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Archive for December, 2009

Haven’t bought any Christmas presents yet?

Monday, December 21st, 2009

On the 10th of November, our online sales pretty much inexplicably doubled overnight. After scratching my head for a little while, it dawned on me…

Christmas.

Organised, reliable Christmas shoppers, getting in good and early before the manic 24th of December rush I usually seem to find myself in. And while my hat goes off to those dependable souls out buying presents for their friends and loved-ones over a month out from JC’s special day, I am afraid I am not among them.

If, like me, you’ve left things to the last minute and you’re not feeling so excited about battling other last minute shoppers for the remaining morsels of yuletide goodness left on the shelf… well, we’ve got a solution and I’m pretty sure you know what it is.

Sex toys….. Ok, not really. How about we try for Magazine Subscriptions.

From BBC Top Gear to Better Homes and Gardens, RUSSH to Runner’s World, The Week to The Wiggles we’ve got something for just about everyone. And if you’re a bit stumped for ideas, try and step into recipient’s head using our famous auto-magical ‘Magdentifier‘ which will point you in the direction of the perfect sub, every time. Guaranteed.*

You just need to buy your subscription at magnation.com (you could probably even do this early on Christmas morning, if you wanted to really live life on the edge), then put together a card for the happy recipient(s) (as ours are probably unlikely to now get there on time – damn postal strike) informing them of their new sub and hey, presto! You’ve got Christmas covered.

How easy do we make it for you people?

* Not actually guaranteed.

Posted in General randomness | No Comments »

Twin and Elephant magazines

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

With all the frantic hubbub surrounding the Christmas period, we’ve been a bit remiss in bringing you news about some of the newer and more interesting mag titles appearing on our shelves of late.

So, in an attempt to remedy that fact, here’s a bit of info about two of our new favourites that have popped up in recent weeks…

Elephant Magazine

Founded by Marco Valli (the owner of London’s Magma chain of design bookstores and, we’ve gotta confess, someone that we feel a bit of a kindred spirit with, out here on the coalface of print media…) Elephant magazine is definitely a spectacular new arrival on the mag scene.

Beautifully designed by Matt Willey at Studio8, this issue includes:

Peter Saville on design Vs art, Fernando Gutiérrez on how the greatest things come from two people talking, Universal Everything’s Matt Pyke & Rafael Rozendaal, Spin’s Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy tell us how to start a publishing company and a guide of ‘things to do in Sao Paulo when you are not dead’.

Also new, is Twin magazine from Lula co-founder Becky Smith. Stunningly bound in a hard cover book format, this is definitely not your run-of-the-mill throwaway mag.

Twin magazine (The Selby feature)

Smith says:

I’m a big magazine nut, I’ve collected everything for years…my flat is covered from floor to ceiling with magazines. I thought about what I would want now as a fan. I want to move away from the mass marketed bog standard mag and create something that feels more unique and special. The 250 unique covers were expensive to produce but to have something that no one else has that is hand numbered – hopefully this feels special. It is the personalised touch which is very anti-magazine in a way.

This issue features a revealing interview with Sir Peter Blake (the English artist who did the cover to Sergeant Pepper’s not the Kiwi sailor who was killed by pirates), The Selby shoots the holiday house of New Yorkers Dan Martensen and Shannon Click and there’s a poetry portfolio curated by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and writing by Miranda July.

With all the dreamy imagery that made Lula the cult classic it very justifiably became as well as work from a whole host of new contributors… what’s not to like?

Posted in Individual Mag Titles | No Comments »

Freebie Offer

Friday, December 18th, 2009

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Posted in General randomness | 3 Comments »

Why many magazine retailers don’t care about Christmas

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

A lot of retailers do a massive proportion of their overall yearly sales at Christmas. For some, it is the only month in which they make money. Christmas subsidises all the other months of hardship and toil.

Magazines are quite different from this perspective. Traditionally, magazines are not really thought of as a Christmas present. How can you buy for your girlfriend a copy of Vogue Australia in early December when the next one might come out in a few weeks time? Also, many people see magazines as pedestrian. Not the sort of thing that excites when unwrapped. Overall, magazines are seen as a selfish purchase and not the ideal gift.

While this may be true for newsagents, mag nation loves Christmas. We are a gift destination. It is not the mainstream titles that attract people, but those hard to find niche mags that almost replicate the giving of a book. And often at half the price.

Don’t get me wrong. Magazines for “self” also spike at Christmas, especially as people want to stock up for the beach, the plane, or wherever else they may be going, but gift purchases drive our volumes leading up to the holidays. If you have a designer friend, the specialised choices we offer are endless. If you are looking for that perfect something for a fashion fanatic, gaming fiend, petrol head, or tattoo enthusiast, we have just the thing. And these niche publications catering to all these special interests are often unusual, as well as works of art in themselves. Quite different to the stuff you will find in the mainstream locations.

In addition, subscriptions go nuts over Christmas. The idea of giving a loved one a gift that keeps on arriving over the course of a year is quite cool, and immensely popular.

Which is why Christmas is so important to us, compared to most mag retailers. They don’t stock the niche titles which drive gift destination traffic, nor do they offer online subscriptions via a dedicated subscription website.

Christmas reminds me of just how different we are from so many others in this industry. Perhaps this is why we are growing in the magazine category while the others are slowly retreating from it…

Posted in Magazine Industry, The Inside Story | 1 Comment »

Freebies and a request for help – we need your opinion

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

I need your help. As you would expect from the mag nation chief magazineologist, I keep an eye out on what other magazine subscription sites are doing. Christmas is the key time for mag subscriptions, and every subscription provider dials up the rhetoric on offers and freebies.

