[responsive][/responsive]To the right reader — the enthusiast, the fan, the dreamer, the industry expert — niche magazines can have an incredibly high appeal. As we reported last summer, the industry is seeing good gains in niche publications this year, and there’s nothing to make us think this trend won’t continue.
Because of their target readership, niche magazines don’t often make a lot of noise in the marketplace, but as Amanda Dixon points out in Mashable, “you may not know that there are smaller publications out there that are . . . sustaining themselves.”
Dixon gives an interesting list of the quirky, exotic and sometimes just plain weird niche magazines that have “probably flown under your radar.” From Portable Restroom Operator to Private Islands and everything in between, these publications have found their readership base and are delivering quality content that appeals to their interests.
One in particular we’ve talked about before: Modern Farmer, the hipster meld of “agrarian and urban sophistication” has walked away with a National Magazine Award, something unheard for a magazine of its age. Launched in 2013, the title captures the back-to-the-earth mentality of the Millennial zeitgeist and is garnering attention from major media like The New Yorker, which offers a fantastic write-up with the disarmingly witty title “Read it and Reap.”
Not all of the titles on Dixon’s list are getting – or deserving — those kinds of accolades. But with close to 8,000 print subscribers The Mountain Astrologer commands a respectable audience in the rather small astrological industry niche.
Weighing in at a healthy 112 pages twice a year, Private Islands Magazine is a real estate glossy for the upper upper crust, and vision board fodder for the rest of us. And while we’ll keep our opinions of Girls and Corpses to ourselves, suffice it to say that it has a quarterly circulation of more than 30,000.
It makes sense that niche magazines are thriving. One huge benefit of social media is our ability to target readership to a fine degree and find those kindred spirits in the sea of potential readers. While mass market anything may be falling out of favor, finding those rabid fans who get what you’re saying is the key to success in the niche publication sphere.