Winning awards starts with publisher

Winning awards begins at the top. The magazine publisher needs to believe that quality pays, believe in hiring good people and believe in hiring enough of them, said Rick Bush, editorial director of Transmission & Distribution World, based in Overland Park, Kan., and published by Penton.

Mr. Bush gave a presentation "Taking the Awards Process to the Next Level" at the Western Region Azbee awards banquet held July 23 at the Plaza III Restaurant in Kansas City, Mo., and run by the Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors.

A sufficient staff will allow a publisher to let an editor loose to tackle big issues and create award-winning copy, Mr. Bush said. He gave an example of how Transmission & Distribution World was able to report from New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina's effects.

He added editors may invest in the future of a publication by investing the time to learn about the industry the publication covers.

"Find out what your readers would find out by themselves if they only had the time," Mr. Bush said.

Planning for an awards competition may start a year before entries are sent out, or when magazine personnel are creating editorial calendars. Magazine editors and publishers should know which categories they excel in, he said. For example, Transmission & Distribution World normally does well with stories in such categories as case histories, editorials and individual profiles. However, the mgazine rarely enters stories in the categories of how-to articles, feature series and government coverage.

The editors of Transmission & Distribution World are selective when entering awards. "We save a lot of money by entering only what we're proud of," Mr. Bush said.

Meeting Recap: Creating community on the web

A website can serve as a community meeting spot for an industry. Business-to-business publications should know the tools and tactics needed to keep industry members coming to their web sites and staying there, said Sandi Brown, director of audience development, new media, for Penton Media, Overland Park, Kan.

Brown served as a moderator for a meeting titled “10 ideas for the Web that you can implement tomorrow” that took place Feb. 6 at the Brookridge Country Club in Overland Park, Kan. The Kansas City Chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors sponsored the event.

Repurposing content from print and creating a community are two aspects for online publications. Club Industry’s Fitness Business Pro, Overland Park, Kan., categorizes content in its online “Resource Center,” said Stuart Goldman, managing editor. Stories are placed in such categories as for-profit health clubs; nonprofit facilities; and schools and universities.

Broadcast Engineering, Overland Park, Kan., offers a glossary of terms, including acronmyms, on its website, said Spring Suptic, associate editor. Editors originally came up with the glossary of terms for their own use and then decided it would be a good idea to share it with the industry on the website.

B-to-B publications may consider both in-house blogs and other blogs concerning their industries for their web sites, Brown said. Club Industry’s Fitness Business Pro found its blog gets many hits even though few visitors choose to leave comments, Goldman said.

Broadcast Engineering pulls the RSS feeds from blogs written by people in the industry, Suptic said. Brown said it’s a good idea to ask the blogger for permission to use the blog on the website. This request may lead the blogger to add a link to your magazine on his or her blog, Brown said.

“There’s this whole click-through magic that happens,” Brown said.

Links from your website to other websites and from other web sites to your web site helps to improve your status on search engines, such as Google, Suptic said. It tells the analytics the search engines use that your site must be trustworthy with good content because others are linking on to it.

Companies should remember they have no editorial control of a blog that is not an in-house blog, Brown said.

“You just have to make that commitment that you are going to take on all-comers,” Brown said. “You have to know what works for your environment.”


10 ideas for the Web that you can implement tomorrow

1. RSS feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for sharing and distributing Web content, such as news headlines. RSS feeds let readers know about new content on your site.
For an example see www.vetecon.com.
Free RSS applications are available at www.feedburner.com.

2. Polls and quizzes
Ask your readers what they think. The results can be used in print.
Free/cheap online applications are available at www.pollmonkey.com and www.polldaddy.com.

3. Online forms
Forms and handouts are popular reader tools. Posting them online brings readers to your site and doesn’t take up any valuable real estate in your book.
For examples see www.vetmedpub.com.

4. Reader comments
Allowing readers to leave comments at the bottom of a story can generate interest and activity on your website. But companies should designate somebody as the editor of comments. Posting comments on the site instantaneously could lead to problems, such as one company trashing another company.
For an example see www.kansascity.com.

5. Recycled content
Content is king! Make use of already written material by posting it all online.
For an example see www.broadcastengineering.com, which has all articles published in the U.S. and World editions going back to September 2000. All the content from the newsletters is used on the website as well.

6. Slideshows
Pictures are worth a 1,000 words. And posting extra photos online makes good use of photos that you can’t fit in the book.
For an example see www.vetmedpub.com/extras/caribou.
Free applications are available at www.slide.com.

7. Behind-the-scenes blog
Let your readers know what you’re working on by launching a magazine blog. Ask each of your editors to write a blog entry once or twice a week. With this blog, you can educate your readers about the inside workings of your magazine and also reach out to potential sources for stories.
For an example see blog.fitnessbusinesspro.com/fitnessbusinessproblog/.

