Tax situation turned to advantage of publishers of The Beaver

Canada's National History Society, publishers of The Beaver and Kayak doesn't let any grass grow under its feet.When Canada's Competition Bureau approved the sale of BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises) to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, it realized that BCE shareholders would be required to dispose of their shares and pay capital gains tax, unless their shares were sheltered in a registered

99 North is closed by Canada Wide

Four years ago, Canada Wide Magazine and Communications Ltd. bought 99 North Visitor Magazine in Squamish, B. C. But because of lack of advertising support, according to Samatha Legge, Canada Wide's general manager, it will appear no longer. This, according to a story by Sylvie Paillard, published by the weekly newspaper the Squamish Chief .The publication was started in 1998 by then 19-year-old

Oilfield publishing merger inked as JuneWarren bought out by Glacier

Two major oil industry publishing groups are to be merged with the 100% purchase of the JuneWarren Publishing by GVIC Communications Corp. for an undisclosed combination of cash and shares.(GVIC used to be called Glacier International Ventures Corporation; it is a former bottled water company that transformed itself into an information and communications company and it became a major media player

Lions For Lambs Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan about Lions For Lambs

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Corporate Knights loses thousands of copies, forced to bonus subscribers

In what can only be characterized as something less than a catastrophe, something more than an annoyance, the magazine Corporate Knights has gone to extraordinary lengths to mollify readers because many copies of its fall issue mysteriously disappeared.The magazine has extended subscriptions by one issue and sent links to a digital edition to all its subscribers along with an apology. The

Governments shouldn't compete with magazines, says MagsCan

Magazines Canada says governments should not compete with the private sector in publishing magazines. This has always been Magazines Canada's position publicly, but now it is being released as a policy paper that the national association hopes will be adopted by various levels of government.The policy document springs from various situations where government-funded or -supported magazines

Folio: launches reader friendlier website

Folio:, the magazine for (U.S.) magazine management, has launched the beta version of a renovated website which is much easier to navigate.

Rogers b-to-b titles pull out of the Canadian Business Press

[NOTE: This story has been updated. See below.]Rogers Media Publishing is pulling out of the Canadian Business Press (CBP). With its membership will go about 40% of the CBP's budget. Of the 160 CBP member titles, Rogers publishes 36, in both French and English, including some of the largest.John Milne, Senior Vice-President, Rogers Business & Professional Group has sent a memorandum to his senior

Celebrating with all the little people

Let this be a lesson to all of us. The venerable magazine The Atlantic celebrated its 150th anniversary with a party held at the Kimmel Centre at New York University. The room had a stage which functioned as an "awkward VIP area", according to blogger Dylan Stableford, while most of the rest of the guests milled about below, drinking free booze and watching. Awkward. Worse, video is available

Seasonal guide to magazine gift guides

A staple of the magazine trade is the Christmas gift guide (though, in most magazines, it is now called the "holiday" gift guide) which is intended to whet consumer appetites about the latest swag available in the stores. The National Post has done us a favour by summarizing some of Canada's best magazine gift guides. Here is what it found:Priciest gifts on offer:Flare magazine: a grey lambskin

Strong loonie is a good news/bad news thing, Masthead reports

Masthead magazine has done some excellent reporting (sub req'd) in the past couple of days, talking to publishers across Canada about the up -- and down -- sides of the higher Canadian dollar.Part one looked at the downside and found that publishers aren't able to get the clients to adjust as fast as they'd like. Alex Papanou, vice-president of publishing at the Business Information Group,

Quote, unquote: on the flight to quality

I think we have a philosophy that, the Internet can do a lot of things really great, so focus your magazine on the things the Internet can't do really great—write long stories, print it on nice paper, have beautiful layouts. I think that a lot of other magazines are trying to make stories shorter and become adaptable to the web, and essentially make the magazine product something that dovetails

Quebecor's World of troubles continue

With Quebecor World suspending dividends on its preferred stock, the buzz around its financial troubles is becoming predictably more speculative and occasionally bizarre, with suggestions in a Reuters story that the value of the company's stock could conceivably plunge to zero;that Transcontinenental Inc., a major rival, would be a potential buyer of the book, directory and marketing businesses;

Richard Kelly - Southland Tales Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Richard Kelly about Southland Tales

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Whole Foods Market, now more than expensive vegetables; also a magazine

