Magazine Publishers of America
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Gil Maurer Former PresidentHearst Magazine Division“What Makes a Great Magazine”RedCat Theater at Disney CenterApril 12, 2005Los Angeles, CA
Gil Maurer’s Rules:
The most brilliant magazines, the most successful, were never those that dealt with what people wanted. They were inspired magazines born of a human empathy that enabled their creators to divine what people were going to want. Either you are born with that empathy- or you aren’t. If you want to know about the past- consult a historian. If you want to know about the present, see a journalist. It is our artists who read the future!
Maybe you have the vision. If history is any judge you probably don’t. Most people don’t. But whatever your skill, whatever your idea, here are some tips hard-won over 50 years that will improve your performance. I wish I had learned them as fast as I can tell them.
The four Cardinal Don’ts:
Don’t fall in love with your own idea. It won’t fall in love with you! People who want to start magazines are almost always too enthusiastic about their idea. It’s great to be enthusiastic, but don’t extrapolate beyond realistic limits.
Don’t think you can succeed with a me-too idea. The marketplace is massively indifferent. Try to say something entirely new; failing that you will say something old, but say it in an entirely new way. If you can’t pass that test, save your money and your effort.
Don’t focus on too small an audience. You’ll never get more than a small percentage of the people you go after. A small percentage of a small universe is really small- and seldom viable.
Don’t let Hope triumph over Experience. Nine out of ten- no, make that 99 out of 100- startups are undercapitalized. Would-be publishers unrealistically project financial independence faster than it possibly can arrive. That’s not all bad. It places an automatic governor on when to quit. Deep pockets often mean staying with a losing project too long. It’s tough to pull the plug. But give yourself a fare chance. It will cost twice what you projected.
Most important are the Do’s:
Maurer’s Ten Cardinal Rules
These are the ten chapter headings in my How-To-Do-It magazine manual. Write them down. Memorize them. Repeat them every morning. They’ll make you money – or at least they’ll save you from losing money.
RULE
Repeat after me: The reader always comes First. The reader is your boss. The reader is a demanding boss. Never forget who you work for. It’s a good way to get fired.
Your reader is always one person. Singular. Never plural. Never a category, or a group, or a market. You don’t edit to urban young women 18-29. You edit to a 23 year old parochial school graduate who lives in Indianapolis with her parents and who works as a dental technician. You don’t edit to senior citizens. You edit to a 61 year old retired brakeman who takes 11 pills a day and lives on his Railway pension in a Venice, Florida mobile home park. Whoever that reader is, you need to etch him/her in your mind. If you do that your magazine will never grow old or obsolete. (Cosmopolitan)
Edit to Needs, not Conditions. (Horrid Examples – Sunset Years, Second Wind)
Never, ever use the word “Lifestyle.” Wash your mouth out with soap! More money and effort has been lost in a feckless pursuit of “Lifestyle” than any other single term to enter the magazine lexicon. It is the refuge of fuzzy thinkers and the magazine business punishes fuzzy thinkers.
Your proposition must fit on a Bumper Sticker. Eight words- MAX. If you can’t persuasively fit your premise to a Bumper Sticker, it never will fly. Be clear. Be pungent. Be brief. How can you expect someone else to get it if you don’t.
Be specific. Make hard promises. Learn the power of potent promises. Learn from the Masters. It’s free. Learn from Dale Carnegie, Steven Covey, Helen Gurley Brown, Wendy Stehling, John Mack Carter; “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” “The Five Seductive Secrets of a New Orleans Bordello Queen,” “The Prayer that helped me lose 100 lbs.,” “Thin Thighs in Thirty Days.”
Use one syllable words. No jargon. Jargon is exclusionary. Good for some clubs, maybe, but lousy for magazines.
Write your cover lines first, make your promises. Then, create the editorial material that delivers on the promise.
Learn the trigger words. The hot buttons. Here are some that work everywhere: “How,” “Why,” “Secrets,” “Confessions,” “Doctors,” “Fat,” “Sex,” “Fast,” “Now,” “Easy,” “Thin,” “Win.” Numbers, especially odd numbers, like three and seven- although ten always a winner. They have credibility. They work in Chicago. They work in Bangkok. They work in Moscow, Athens and Madrid. Discovery of this made a world-wide business out of Cosmopolitan.
Be straightforward with your art direction. Be suspicious of “Arty” art directors. Art directors love to award each other Golden Tee-Squares. Magazines are not designed to hang on the wall. The first rule of effective art direction is, You work for the reader. The reader will never work for you. So restrain your worst instincts. Don’t get fancy. You may like reverse type, whacky type faces and disembodied captions, titled graphics and all the dizzying devices that try to pass as Post Modern, but alas, your reader doesn’t. It’s a great way to sabotage your own readership.
Go back to Rule One. It’s the Reader, Stupid. No one who kept this in mind ever went completely broke.
As Groucho said, “These are my principals if you don’t like them- I’ve got others.”
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