Two Print Magazines, Two Happy Audiences

New Internationalist magazine has a lovely kind of problem.

“A survey of New Internationalist readers revealed that many do not have time to get through an entire issue in one month, leaving the magazines piling up in one corner in a hope to catch up on all that reading one day,” writes Marcela Kunova in Journalism.co.uk.

Kelsi Farrington, production editor for the title, agrees. “It’s quite heavy content but that’s the point of it,” she notes, explaining how their decision to move to a bi-monthly format will give their readers more time to enjoy the long-form content.

As Kunova notes, that concession was popular across the board, and not just for their older readers. “When the magazine did market research, its younger audiences also expressed desire for a quality print publication,” Kunova notes.

Farrington is excited about the changes, saying the reduction in frequency means more pages in each issue, more long-form content, and several new features that will appeal to their readers.

Meanwhile, a popular photography ezine has finally made the leap to print.

“Trained in photography at Westminster University, Patricia Karallis set up Paper Journal in 2013 and swiftly gained a reputation for her discerning eye for images,” writes Diane Smyth in the British Journal of Photography. “For five years the magazine ran online only, racking up more than 500 interviews, features, photo book reviews, fashion features, and studio visits, and attracting well over 150,000 followers to its Instagram feed. It’s now gone into print for the first time, and the photographers featured in it reads like a who’s who of interesting contemporary image-makers.”

“In order for us to continue sharing high-quality content, we felt it was an important step forward to engage with our readers in a new and different way,” said Karallis. “Our first issue sits between being a magazine and a photobook. We have many different sections on the site, which we have translated into the print edition.”

Two different publishing models, and two different perspectives – each firmly wrapped around the audience-first idea of giving your readers what they crave. This is what we love about magazine publishing in 2018. The old models are giving way to creative, flexible ideas that are creating the future of our industry in real time.