Whole Foods Market, the high end organic grocery store, is planning, in partnership with Active Interest Media, to launch Whole Foods Market Magazine next year in the U.S. and Canada. Starting in January, the bimonthly custom magazine will be available in more than 60 stores, starting with the midwest and then the Rocky Mountain region. First printing will be 200,000 copies. It's expected to be a

The New York Ghost has a stealthy launch

An alternative non-paper paper has been launched, more or less by stealth, in New York. It is called the New York Ghost and is a pdf filled with rambling and apparently unrelated bits and pieces of information (ed: a newspaper, in other words). According to a story in the New York Times, it is published by Ed Park, an editor at the Believer and a former editor of the Village Voice. He apparently

Swapping pennies for dollars

New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman told a British House of Lords committee last week that new online business models for newspapers are just substituting "pennies for dollars".He said he is trying to develop new business models for the web but returns aren't comparable with print, according to a story in the UK Press Gazette.Zuckerman said that the new challenges have meant that his

What's a magazine worth? A little or a lot, depending on your perspective

For three generations, publishers and proprietors in the magazine industry have done themselves and the industry a serious injury by perpetuating the belief that readers won't pay what magazines are worth. So pervasive is the belief that the assumption is no longer even tested.The late Howard Gossage defined it as taking a bite of a poisoned apple, the day that publishers decided that the cost of

McSweeney's editor Eggers speaking in Toronto Tuesday night

The founder and editor of McSweeney's, the quarterly magabook which many of you have probably admired for its quirky charm and audacity, is speaking in Toronto on Tuesday, if you're in town. He is a guest of This is Not a Reading Series, presented by Pages Books & Magazines, Vintage Canada and EYE weekly.Eggers, the author of four books, and perhaps best known for his first, A Heartbreaking Work

I'm Not There Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Todd Haynes about I'm Not There

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National Magazine Awards board approves substantial changes

Substantial changes to the National Magazine Awards has been unanimously approved by the board of the National Magazine Awards Foundation at its November meeting. The changes address concerns, both large and small, raised by editors, including those at the big publishers.A letter detailing the approved changes has gone out to the participating editors and the changes will be posted early in

Cigar Report lights up

For every subject, there is a magazine. And in some subject areas, hope springs eternal, despite past experience. Those who remember Cigar Aficianado and Milton, big ticket, lavish titles that celebrated (among other things) the joys of a big stogie, will wonder at the wellspring of hope that is being tapped by the launch of the rather blandly named Cigar Report.The title will have an initial

Not so funny. Stitches magazine closed

Stitches, a humour magazine for doctors and a companion title Stitches for Patients, were both quietly closed this summer by CLB Media, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub req'd). The reason given was that advertisers just weren't that interested.

Mainstream Observer profiles very-un-mainstream Geez

One of the most professional and well-regarded church publications in Canada, the United Church Observer, carries in its November issue a profile of one of its hipper, much more controversial younger brethren -- the Winnnipeg-based magazine Geez. The profile is not available online at the Observer, but fortunately you can see it on the Geez site.Writer Caley Moore writes about the magazine's

Deloitte media use research shows print mags beat online mags

Deloitte, the international accounting and consulting firm has published a study on media consumption called the State of the Media Democracy Survey. The research, of course, is based on interviews with U.S. residents. Earlier this week, Gary Gluckman, head of the Canadian Media and Entertainment practice, hosted a webinar. We are grateful that blogger Jon Arnold monitored the webinar and posted

A touch of glamour for Q & Q

Glamorous presentation is not the usual fare for Quill & Quire, the magazine for the book and library trade. But their December number has a very VF/GQ kind of look about it, with three Canlit stars featured in the special Books of the Year issue: Writer and actor Sean Dixon, million-seller Kenneth Oppel, and memoirist Marina Nemat. They scrub up nice.

Almanac sells out 100,000 copies

Harrowsmith Country Life's venture into publishing a Canadian almanac has been so successful that the first, 100,000 printing, has sold out and a second printing is being done for the Christmas market, according to a story in mastheadonline (sub req'd).See our earlier post on this.

