold after "we couldn't get into the jails," McQueeney explains); and Adult Cinema Review is edited by a producer of porn films. "He knows all the stars," marvels McQueeney about the editor of the 16-year-old, 65,000-circulation title, oblivious to the conflict of interest.

Mediocre pay and long hours are Kearny hallmarks for its editorial staff. With youth and enthusiasm making up for experience and talent, its magazines rarely lack energy, though they tend to err on the side of amateurism. "Michael DePasquale lives, breathes and eats martial arts," maintains Tony DeStefano. "He'll come in on a Saturday morning to edit copy because it is his life. The guy who edits Creem loves music. He's here till midnight. That's not work for him. It's fun." Maybe so, but one of the magazine's other staff members complains about the brutal pace: "Our main competitor, Spin, has twice the staff that we do. It gets crazy sometimes." He shakes his head, rolls his eyes, then warily rethinks things: "But if I didn't like it, I guess I wouldn't be here."

Given the shoestring nature of Kearny's operations, it's irresistible to get the company perspective on more polished, better staffed publications. How, for instance, would they do a newsweekly? "I'm sure Time needs 10 or 15 people in order to make that magazine work," allows DeStefano. "But if I had Time, I'd put it out one week later. That way I wouldn't need people to do the reporting."

This isn't followed by guffaws. In fact, DeStefano isn't laughing at all. Told he sounds like he's only half-joking, he says, "You're half right."

WHO'S WHO IN SHOESTRING PUBLISHING

Although it may be an endangered species, Kearny isn't the only publisher vying for the skinflint award.

Century Publishing

By the time Norman Jacobs became a contender for Inside Sports, the periodical had cost its then-owner Newsweek upwards of $45 million and had led to the bankruptcy of its founder, a small Washington-based publisher. Overlooking its status as a two-time loser without a staff (laid off by then) or a subscription list (already sold to Sport), Jacobs nonetheless believed that the name alone was worth $1 million.

Back then, in 1983, the Evanston, Illinois-based publisher already had a half-dozen successful sports-related digests (Baseball Digest, Bowling Digest, Football Digest) that consisted exclusively of reprinted material. Why would he want to bother with an expensive glossy? "The answer was simple," Jacobs recalls. "I always saw Inside Sports as a success. It sold more newsstand copies at a higher price than any other sports magazine--including Sports Illustrated. There was obviously something in the magazine that the fans liked."

Employing the standard low-rollers gambit, he staffed it with a bare minimum of employees (Century currently publishes 15 monthly or bimonthly magazines with a total roster of 55 people) and operated with conservative expectations, setting the initial ratebase at only 200,000 as compared to Newsweek's never-reached 500,000. The plan worked: Inside Sports' circulation now hovers around 700,000.