8. Resource center
Group all of your related articles into sections on your website. Along with listing articles, you can also include other helpful tools and information for your readers.
For an example see fitnessbusinesspro.com/forprofits/.

9. Industry blog portal
Find readers who blog about your industry. Use the blogs’ RSS feeds to pull snippets of content to your site, creating a content portal.
For examples see broadcastengineering.com/be-roll and nashvilleistalking.com.
Free/cheap online applications are available at www.feeddigest.com and pipes.yahoo.com.

10. Top 10 lists
People visiting your site want your best content. Give them the 10 most read articles, most e-mailed articles, the 10 best interviews, etc.
For an example see www.cfo.com.

Meeting Recap: Freelance contracts need to address copyright, plagiarism

Editors wanting to avoid copyright and plagiarism legal problems need to focus on the specifics of contracts with freelance writers, said Jean Maneke of The Maneke Law Group in Kansas City. Be aware of electronic archive rights within those contracts, too, she said.

Maneke, who has represented the Missouri Press Association as its hotline attorney since 1991, was the featured speaker in “A Copyright and Plagiarism Primer” presentation given Aug. 8 during a Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ luncheon at McCormick & Schmick’s in Kansas City.

Maneke said editors should ask themselves three questions when dealing with copyright issues:

• What rights do I have?
• What rights am I taking away from somebody?
• What rights am I giving to somebody else?

Publishing companies generally own the copyright rights to stories written by their employees, but freelance writers can own the copyright rights to their own materials. Freelance contracts need to define who has first publications rights and electronic archive rights. Maneke said lately she has seen a lot of litigation involving electronic archive rights.

Another issue might pop up if a third party, perhaps another publishing company, asks the editor for permission to use the freelancer’s story. Does the freelance contract give the editor the right to allow such permission?

“Those are the kinds of things you need to think about when dealing with copyright,” Ms. Maneke said.

Plagiarism can occur among both writers employed by the publishing company and freelance writers. Every freelance contract should say plagiarism will not be tolerated, Maneke said, but that step still will not keep publishing companies out of trouble. They still will be liable even if the freelance writer plagiarized a story without the company’s knowledge.

The publishing company can turn around and sue a freelance writer if the publishing company is sued for plagiarism, but that tactic may meet with little success. If a publishing company faces a $1 million fine, it can sue the freelance writer, but a good chance exists the freelance writer will be unable to pay a $1 million fine, she said.

It may be impossible for editors to catch plagiarism before publication, Maneke said. No one has time to use Google on the Internet to research whether stories were plagiarized.

Editors should know what constitutes plagiarism. Publishing companies legitimately may use material from another source provided the material is presented as news or education and the other source receives attribution, she said. Just don’t use the entire story. Logos and photographs can be used as long as they are part of news material.

She added paraphrasing a statement does not avoid plagiarism and words lifted in their entirety must have quote marks. Use of facts is not plagiarism, but if the facts contain the original author’s interpretation, they must have attribution.

Advertising is different. Problems may arise in certain situations, such as when you use a photograph or a song for an advertisement, or where you are making money off the photo or song.

Maneke added editors need to know the difference between copyright and trademark.

“Everybody confuses copyright and trademark,” she said.

Copyright is the expression of an idea in tangible form. A trademark represents a product or service.

Copyright rights exist for anything that is put down on paper. You do not have to register to have copyright rights, but you must register if you want to file suit. The Library of Congress has copyright forms that you may fill out online.

Workshop Recap: Details add energy to your stories

Recognize where your story has energy, John Lofflin said. Then think about moving that part of the story closer to the top, he added.

A journalism professor at Park University in Parkville, Mo., Lofflin also serves as special assignment editor for Veterinary Economics, an Advanstar Veterinary Healthcare Communications publication based in n Lenexa, Kan. He gave the presentation “The Art of Storytelling: How to Make a Boring Story Interesting” at the Spring Writing and Editing Workshop on May 15 in Overland Park, Kan. The Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors organized the event held at the Brookridge Country Club.

Lofflin said he finds it difficult to explain his energy theory to students. The energy happens when a writer, at one point in the story, recognizes he or she has nailed it and becomes inspired. The writing happens at a quicker pace.

Sometimes a direct quote sparks the energy. Details give a story energy, too.

“Detail is a thing you have to learn to see,” he said.

Details can give a reader a sense of being at the event, or peering over the reporter’s shoulder during an interview. Details can cause a reader to interact with the story on a sensual level.