Mags asked what -- if any -- changes they'd like in competition and investment policy

Should we be commenting and what should we be saying? That's the question that Magazines Canada is putting to its members; to advise it about the potentially far-ranging review that the federal government is conducting about foreign investment and competition policies.A bulletin has gone out to Magazines Canada's 350 consumer magazine member titles asking for comment by November 30 on some of

Immediacy online, depth in print: the inevitable future of b-to-b publishing

The power of web publishing is inexorably moving strong business to business print brands to reduce their print frequency and making up the difference with beefed-up news and opinion online. In magazine-related circles in Canada, Marketing did just this and so did the magazine industry trade magazine Masthead. Now, Adweek magazine in the U.S. has announced that it is reducing its weekly to 36

Quebecor World's troubles continue; refinancing plan withdrawn

What if you want to sell, but nobody wants to buy? This situation has apparently happened again to Quebecor World, the giant printing arm of Quebecor Inc. which is also Quebec's largest publisher of consumer magazines.According to a report by The Canadian Press, Quebecor World has withdrawn an ambitious refinancing plan (see earlier post) that it announced only a week ago, in which it had planned

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews writer-director Zach Helm about Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

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Adbusters' "Buy Nothing Day" going stronger after 15 years

Buy Nothing Day, an idea that was hatched by Adbusters magazine of Vancouver 15 years ago has grown over the years into an international movement. For instance, Ethical Consumer magazine in Britain is urging its readers to "detoxify from consumerism" by buying absolutely nothing on Saturday, November 24 (in North America, the day is being observed on Friday, November 23). The Adbusters' release

Mobile newsstand allows thumbnails of magazines to be browsed

If what you really want is to read a magazine on a teeny screen, then Zinio, the digital magazine providers, are your guys. They have launched the Mobile Newsstand with which you can browse, free of charge, some of their top titles (almost exclusively U.S.) on your iPhone and iPod Touch. (Of course that would require iPhone service to be widely available in Canada.)

Scouts and St. Joe's renew tree planting agreement

Scouts Canada and St. Joseph Communications, one of Canada's leading private printing and magazine publishing firms have renewed an agreement for tree-planting for a further five years.The collaboration, called Partners in Growth, first began in 1990 and, since then the Scouts, supported by the printing company, have planted over 2 million trees across Canada, covering 2,800 acres. For every ton

Taddle Creek to war against apostrophe abuse

The word idiosyncratic seems to have been designed especially for Taddle Creek magazine, the semi-annual literary journal published out of Toronto. And I mean that in a nice way.This unlikely magazine is celebrating its 10th anniversary by publishing a fat, colourful issue, launching a painstakingly redesigned website and (almost a requirement for small magazines) throwing a launch party. The

Canadians still prefer traditional media, but online is gaining

A new study by for APEX PR, done by Leger Marketing among 1,517 adults across Canada, has found that Canadians still prefer traditional media sources.The top five most credible information sources are: radio (67%), television (66%), national (66%) and regional (62%) newspapers and business magazines (52%)."Contrary to popular doom and gloom scenarios that speak about the impending demise of

Two competing magazines about depression to launch next year

Two, competing magazines about depression are scheduled to be launched in 2008.It has been announced by publisher Bill McPhee that Magpie Publishing Inc. of Fort Erie, Ontario will launch Anchor in 2008 (no date specified).The announcement about Anchor is that it will be coincident with the launch next year of a magazine called Esperanza, also serving the community of interest surrounding

Press Review for sale

If you want to own your own small magazine, Press Review is for sale for $15,000. The widow of the founding publisher Mike Cassidy is offering the magazine to "a visionary who would see the potential of this publication and keep her late husband's legacy alive".Press Review is described as "Canada's premier magazine specializing in media issues". It is distributed by controlled distribution to a

Google patents customization of magazine content

Information is making the rounds that Google has received a U.S. patent on a process that would allow end users to customize magazines and have content and relevant ads delivered over the web or printed out for them at convenient kiosks similar to photo processing kiosks in drugstores and department stores.The patent was granted to Google on November 8 and is entitled "Customization of Content

Cover story: how Metro will sell anything

Thanks to veteran freelancer David Hayes for his post on the Toronto freelance editors and writers listserv about the recent issue of Metro, the free commuter daily that is distributed in Toronto (and elsewhere). As Hayes says in his message to fellow freelancers: "Sell-outs don’t get much more blatant than this."In a world where everything seems to be for sale, a publication's integrity is

Free and online mags win big at British editors' awards

Sport, a free magazine given away to commuters won the British Society of Magazine Editors (BSME) award for launch of the year. And "innovation of the year" went to Dennis Publishing's online only Monkey magazine. This, according to a report in UK Press Gazette, which includes a full list of winners.

