Computer publishing's whiz kid

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Feb, 1987 by Amy Lipton

Computer publishing's whiz kid

He is not even 40 years old, but David Bunnell is already responsible for founding no fewer than four of the industry's most successful computer magazines. And as anyone in publishing knows, success doesn't come easily in that field.

"His genius--and I really think he is a genius--is in understanding very, very clearly where the personal computing industry is going and being able to project . . . what products and services will fit into that marketplace. His ability to think that through and see it in advance is what sets him apart from other people.' So says Bart Rhoades, president and chief executive officer of PCW Communications, of which Bunnell, 39, is chairman and editor in chief.

The company's newest project, Publish! The How-to Magazine of Desktop Publishing, is a typical Bunnel success story: In March it will go from bimonthly to monthly six months ahead of schedule. Publish! was founded in 1985 by an independent editorial team, Cheryl Rhodes and Tony Bove. The title was purchased in March 1986 by PCW, the $40-million-a-year, San Francisco-based subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), parent of computer publishing giant CW Communications. PCW also publishes PC World, Macworld and two computer-related newsletters.

Rhodes and Bove have remained with Publish! as contributing editors. Says Rhodes, "We see David as a pioneer in the personal computer and magazine publishing industries, and his organization was the right organization for us to work with . . . His magazines are very profitable in a short period of time, and [PCW] has a reputation for producing quality products.'

Under Bunnell's editorial direction and the artistic hand of Jacqueline Poitier, vice president, art and design (and Bunnell's wife), PCW has transformed what was a relatively unsophisticated product into a high-quality editorial /graphics package. The new title first ran as an insert in the July 1986 issues of PC World and Macworld. It had its premiere as a stand-alone bimonthly last September and, according to Bunnell, posted a profit after only its second issue. "The market is growing a bit faster than we had projected,' he says of the company's decision to take Publish! monthly sooner than planned. "We're selling more pages than we thought we would, and subscriptions are coming in at a faster clip than expected.'

The magazine practices what it preaches regarding desktop publishing: It is produced using such electronic publishing tools as Apple Macintoshes, Microsoft Word software for writing and text editing and Aldus Pagemaker for layout.

"A lot of what we're doing is already done on larger systems like Atex; duplicating that functionality on low-cost personal computers is what's revolutionary about it,' Bunnell says. "We're pushing desktop technology to its limits, and we see Publish! as a lab for that technology.'

Make the world better

It may sound like a cliche, but Bunnell wants to make the world a better place--and he believes that expanding the scope of personal computing to its fullest potential is one way to reach his goal. He has created or developed several publications--Personal Computing, PC, PC World, Macworld and now Publish!--that have reached new audiences and, remarkably, have stayed afloat in a sea of competitive titles.

Bunnell's professional publishing career began in the early 1970s, when he joined a small firm, Mits, as a technical writer. In 1975 Mits introduced Altair, the first commercial microcomputer.

"That experience really got me very excited,' Bunnell recalls. "I could see that personal computers had potential to have a very beneficial and meaningful impact on society . . . to diffuse technical power so the individual has more power, more resources, more freedom.'

Sensing the need for a publication directed to nontechnical types, Bunnell left Mits in 1976 to start Personal Computing, financed by Binwell, a Boston publishing house.

"I felt very strongly that there needed to be a magazine that was consumer oriented and spoke to people who wanted to use computers . . . but who didn't really need to understand how they worked,' he says.

Personal Computing was purchased from Binwell by Hayden Publishing Co. in 1980, shortly after Bunnell moved to the West Coast. Hayden, with Personal Computing as its crown jewel, was just acquired by VNU United Dutch Publishing Companies.

Ziff dispute

Bunnell has a paternal instinct toward his magazines, which, he says, are "like living, breathing things' that require nurturing to survive. In fact, he is still embroiled in something of a custody suit over one of his creations-- PC, which he founded in 1981. Against Bunnell's wishes, the title was sold the following year to Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. by investor Tony Gold. Bunnell had hoped PC would be sold to PCW's parent IDG, which he joined soon after. At this writing he is awaiting the start of a trial to settle the PC ownership dispute.

Bolstered by IDG's strength--and a win over Ziff in its attempt to enjoin him from doing so--Bunnell quickly launched PC World, a direct competitor to PC. Of the top-10 microcomputer magazines, PC holds about an 18 percent share of ad pages to PC World's 12 percent share, according to Adscope, a tracking service. The PCW title published its largest issue in terms of ad pages--290 of a total of 450--in November 1986 and boasts a total paid circulation of about 315,000.