With the recent struggles of many of the most well-known names in print, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that printing a magazine is a path to failure. However, for many publishers, focusing on a very specific niche has enabled them to successfully put out a publication for many years.
Asylum has a nice roundup of some of the most bizarre examples. And “bizarre” is a fair assessment, because these definitely aren’t published for a mass audience. Let’s face it, “Miniature Donkey Talk” isn’t going to be displayed near the checkout counter at your local grocery store. That goes double (or triple) for “Girls and Corpses,” a horror mag that features “scantily clad young beauties posing with hideous, decaying, festering corpses.” Hey, it delivers what it claims.
As is the case with successful blogs, these magazines have been able to maintain their readership precisely because their readers have few alternatives for the information found within their pages. For people, it’s been said that “specialization equals failure” – we’re expected to possess a wide variety of skills and abilities, and that makes us more valuable. For print, however, the opposite is true. Focusing on a very specific readership where there are few to no competitors can lead to success.
(via Neatorama)
It’s about time print started learning ways to survive. These “bizarre” magazines make me hopeful for the print industry. And that’s what I’m thankful for these days — enough to even write a post about it: http://blog.psprint.com/graphic-design/things-to-be-thankful/