Cycle Canada said to have closed owners deny it is closing

[UPDATE -- According to Masthead magazine, the owners of Cycle Canada magazine deny the magazine has been closed or is about to suspend publication. The November/December issue is on newsstands, says LC Media, and a January issue is due to go on press.[While the magazine's website has been moribund since August, the magazine is apparently used receivership to get out from under some significant

Stuffy is out, says Reeves; that's why House & Garden folded

Lynda Reeves, the doyenne of the highly successful Canadian House & Home magazine says in an article for the Westcoast Homes section of the Vancouver Sun that the announced closure of the century-old House & Garden magazine in the U.S. reflects subsantially changing attitudes to home design and decor.When Condé Nast announced this week that House & Garden, the venerable magazine of American

Quebecor World stock down 41% in a week, facing refinancing challenge

Quebecor World, the printing core of Quebecor Inc., which is Quebec's largest consumer magazine publisher, has had a heckuva week, or a heckuva month to think of it.It announced it would sell a total of $778 million worth of additional shares and debt securities to investors and to its controlling shareholder, Quebecor Inc. , in a refinancing of its debt and credit facilities. On Tuesday it said

Quill & Quire provides free news clearinghouse on book pricing parity

Quill & Quire magazine, which serves the book trade and libraries, has launched a new, online resource to help publishers and retailers keep up with the complex and fast-moving news about price parity. For the past year and a half, as the loonie has climbed ever higher against the U.S. dollar, consumers have demanded that the disparity between Canadian and U.S. book prices be corrected. Retailers

The ad supplements that ate Toronto Life

Torontoist, a popular blog about all things Toronto, has had it with the baggage that comes with every issue of Toronto Life magazine. In a post today, Mark Lostracco says that while he thinks the subscription price is worth every penny, the magazine's heavy burden of advertising ride-alongs and inserts is too much.Subscription card "fly-ins" and heavy-stock ad inserts are extremely unpopular

Changes in Commons committee on Canadian Heritage

The makeup of the committee that oversees the Department of Canadian Heritage (home to the Canada Magazine Fund and the Publications Assistance Program, plus various other funding for the magazine industry) has changed with the new Parliament.For one thing, Charlie Angus, the outspoken New Democratic Party critic and member for Timmins - James Bay, is out, replaced by Bill Siksay from British

It's a guy thing; European men's magazines being eclipsed by web

Men's magazines are in a severe slump in Europe, according to a Reuters story out of an investors conference call on Tuesday. Leading European publishers are coming to terms with the fact that the web is an irresistible lure for men and teenage boys, at the expense of printed magazines. "They are a casualty of the Internet. That is for sure," Dominique D'Hinnin, Chief Financial Officer of French

Torstar takes the long view with transition at Metroland

The outcome of an orderly succession planning at the giant Metroland Group division of Torstar Inc. results in Ian Oliver, the publisher of the Hamilton Spectator and executive vice-president of Metroland Media Group stepping into the presidency, succeeding Murray Skinner. According to a company release, Skinner, who worked for Metroland and Torstar for 32 years, steps down effective July 1, 2008

Why don't journalists get residuals?

Albert Kim, a blogger with Huffington Post, raises an intriguing question, sparked by the U.S. writer's guild strike which is, as he points out, about payment for re-use and use in other media; residuals in other words. Why, he asks, don't writers for magazines get residuals?The premise behind residuals is simple enough. Writers create stories and turn them over to companies who use them to make

Access Copyright sues Staples for $10 million for copyright infringement

Staples / Business Depot, the largest office supply chain in Canada and the Canadian arm of a giant U.S. office supply super store chain Staples, is being sued by Access Copyright for $10 million for copyright infringement because of unauthorized -- uncompensated -- photocopying by store customers.A Canadian Press story about the suit was carried today by the Toronto Star. Access says it is the

Magazines Canada launches 18-month planning calendar

Magazines Canada has launched an 18-month planning calendar, which should prove useful to keep industry events from banging into each other and help organizers to avoid conflicts. It's a simple month-by-month grid in which Magazines Canada events are in red and other industry events are in blue, each event with a web link. People in the business who want events included should send their