We too are offering free stuff if you subscribe to magazines through our website. We do it because we think customers like it.

However, where we are different is in terms of size and independence. We are not affiliated with any publisher. Nor are we a massive corporate who can afford TV advertising. This is where I need to ask your opinion…

The other guys are offering a chance to win a car, a fantastic exotic holiday, a trip to the moon etc… But only one or two people win this. Most of the mag nation staff don’t even own a car, so we definitely ain’t giving one away. Therefore, we are offering what we can… 1 in every 100 subscriptions purchased from us is for free. This means that lots of people will win something small, as opposed to 1 person winning something big. We have already contacted a bunch of people and delighted them by telling them that their subscription purchase has been fully refunded to their credit card.

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Does this work better for you? Or do you prefer the tattslotto type odds and pay off? Or maybe you don’t give a shit and the freebies are just a distraction? What do you think we should be doing from a marketing perspective to entice you to consider us over and above the others? Please keep in mind that we have very limited budgets!

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. While it is too late for us to change anything this year, perhaps we need to start saving up for next year to offer you a fantastic camping trip in my mum’s back yard…

Posted in Entrepreneurial, The Inside Story | 16 Comments »

Cameras in the Toilet

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

As a young company, we are striving to make ourselves more professional. If we are to build any real scale, we will have to improve our disciplines and structures. But… never at the expense of character and soul. Which is why, despite the plain wrongness of what happened last week, I can’t help but laugh and celebrate that harmless shenanigans can be accepted at mag nation.

One of our employees, who will remain nameless, was last week rummaging around in our storeroom , and found a spare “dome camera” used to monitor our stores against theft. In his childish wisdom, he got a ladder and some Velcro, and stuck the camera high up on the wall of our staff toilet. It was high enough that not everyone would see it straight away.

The camera was not connected to anything. There are no wires running to the toilet. However, all hell broke loose. Some of the girls discussed suing us. Our team was appalled. Our other MD was even convinced to play along, saying that it was the only way to curb employee theft!!! And the staff believed him.

When the responsible staff member came clean and told everyone that the camera was non-functional, there were laughs all round. It frankly was damn funny. Even after we all knew it was a prank, it was still hard to do our business with a camera staring down at you. I asked him to remove the camera yesterday. Too many issues of stage fright!

I am sure that some corporate lawyer type will tell me that the prank was simply not on. I agree that it wasn’t very smart, but it did make us all laugh. I like that mag nation allows us to laugh. We want to be a serious business. But it’s nice to laugh too.

Posted in The Inside Story | No Comments »

Please stop asking for Apartamento magazine

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Apartamento magazine issue 4

A collective sigh of relief at mag nation HQ today as Apartamento arrived. Finally.

We’ve literally had customers asking for this for about the last month now (although it feels like a lot longer.) There’s one guy who who comes into our Elizabeth Street store, pokes his head in at the ‘Our Favourites’ rack and then leaves with a disappointed look on his face. Every. Single. Day.

There is another guy in Sydney who calls the Newtown store every day and sheepishly asks “is it in yet”? Makes us think of a pubescent teenager on his first attempt. Bloody hell people. Yes, it is a hot magazine, one of the hottest around at the moment, but there is a whole wide world out there…

Now up to issue number four, the latest edition of this ‘every interiors’ mag includes an interview with Alessi’s Enzo Mari (featured a lavishly photographed spread of his Milan studio), Ari Marcopolous contributes photos of Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon at home in Massachusetts as well as features on Mark & Garrick, Chloe Sevigny, Bertjan Pot and Gustavo Di Mario.

On top of all this, there’s a feature on Melbournians, Misha Hollenbach and Shauna Toohey (aka fashion label Perks and Mini) shot at home by Serps Press’ Thomas Jeppe. Plus an ‘everyday life’ kid’s supplement with Andy Rementer, Geoff McFetridge and Jordi Ferreiro.

Get it while it lasts…

Posted in Individual Mag Titles | 1 Comment »

FOUNDER OF MAG NATION AVOIDS GOING TO JAIL

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

In a previous blog post, we mentioned our ridiculous Christmas subscription offers. One in particular has caused us some angst.

We put up the following offer:

The person who buys the most magazine subscriptions between the 20th of Nov and the 20th of Dec gets them all for free.

We also mentioned in that blog post that we had thrown in some terms and conditions to satisfy our “legal department”, which is me. People still mistake us for a large multi-national organisation, forgetting that mag nation is obstensibly run by two guys. We don’t have lawyers and accountants and other smart people to help us run our business. We make do with the four hands that we have. Between us, not each.

Luckily however we do have some friends. So Adrian, who is a lawyer, and a smart one at that, emailed me and told me that having read our terms and conditions, we were being a little naughty.

We said in relation to this offer that if two or more people had bought the same number of subscriptions, that we would choose one at random to win the prize. Bomp Bow (I have no clue how to spell that you lose noise, but you know what I mean). According to Adrian, this is a “lottery” as it has an element of chance involved. We therefore might need a licence to do this. And a different one for each State.

Screw that. I wouldn’t even know where to apply for one. Sooo – we are changing the terms and conditions. If two or more people buy the same number of subscriptions, then the winner for the purposes of this offer will be the one that purchased the first of their subscriptions before any of the others.

There you go. No ambiguity, chance or lottery in that. Bloody lawyers. Bloody government and need for stupid licences. Just impede honest retailers from having fun and putting up crazy offers. Thanks Adrian. You created lots of extra work for me when I doubt anyone would have even noticed. At least I won’t go to jail now.

Posted in The Inside Story | 4 Comments »