Small-press publisher's woes
July 23, 2007 5:25 PM Subscribe
Newsstand distribution for indie magazines?
A friend of mine publishes an indie music magazine. For years, he's been on newsstands, through one of the smaller periodical distro companies. But that business has changed so much - and that particular distro has gone out of business - that he finds himself facing a situation where getting that magazine on newsstands would cost 2-3X what it costs to print it.
He wants to try to get the mag into music shops, regional chains, etc. But doing so would involve a helluva lot of legwork, almost a prohibitive amount, and I'm thinking at this point that he needs to just forget about newsstand altogether and focus on his niche via subscription.
But before we give up on newsstand altogether ... is there any sort of distribution network for indie music magazines, into indie music stores? I can't believe all of those small record stores buy their magazines one-by-one from the individual publishers. There has to be some kind of distribution network available for small publishers. Or is there? What can my friend do to get his magazine out to the unwashed masses, in the record stores/bookstores?
A friend of mine publishes an indie music magazine. For years, he's been on newsstands, through one of the smaller periodical distro companies. But that business has changed so much - and that particular distro has gone out of business - that he finds himself facing a situation where getting that magazine on newsstands would cost 2-3X what it costs to print it.
He wants to try to get the mag into music shops, regional chains, etc. But doing so would involve a helluva lot of legwork, almost a prohibitive amount, and I'm thinking at this point that he needs to just forget about newsstand altogether and focus on his niche via subscription.
But before we give up on newsstand altogether ... is there any sort of distribution network for indie music magazines, into indie music stores? I can't believe all of those small record stores buy their magazines one-by-one from the individual publishers. There has to be some kind of distribution network available for small publishers. Or is there? What can my friend do to get his magazine out to the unwashed masses, in the record stores/bookstores?
Yes, there are. But every one that I know about has gone under in the last couple years, usually catastrophically. The easiest way to find out is to contact someone like Pop Culture Press (who have impressive penetration) and ask who they're distributed by.
posted by klangklangston at 11:46 AM on July 24, 2007
posted by klangklangston at 11:46 AM on July 24, 2007
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Music distros would already have a network of indie record stores that they deal with - and considering that they might be suffering a reduction in business due to reduced cd sales they might want to diversify what they're distributing.
posted by pipstar at 6:17 PM on July 23, 2007