Freelance union members number 400, says organizer

The Canadian Freelance Union drive may be coming to life, though the sign up so far is about 400, according to the key organizer. That's not much more than the union was claiming in February. During an exchange on the Toronto Freelance Editors and Writers (TFEW) listserv, Michael OReilly admits that he has been disappointed by the uptake.My greatest fear in all this is that the market is right;

If summoned, I will testify, says investigative writer Stevie Cameron

Author, former magazine editor (Elm Street) and magazine writer (Maclean's) Stevie Cameron says if journalists are called to testify during the forthcoming judicial inquiry into the Mulroney/Schreiber/Airbus situation, she expects to be at the top of the list, according to a story in the Montreal Gazette.No journalist has pursued the story more doggedly than veteran investigative reporter Cameron

Spafax Inc. wins six Pearl awards for custom publishing

Spafax Inc. of Montreal, publishers of enRoute magazine, has been awarded two gold and four bronze awards -- at the annual competition of the Custom Publishing Council in New York. Redwood Custom Communications won a silver and bronze as did Transcontinental Media and Rogers Publishing Limited won a silver.The 4th annual Pearl awards were presented to an audience of 140 custom publishing

Split run cover pricing being used to evade dollar parity for magazines

Ever since the loonie soared to parity and beyond, compared with the U.S. greenback, Canadian purchasers have been demanding at least dollar parity, and quite rightly.At first, retailers wound up eating the difference to keep customers sweet. Then, it seemed, publishers were grudgingly moving to get rid of the old "5.99 CAN, $4.99 US" cover prices. This would mean Canadian and U.S. purchasers of

Right on the money

One person's opinion: Mother Jones's November/December issue has a great cover.

Who needs writers anyway? We all do

Writer Barbara Ehrenreich speaks up for freelance writers in her column that was published on the Globe and Mail op-ed page today*.Ehrenreich points out that word rates for even top writers have been frozen for years and that the current screenwriter's strike may call attention to the plight of writers in general.Since I started in the freelancing business about 30 years ago, the per-word

Rupert Murdoch demolishes pay wall at Wall Street Journal

[This post has been updated.]The rolling boom you just heard was the sound of the pay wall at the Wall Street Journal being pushed over by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. He announced today to a group of shareholders in Australia that the online content of the Journal will henceforth (or very soon) be free.This follows close on the heels of the decision by the New York Times to end its Times Select

Seminar asks: "Can the public trust medical journals?"

Can the Public Trust Medical Journals? That's the central question at a seminar being held in Toronto by the relatively new online medical journal Open Medicine on Wednesday, November 21, from 6:30 to 7:30 at the George Ignatieff Theatre, 15 Devonshire Place, Trinity College, University of Toronto.The two presenters should provide interesting answers to the question: The main presenter will be

Canadian Marketing Association forecasts mag ad growth at 2.3% a year

The outlook for magazines is OK, according to a forecast published by the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA)and reported in mastheadonline (sub req'd). It forecasts that advertising expenditure in magazines will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 2.3 per cent over the next five years, going from $695.9-million in 2007 to $761.1-million in 2011.For b2b titles, the CMA expects compound

Universities howl as rankings drop because of revised Maclean's criteria

Maclean's just can't win. It is riding out a campaign by some of Canada's biggest universities to boycott its annual university rankings; they complain that the listings are junk methodology, even though they were based on questionnaires the universities had completed themselves.The boycott continues, but now universities who were not part of it are complaining that stripped-down criteria have

Playing well with others; be nice, be professional, show respect

The School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto has issued a set of written guidelines for its students and for the university community. Chair Paul Knox distributed an online link to the guidelines that are apparently intended to address come conflicts and "misunderstandings" between students who are doing daily or longer term reporting assignments (print, radio and TV) and faculty and

Curate more and create less as a recipe for success

There's a interesting case study reported upon by Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine, about the way in which creating a true network is the key to success in being a content provider. There is a lesson in this for magazines that are playing to their content strengths and building complementary websites. A comparison is made between iVillage, which at one time was a dominant player among websites aimed

Marketing publisher unveils plans for 100th anniversary celebration in 2008

A sneak preview of the 100th anniversary celebrations of Marketing magazine is provided in a brief videotaped interview between Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Chris Loudon and Joseph Thornley of Thornley Fallis Public Relations. It was taped after a meeting of the Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms (CCPRF) and is on the Thornley Fallis website.In January 2008, Marketing will begin a series

