Trade Pressed

Here’s how introductions to new people go for me: Someone asks me what I do for a living. I say I’m a magazine editor. The person’s face lights up and a broad smile spreads.

“Oh really? What magazine?”

“It’s a trade magazine called …” I’ve already lost my audience. How about a little respect? My job is important, after all! Over the holidays, for the first time ever another person asked me for career advice. She’s 28, studied art in Europe for years and is now looking for a job — writing. From the look on her face, you’d think I killed her puppy when I told her the best game in town is the trade press (OK, so this isn’t exactly New York).

And this week, the scariest prospect of all is upon me: career day. So to prepare myself, I’ve composed the top 10 reasons trade press is awesome:

10. No math. Well, some math. But no math for math’s sake.

9. Free coffee. Maybe this isn’t an exclusive to the trade press, but it’s good.

8. Free travel. I’ve seen so much stuff I never would have without the trade press.

7. Free swag. Pens, notepads, coffee cups, t-shirts and the occasional gym bag.

6. Monthly deadlines. Or weekly. Better than daily. Which reminds me …

5. No city council meetings. No explanation necessary.

4. Fame beyond your wildest dreams. In the industry, anyway. I’m a semi-celebrity. Especially during the aforementioned travel.

3. Stet. Does the average person know what it means? No. Do I? Yes. It’s like a secret society.

2. Being around other people who laugh at bad grammar, too. And who also have an addiction to good pens. See #7.

1. Full-time writing job. You can’t really argue about this one. It is pretty nice to be making money for putting pen to paper

And there are millions, millions more reasons.

It’s awards time, everywhere from Hollywood to Trade Pressland. Seeing the Oscar nominees, in all their controversy, has me thinking — What does it take to win?

Movie critics, who do nothing but watch and rate movies all day, can’t even predict what will happen with Oscar nominations. How am I to know what kinds of articles trade press judges are going to like? Without knowing an industry, how can you judge how valuable new information is to an audience? And the comparison between industries seems a little apples to oranges to me.

What wins? Humor? Levity? Hard-hitting news? Analysis? I still haven’t figured it out. I have to win something sooner or later. Anyone have any advice for me? My ego is aching.

John Brady may have lost his mind. In this month’s Folio:, he suggests dropping page numbers. Actually, it’s not that bad an idea — save some editorial space on the TOC and a little bit of time at the end of production. I can just imagine trying to pitch that idea, though. “But we’ve been doing it this way for so long…”

Other things I wouldn’t mind seeing go away:

• Advertiser index. I just don’t think that’s how readers use magazines. Am I wrong?
• Reader service numbers. Are we the only ones who still use them? If a reader wants more information, they’ll either go to our website or Google.
• The upfront news section. You’ve already heard it by the time the magazine hits your desk. I can just about guarantee it. If we need to elaborate, it should be a feature.
• Every ad’s request for far forward, right hand page. C’mon. Really?
• Cover blurbs. I know they’re important. I just can’t write them.
• The four-column page. Every line is hyphenated and I think for regular features it looks bad overall. It can sometimes work for special features/sections, though.

Golf – it is the downfall of my career. I hate it, so I’ll never be an executive. I’ve made my peace with it.

But I accidentally came across an issue of Golf Digest today. I wasn’t reading it, I was checking to see what they do with their back page and TOC. And it was rockin. The design is really clean, with sharp, modern-looking tabheads and graphics. Mr. Style’s take on the year in golf, with Borat! It reads like Men’s Health.

So why are broadcasts of golf matches (games, rounds, whatever) still so boring? Lame elevator music playing in and out of commercials? Tired graphics….etc.

Are trade magazines the golf broadcasts of publishing? People who read Men’s Health and Golf Digest also read our magazines. But, in my experience, we don’t feel we can compete. Why not? Because we’re not on the newsstand? I’ve heard the comment many times that we don’t want to look “too commercial.” Why not? What does commercial mean, anyway? Does it mean it has an attractive cover concept? That seems pretty important to any magazine. If it’s not on a newsstand, it’s on a desk with 50 other trade magazines. Just not on a rack.

I received my copy of ASBPE’s Editor’s Notes newsletter (requires login) in the mail today. Jeremy Greenfield, editor of min’s b2b is hilarious:

“I personally don’t like working with people who get paid a lot and do very little,” he is quoted in the newsletter. “Promote your superstar editors and fire the rest.” Actually, I guess it’s not so much hilarious as sad. I think we all see this problem sometimes.

I like the culture change Howard Owens is quoted talking about on Poynter Online:

“Reporters and editors would take seriously their roles as community conversation leaders, concentrating on getting it right on the web first — Web-first publishing, blogs, video, participation — and using the print edition as a greatest hits, promote the web site vehicle. Old packaged-goods-thinking about the newsPAPER would disappear overnight.”

This is a huge change and I’m sure a lot of people out there don’t want to do the homework. Editors need to experiment to find out how things work. And I think it’s critical that they use at least Web basics in their own lives.

So to expand on Jeremy’s thought, here’s my list of things every editor should know how to do to avoid being fired:

• Use an RSS reader
• Blog
• Get stuff posted on your magazine’s Web site, whether you do it personally or not
• Take a picture with your camera phone
• Send a text message
• Set up Google Alerts
• Send a meeting request in Outlook

Have any to add?