Magazines. Amen?
Posted on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 5:20 PM
Is this the end for magazines? A renowned expert on the confluence of
text and design presents his answer...
By Jan V. White
No!
There are more successful (paper) magazines than ever. Just go over to
the magazine racks at your local drugstore, let alone bookstore.
Yet somehow this mass of stuff is drowned out in the frantic discussions
about alternative platforms: leveraged brands, portals, video
interactive screenshot apps, kindle tweets, or whatnot. Everyone
worships "digitized" and genuflects to this jargon. Gotta
be cool!
Stop
That frenzied, terror-stricken rush to newness is all about competition,
speed, money, growth, advantage. Of course, the success of the
publishing business is vital. But isn't all that screaming just at the
outer edges of the real problem, where the real work is done?
Ignore
the shrill cacophony. Our real work uses kinder words. Some of them can
even be the boring, good-old-fashioned, non-glamorous concepts like
precise thinking, thoughtful analysis, careful writing, functional
design, canny editing -- then rewriting to make the damn thing even
better, clearer, more valuable still. That value is what your
reader-investor needs and will happily pay for! Those are the words and
concepts that are worth remembering and teaching to future publishing
generations. They are about fine publication-making.
Publishing vs. Publication-Making
Let's distinguish
between the two things: (1) the publishing business per se, and (2) fine
publication-making.
The publishing business itself is a sales
tool. Great! Fine! Of course! Vital! Obviously, its purpose is to be
profitable. That is a given. But only as an old sales tool that is in
its new guise. However vital, it is just the means, not the end.
Publication-making
is a creative cultural boon. It is about doing things that are worth
doing for their own sake -- all to increase the sum of human knowledge
and understanding. Making flowers bloom.
Please stop making mocking violinist-gestures with that haughty look on
your face. "Who cares? Why invest in editorial excellence? They
won't read it, anyway." One of these days, you business guys (God
bless you) will discover that the poetry of well-crafted communication
will return. It will have to, and for a fundamental reason: it is still
now, has always been, and will forever be the means of bringing fine
content as its reward. Fine content is saleable! Profitable! Sine qua
non ("without which nothing").
What's Really New Here?
What is the infatuation with
"the new mediums" replacing?
1. Visual flashiness. Flashiness is a question of fashion and superficial competition. Sure, it creates attention. Go look at Times Square. It is fantastic, but the individual bits cancel each other out, and what do you remember? An emotional high and then what?
2. Speed. This affects the delivery of messages. It is amazing,
marvelous, staggering. Some things you need right away, and there they
are. That's irreplaceable. Other stuff you wish you could have time to
think about. There is never enough time to cogitate! Goddageddidone and
forgedduboudit. What a pity.
Excellence of content is identical
whether it is on slow, boring paper or in flashy, digitized format. The
intellectual process we call "thinking" that works so well on paper is
absolutely appropriate when it is converted into electronic formats. It
is all the same process:
(a) Writing, (b) editing, (c) designing.
The purpose of the process is to transmit a message onto its substrate
(how is that for techno-terminology?), be it digitized or printed, so
that it gets to the recipient. Getting to the recipient is what matters.
The means of doing that create the same results because the purposes are
identical: getting the message across!
Key Questions to Ask Yourselves
What's effective communication nowadays? The publishers'
bread-and-butter. If the publishers sold more bread, they'd be in the
bakery business. In publishing they are in publication-making.
What's
effective publication-making nowadays? Brand recognition, clarity of
message, ease of understanding, simplicity of editing, visual delight,
logical presentation, curiosity, fascinating subject matter, and all the
other good things we work so hard to achieve.
What's the quick
formula to success in editing? Oh dear! I'm an old editor/designer
sort. Do I dare put my head in your lion's mouth? Will you
publisher-types go and tell my editor-types what this self-styled guru
suggests? Sure, why not? Live dangerously! Any discussion of what we do
and why we do it is better than ignoring each other and just hoping for
the best.
1. Pick only content that fits your product's context.
2.
Decide what story is worthy of your space.
3. Define and articulate why
it is worthy. How will your target benefit?
4. Make it short: 200
words. If it must be longer, bust it up.
5. Write your display
(especially captions) to create curiosity.
6. Design and layout
aren't art, but they lubricate the editorial idea.
7. The magic word
"you" is irresistible, so use it.
8. Promise a benefit in
your headline with enough words to persuade.
9. Spin your message so
it is positive.
10. They will listen if they sense a reward.
What's
new and different? Only the exaggerated glamor of the machinery we
use to transmit our content! That's absurd. Other than that, there's
nothing new and different. Is our "dying" profession dying? I submit
that it is more alive than ever, because it is as valid and vibrant as
ever, because what we do continues to be as useful and important as
ever. It is needed. So master your content and then apply it to whatever
platform you business-guys say you want. Good writing/editing/designing
is good writing/editing/designing, regardless of how it may be
mechanically manipulated.
Jan White lectures worldwide on the
relationship of editing to design. He tries to persuade word people to
think visually and visual people to think verbally. He is the author of
Editing by Design (3rd ed.) and a dozen books on publishing
techniques. Contact him at janvw2@aol.com.
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