Comments on: Some Things About Magazines

By: Todd Mason

Todd Mason — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:35:56 +0000

Well, it’s THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, these days going by FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION on the the cover and spine for brevity’s sake.

By: How to Not Sell Magazines : Michael Montoure's "Bloodletters"

How to Not Sell Magazines : Michael Montoure's "Bloodletters" — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 16:04:09 +0000

[...] Some Things About Magazines « Threat Quality Press Posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 to miscellania | Leave a [...]

By: Some Thoughts on Borders « Threat Quality Press

Some Thoughts on Borders « Threat Quality Press — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 02:38:17 +0000

[...] issued via anonymous e-mails. But you can’t actually DO anything. If you wanted to reorganize the magazines, for instance, or if you thought that the Science Fiction section should be nearer the front door, [...]

By: Fantasy, Pulp, and the Bechdel Test « Threat Quality Press

Fantasy, Pulp, and the Bechdel Test « Threat Quality Press — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:01:35 +0000

[...] more and more disenchanted I start to become with fantasy, in particular with epic fantasy. (Though other reasons for Realms‘ failure could be involved). Not only is it everywhere, but it’s all the [...]

By: braak

braak — Thu, 20 May 2010 05:15:58 +0000

These are irrelevant considerations. Borders wants to sell magazines, or it doesn’t. If it wants to sell them it needs (as I have shown via experiment) to move them. If it doesn’t, it needs to stop carrying them.

By: TLS

TLS — Thu, 20 May 2010 03:37:21 +0000

Don’t blame Borders.

What you need to do is learn a little history of magazine wholesale distribution. The retailer doesn’t get to pick how many or even sometimes what mag titles they get to carry. Their wholesaler does. They make the deals with the mag publishers. To them it is essentially the same cost to ship three copies as it is one.

The reason such a large percentage of excess mags are tossed is so that there are extras when a new buyer comes in to get a mag. They want to make sure they don’t miss a prospective buyer. Back in the days when there was no internet you didn’t know what was available until you went to the newsstand. The cost of those extra copies is built into the price of the mag.

The reason magazines are racked together is because someone coming into a store looks for mags where the mags are racked, not in with the books or the DVDs. They will walk out without their mag if there isn’t one in the mag section, but if it is in where the books are. Your assumption is that everyone comes in looking for mags in with the books.

What you don’t realize is that the retailers do not control the system, the wholesalers do. Its tradition and the wholesalers don’t want to change it because it is incredibly profitable for them. It has been screwed up in this manner since distribution started back in the 1800s.

Your suggestions are logical without knowledge of how the system really works and who controls it. You don’t even mention how distributors have resisted computerization of the whole system for decades. You’ve only scratched the surface of how it is badly screwed up.

By: escargot

escargot — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:49:06 +0000

I work for a small magazine about art in a town in Argentina where an important art-university is located.
We release monthly an issue with interviews, comics, reviews and all that can be somehow related with art and the local artists.
Anyway, we are considering, instead of selling it hand to hand as we usually do, check some place where we can leave it to sell, somehow libraries aren’t really interested in having them in their shelves, despite the fact it will surely sell really well, since it’s price is really (really) insignificant.

I suppose now I have a new approach to face those illiterate book (ha!) salesmen.

By: dot Blog. The week in links 17/05/10

dot Blog. The week in links 17/05/10 — Mon, 17 May 2010 10:02:24 +0000

[...] Some things about Magazines [...]

By: braak

braak — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:16:41 +0000

@Todd Mason: Tut, tut, it IS Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, isn’t it? I shall amend the article at once.

@I.W.: When I finally left the Borders, they were actually shipping the whole magazines back to the publisher, rather than just the magazine stripped of their covers. I’m not sure what the publishers did with them after that (I assume they were, in fact, thrown out, since there’s only so many back issues of any given magazine that a publisher might like to have around). If there are still stores that are stripping and trashing magazines, you’ll find that the chain bookstores are not amenable to giving away the old issues. I believe Borders was not permitted, according to their contracts with the publishers, to give away the stripped mags.

I will, I admit, made much use of old magazines for my assorted graduate school projects. I also discreetly looked away when I knew someone was angling for one of the boxes of stripped mags I inadvertently forgot to toss into the Dumpster.

By: I.W.

I.W. — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:07:09 +0000

This is such a shame that they throw those unsold magazines away! There are many teachers who would put those to good use in their classrooms for art projects or various therapy books (speech therapy comes to mind, where they make flip books for the kids to say the name of the item). Perhaps it would be good to put the word out to teachers to contact their local bookstores to ask for the magazines before they’re thrown out.

As for the idiocy of their display, I offer the current redesign of the Wal-Mart floorplans underway as explanation; everyone I know has complained about the changes, and that the new layouts make absolutely no sense. But, some dipwad is getting paid big bucks to make that decision. I want that guy’s supervisor’s job.