Building Out Their Brands, Retailers Look to the Power of Print

It’s plenty hard for a battle-tested publisher to launch a print magazine these days. Nevertheless, a bold (or delusional) company that’s in a retail business will occasionally think, “Hey, we can do that!” — and so chooses, against great odds, to dive into the magazine fray.

It seems crazy, counterintuitive, and financially irresponsible, right?

But it does not foreclose the possibility that these outfits can actually put out interesting books. Cash and smart hiring can go a long way.

As to why they’d want to get into something as last-century as ink-on-paper mags — well, one word: “Brooklyn.” Meaning there’s always a place and a time for throwbacks (craft beer and artisanal bread, anyone?), even if it turns out to be ephemeral.

“Vintage” is what’s new right now, and that’s reflected in both of the magazines I address in this edition of “The Modern Magazinist.”

The two non-publishers that recently decided they could do magazines as well as anyone have already produced Vol. 1, No. 1 of their fresh-from-the-ground-up titles, and each is pretty decent in its own right.

Will they succeed in any meaningful way? Will they ever pay for themselves? Who’s to know — though the odds are way long. If there’s anything you can reliably say about the magazine business, it’s that unbridled optimism has always been a powerful aphrodisiac.

First out of the gate with its new magazine was Away Travel, a company that designs and markets luggage targeted at millennials who like to do their shopping online. Its quarterly book, Here, is getting ready to drop a second issue in the weeks ahead.

More recently, Hodinkee, which operates a popular website that focuses on — and sells — high-end wristwatches and related merchandise, published the inaugural issue of Hodinkee magazine, a bi-annual.

Both Here and Hodinkee are, broadly speaking, lifestyle magazines, but that’s about all they have in common — other than the fact they are bankrolled by companies that have no previous experience in publishing.

In order to be taken seriously, both magazines needed to understand from the get-go that if they looked or read anything like product catalogs, they’d have wasted every last penny of the launch budget.
much more at: http://www.foliomag.com/here-hodinkee-mod-magazinist/