This week in magazines: Entice the avid reader
Strong Words for this week’s launch
Strong Words for this week’s launch
Seeing a gap in the market, magazine veteran Ed Needham has launched a new publication aiming to give passionate readers access to the world of literature
On sale out now
Frequency monthly
Price £6.95
Distributor Seymour
Display with TLS
Books might have the highbrow TLS as well as many different review supplements and pages in the quality press at weekends, but there is little else in magazines for the avid reader to connect with their world.
It’s a gap in the market that has been spotted by magazine veteran Ed Needham, whose CV includes stints at FHM in the UK, and its launch in the US, as well as the granddaddy of contemporary American publishing, Rolling Stone.
Described as “a great new magazine about great new books”, it includes over 100 reviews in each issue, with interviews and features about authors and their works.
On sale out now
Frequency collectable
Price £3.99, stickers 70p
Distributor Panini
Display with FIFA 365 trading cards
On sale out now
Frequency bimonthly
Price £6.99
Distributor TLS, Strong Words, The Week
On sale out now
Frequency weekly
Price £2.99
Distributor Seymour
Display with Match of the Day magazine, Kick
On sale out now
Frequency monthly
Price £8.99
Distributor Marketforce
Display with Uncut, Q, Mojo
On sale out now
Frequency one shot
Price £21.99
Distributor Seymour Display with Deadpool, DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection
On sale 22 May
Frequency monthly
Price £4.40
Distributor Marketforce
Display with Build It, Real Homes
On sale out now
Frequency monthly
Price £5.99
Distributor Seymour
Hitesh Patel,
Gay’s Newsagents, Hertford
Who buys it?
Breathe and Teen Breathe tend to sell mainly to well-to-do customers.
How do you display it?
The best place to get magazines noticed for us is our window, so that’s where we put them.
Ed Needham knows a thing or two about publishing, and his new publication, Strong Words (see left), has an interesting and unique selling point.
Like the return of Loaded founder James Brown to traditional magazine publishing with FourFourTwo, it’s all the more interesting given Needham’s track record.
Where he diverges from Brown is in what he thinks about magazine publishing in 2019. It’s not about the internet, he says in an interview with Press Gazette, explaining why no content from the printed page can be found on the mag’s website. Instead, the online platform focuses on delivering subscription sales and promoting the print brand.
There’s already loads online, he argues, lots of which is hit-and-miss, and people browsing will just come across stuff.
Print, he says, is best for anyone looking for a ‘proper’ read: “Magazines have to be useful, and they have to be helpful, and they have to be entertaining and interesting, whereas that process can be a bit too hit-and-miss online.”
It’s an argument I use with my kids when I urge them to stop endlessly scrolling through marginally diverting stuff online and pick up a magazine or book instead.
Instead of aping what’s happening online – something the women’s celebrity weekly market could be accused of – publishers need to hold firm and realise that few want to read lengthy pieces and proper analysis online.
It’s also something more retailers should think about asking their customers: “When was the last time you read something you really wanted to?”
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