Let's explore the "day old bread" approach to selling single copies

Why don't we have "back issue" newsstands? Not everywhere, but in appropriate and selected places where readers can browse the previous issue or issues of magazines which have a relatively timeless quality?It wouldn't work for a current affairs magazine or other time-sensitive titles like city magazines, but aren't there shelter and design magazines, literary and cultural publications that,

(CP) symbol retired

The little symbol (CP) at the start of a published story had for many years symbolized a solid source of news, obtained from reliable sources. There were few better examples of a productive, cooperative idea. And if you said CP in the business, everybody knew exactly what you meant.A few weeks ago, it was announced that the CP symbol (and its French equivalent PC) is being "retired" in favour of

Toronto Small Press Book Fair

The Toronto Small Press Book Fair is being held today, Saturday 10th at Trinity-St. Paul's Centre, 427 Bloor Street West from 11 p.m. to 5 p.m. Dozens of small book and magazine exhibitors, including Descant, Taddle Creek, Public, Carousel, and Kiss Machine plus readings and other goodies. This twice annual event is becoming so popular that tables for exhibitors are now sold out.

The Canadian Fly Fisher is hard work, but founder loves it

"I thought it was just going to be fun, but it's tremendously hard work. I've never worked so hard in my life," says Chris Marshall, founder of the magazine The Canadian Fly Fisher.Canada's first national fly-fishing magazine has just won Belleville's business award for best service and professionalism for 2007, according to a story by Tara Wilkins in a student blog from Loyalist College. The

Armadillo anthology by students celebrated by Descant

Descant Arts & Letters Foundation (publishers of Descant magazine) runs a laudable literacy program called Now Hear This!, an outreach with the Toronto Catholic District School Board that sends professional writers into schools to conduct writing workshops with students.Between February and May 2007, over seven hundred students, ten writers and ten teachers took part in twelve weeks of innovative

PWAC asks its members not to violate the picket lines in U.S. writers' strike

The Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) is asking its 600-odd members to eschew taking on any writing assignments that could be construed as blacklegging in the current Writers Guild of America strike. The WGA established picket lines earlier this week at all major Hollywood studios and television production companies. The writers are striking for a new collective agreement

Joel and Ethan Coen - No Country For Old Men Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writing and directing team Joel and Ethan Coen about No Country For Old Men

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Moskot-designed Jewish Living to launch in New York next week

[This story has been updated.]The magazine launch that lost Toronto Life an art director happens next week as New York-based Jewish Living publishes its first issue. Carol Moskot, left TL to move with her husband, ex-ad agency executive Daniel Zimerman, to art direct the title. Zimmerman said it was going to be a “thoroughly modern magazine” that aims to “celebrate Jewish home, family and

Protest by women's group forces New York magazine to drop sex ads

New York magazine has dropped sex ads, bowing to a protest from the National Organization for Women (NOW) For its pains, it was criticized by the Village Voice alternative weekly for doing so.According to a story in Folio: magazine, the "escort" ads, which were part of the classified section in the back of the magazine, were essentially a front for prostitution and typically included phone

Ben Affleck - Gone Baby Gone Q&A

Senior Editor Jeff Goldsmith interviews co-writer-director Ben Affleck about Gone Baby Gone

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Millimetres matter at Saltscapes

Having proved it was here to stay, Saltscapes magazine of Dartmouth, N.S. has told its readers it is now a bit taller and a bit slimmer. In the publishers' column in the November/December issue just showing up in subscribers' mailboxes (not yet online), Linda and Jim Gourlay say: "Ours is an industry where millimetres matter.""The initial business plan for the launch of the magazine in 2000

Quebecor World beats a retreat from Europe

Quebecor World, the international printing arm of Quebecor Inc., which owns one of Canada's major magazine publishing operations (mostly in French) has admitted defeat and is retreating from the European printing market to concentrate on its North American printing business.According to various reports including one in the Globe and Mail, it has announced that it is selling 18 plants in seven

Size matters -- too much -- in U.S. postal rates, say smaller magazines

The impending restructuring of postal rates in the U.S. is predicted to have major, damaging effects on mid-size and smaller titles. A deal cooked up between Time Warner and some of the other big players with the United States Postal Service (USPS) , giving large-circulation titles a break for volume and doing most of the post office's sorting for them.Titles that, while big by Canadian

Retro whiskey ads to run in Canada, too

Those "Damn Right" ads for Canadian Club whiskey we wrote about recently are to run in Toronto Life, NOW and Eye Weekly as well as Canadian copies of Maxim, with placement in other key publications throughout 2008. It's part of a campaign headed"Damn Right Your Dad Drank It," featuring retro imagery from the 1960s and 70s, with provocative taglines that remind consumers that their dads were once

Quote, unquote: a magazine as a trivial pursuit

I'm sorry, but trolling for high IQ candidates in the pages of Mental Floss makes as much sense as looking for astronauts at a "Star Trek" convention.-- Douglas Quenqua, reviewing the magazine in MediaPost's Magazine Rack column.

Salon online magazine tops 4 million visitors a month

For those of you who wondered whether online magazines can work, Salon is a good -- if rare -- example. When it was launched back in 1995 (the internet equivalent of the Pleistocene age) it was hot and promising. Then people cooled to it as the internet bubble burst but, somehow, Salon carried on. It tinkered with its revenue model (free access, paid access, ad-free access and so on) but now

That little blue job box [promotional message]

That little blue box over on the right is a job board that's a real bargain. For $30 you can post a Canadian magazine job for 30 days. Simply click on New job offer and follow the instructions. All job listings are free to all readers. Remember that this blog is read avidly in all parts of Canada. If you'd like to know more, send an e-mail message to impresa(at)inforamp(dot)net.

Photosho magazine to increase frequency & start online version

The second issue of the photography magazine Photosho, published out of Ottawa, is now available and the quality of the publication has apparently caught the interest of Nikon Canada, which has a prominent ad in what is otherwise an ad-light issue.The new issue has the theme "Urban/Rural" and features both themed and individual portfolios of photographers. Rachel Morris, the owner and publisher

Two years on, how do you feel about Maclean's?

Next week will mark two years (!) since the new look and feel of Maclean's was launched. How do you like it so far? [Simply click on the word "comments" below and let us know.]

The New Quarterly celebrates a new look

The New Quarterly is launching a dramatic new look tonight in Kitchener with an event featuring the St. Catharines troupe Theatre Beyond Words (shown) which is featured in the new issue. (The performance takes place at the Registry Theatre, 122 Frederick Street; $20 for adults; $15 for students.)What started out more than 25 years ago as a hand-assembled, stapled compilation, funded by $1,000

Trove of Richard Taylor New Yorker cartoons donated to Canadian Archives

The Library and National Archives of Canada has received a trove of 1,400 drawings and original cartoons, texts and photographs including many colour covers from the family of Canadian-born New Yorker cartoonist Richard Denison Taylor. It's part of the large number of donations that the archives receive each year, reflecting the cultural and social history of the country, according to a recent

Burgeoning digital content leads to new ASME ad:edit guidelines

Eight U.S. National Magazine Award categories will be open to stories published online, it has been announced by the American Society of Magazine Editors. Concurrently, ASME is revising its guidelines on digital publishing in light of a doubling of digital magazine initiatives so far in 2007.Last year the Canadian Society of Magazine Editors (CSME) in collaboration with Magazines Canada, produced

Government appoints lawyer, former Transcontinental director to head CBC

The complicated relationship of the public and private sector in media became even more tangled on Monday with the announcement that Hubert Lacroix is to be president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.The Montreal lawyer -- a senior advisor to the law firm Stikeman Elliott -- was once a senior adviser to Telemedia Ventures Inc. after spending several years as

Condé Nast shutters House & Garden in surprise move

Now, here's a stunner. House & Garden is folding. The 106-year-old H & G, which once boldly bestrode the industry and which has a circulation of nearly a million, will cease publication after its December issue and lay off its staff, it was announced today by Charles H. Townsend, the president of Condé Nast. In an unusual move, the magazine's website is also being closed down. “House & Garden

Quote, unquote: Imitation is the sincerest form of Saturday

The Weekend is meant to be a bit more like a weekly magazine and a bit less like the sixth paper of the week. It's a more planned and edited paper. It relies more on major story treatments on the various section fronts. It is more visually-oriented. It's more heavily integrated with the weekend web package. It provides more news you can use as a way of emphasizing on the weekend sports,

Skunk magazine has a pitch (and a whiff) all its own

Skunk magazine is published out of Montreal and features detailed information on growing, refining and using marijuana, including various weird and wonderful appliances. Plus young women in various stages of undress, game and music reviews. It also has its own particular kind of sales pitch for an 8-issue subscription ($43 in Canada).Get your copy of SKUNK delivered straight to your door, no

Skinny, sleazy and stupid -- research shows young women hate the double standard

New research from Ekos, commissioned by Media Action (formerly Media Watch) says that young women hate the sterotypes and double standards they face in publications and other media. In conjunction with Media Education Week, Media Action published a release about women's views of prevailing media portrayals. The full research report and commentary from Media Action is available at the

Activism if necessary, but not necessarily activism

An object lesson for publishers who think that mixing new media and old ideas is easy:The Cleveland Plain Dealer hired four well-known local bloggers to collaborate on a blog for the paper's website. Then one liberal blogger was let go because he had contributed to a political party. And another liberal blogger quit in sympathy. And then the paper shut the blog down. (The details of the story are

Why "creative non-fiction" is a term whose time is over

It had never occurred to me before what the genesis was of the term "non-fiction" for everything that is not fiction, including magazine articles, essays and journalism. This was brought home by a thoughtful, somewhat mischevious essay "Tilting at Windmills for Literary Non-Fiction" by Ken McGoogan in the Globe and Mail Books section, published Saturday.This is an important topic for magazines to

Online service reads the long stories so you don't have to

If The Walrus and the Atlantic and Harper's and the New Yorker are piling up, guilt-making and unread, you may be interested in a service called Brijit that essentially reads them for you, boils long-form journalism down to 100-word capsules and publishes it online.While we don't normally plug commercial sites* for their own sakes, this one's motivation and rationale is interesting for what it

Canada Post creates virtual community; what a crock

We wonder what portion of its inevitable forthcoming increase in rates to deliver magazines will be required to cover the costs of Canada Post's loopy venture into Second Life. According to a story in Media in Canada:Canada Post has founded the virtual city of Maple Grove, an online community where this holiday season's online shoppers will be able to browse in the 3-D cyber stores of the

Smaller independent stores reeling from demand they sell mags for U.S. price

Small independent book and magazine stores are reeling from the news that Wal-Mart and Indigo Books and Music are chopping prices to the U.S. rate. According to a story in the Halifax Daily News, some stores say that demands by consumers may finish them off, since buyers don't realize small bookstores buy, as well as sell, at the Canadian price. Smaller margin independents can't take the

Spacing blog is named Best of Toronto

Toronto freebie NOW magazine's annual Best of Toronto issue has named Spacing magazine's Spacing Toronto as the best blog in the city.There are dozens of Toronto-centric blogs covering everything from cycling to fashion, but the one that stands on top of the heap is clearly Spacing Toronto (formerly Spacing Wire). Companion site to the beautiful Spacing magazine, the blog serves up daily content

Today's Parent gets the lead out

Today's Parent magazine's annual list of the best toys guarantees parents that they are 100% lead free. It's an interesting example of how a magazine maintains a critically high level of trust with its readers.According to a story in the Toronto Star, all toys in the Top Toys Guide were tested for lead content at McMaster University Occupational and Environmental Health Laboratory in Hamilton.

Giving a whole new meaning to the term 'news cycle'

Matthew Ingram, the Globe and Mail's technology writer and regular blogger on the subject, notes that the New York Times -- which always prided itself on producing most of its own content -- has converted to an "aggregator". Through the acquisition of BlogRunner.com, it acquired a system that allows its technology section to search out and republish related stories from around the world. There is

Magazine pitches "pay-what-you-want" subscriptions

Radiohead got a lot of press (and sold a lot of copies of its album "Rainbows") for its "pay what you want" campaign.Well, it wasn't long before some savvy magazine publisher would see an opportunity. Independent pop culture magazine Paste is giving readers the option of paying whatever they like for a subscription, according to an item on the entrepreneurial website springwise.For two weeks,

Wal-Mart bows to consumer demands, starts selling magazines at the lower, U.S. price

Bowing to consumer demand and reality, Wal-Mart Canada Corp. will be selling magazines in its stores at the U.S. price which, for the past little while has been the "lowest price" (a nod to Wal-Mart's slogan). The Canadian branch of the world's largest retailer said that, for example, a greeting card that cost $3.99 Canadian will cost $2.99, which is its U.S. price," said a story in the Sudbury