Even if reporters are unable to attend an event in person, they can use other tactics to obtain detail. Lofflin said he uses Google Earth on his computer to learn about places. Using this strategy once, he said he felt confident calling a Colorado town a two-story town.

He gave another example of calling back a veterinarian while writing a story about animal abuse. He wanted to know the weight of a cat that had died. It led to this sentence: “Excuse Dr. Brett Levitsky if his blood still runs hot when he’s asked to remember that April day in 2004 when 9-pound Darwin was laid on his exam table DOA.”

Workshop Recap: Keep clutter out of your stories

This lead just won’t do: Ron Johnson talked about copy editing Tuesday afternoon.

Ron Johnson even said it won’t do, and he has taught editing and design classes at Kansas State University since 1989. Johnson gave the presentation “Big Picture Editing Techniques: The Nuts and Bolts of Weaving a Story Together” at the Spring Writing and Editing Workshop on May 15 in Overland Park, Kan. The Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors organized the event held at the Brookridge Country Club.

Besides weak leads, Johnson gave suggestions on making transitions brief, providing just enough background information and avoiding paragraphs that say the same thing as the quotes that follow.

“Don’t make people hack through your verbiage to get to your cool stuff,” he said.

Johnson said writers may decide on a news lead and use the “who, what, when, where and how” of a story. However, he added, you do not need all five of those elements in the lead. You can select the most important ones for the first paragraph and add the other ones later.

Narrative leads, he said, can allow a writer to use one person’s perspective to illustrate the story’s big picture. Narrative leads tend to work better in longer stories, he said.

Stories in trade publications generally need adequate background information early on in the story, he said. Writers should try to summarize the information in a sentence or two.

Diversify sentence lengths and paragraph lengths throughout the story, he said. While reporting, writers should shop for a lead quote and a concluding quote. The lead quote can go high up in the story, like in the second or third paragraph.

And to finish? Johnson said, “The direct quote is about always the best way to end a story.”

Workshop Recap: Place content in various media platforms

The day of relying solely on print publications for revenue and readers is gone. Surveys show nearly half of the people who read newspapers online do not read the print editions, said Tom Eblen, a newspaper consultant and retired University of Kansas professor. Like the rest of the journalism industry, business-to-business publishing companies need to utilize various forms of media, not just print.

Eblen gave the presentation “The Straight Scoop: Radical Changes in Communications and How to Adapt to Continue to Serve our Readers” at the Spring Writing and Editing Workshop organized by the Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors. The May 15 event was held at the Brookridge Country Club, Overland Park, Kan.

Eblen gave two examples outside of business-to-business publishing as ways to use media platforms successfully.

ESPN’s content lives on all media platforms, Eblen said. The company’s product can be found anywhere, from video games to mobile phones to websites. Walt Disney, ESPN’s parent company, now wants all of its companies to follow ESPN’s example, he said.

Closer to Kansas City, Eblen pointed to the success of The World Company in Lawrence, Kan. The company places stories in its print publications (the most well-known being the Lawrence Journal-World), online and on TV (the company owns Channel 6, a Lawrence TV station). The media outlets often cross promote each other.

Business-to-business publications may have an advantage over other media outlets, such as daily newspapers, Eblen said. A B-to-B publication wants to reach a segmented, specialized audience. Across all media platforms, a B-to-B publication may have a defined marketplace, as opposed to an undifferentiated marketplace.

When deciding how much to invest in online content, publications should know the average age of their readers. People under 30 tend to turn to online content exclusively for news, he said. People in their 50s are more likely to read newspapers.

Websites should be simple to use. No task should require 10 clicks of a computer mouse. Magazine content from at least 10 years back should be on website archives. Every publication should have its own website and lead in its category.

Meeting Recap: Dirt cheap design done right

Magazine designers and editors want first rights on the use of high-resolution photographs. Obtaining the photographs for little or no charge ranks as another high priority, especially since business-to-business publications tend to have limited design budgets.

More than 30 attendees heard advice on how to come as close to that ideal situation as possible at “Dirt cheap design,” the title of a March 7 meeting of the Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors held at Hayward’s Pit Bar B Que in Overland Park, Kan.

The two speakers, Jennifer Ray and Danica Tormohlen, deal with their own art budgets. They seek photography and design help inside and outside their respective companies.

Ray, senior art director with Penton Media in Overland Park, designs for American School & University magazine, which has no design budget, and Club Industry’s Fitness Business Pro magazine, which has a budget of $1,500. Besides winning two Maggies, five TOCAs and one national ASBPE award, Ray also has judged the Maggies, ASPBE and Ozzie awards.

Tormohlen works for Ascend Media Publications in Overland Park and serves as editor of EXPO Magazine, which has a design budget of $500 per month. In 2005, Tormohlen and her editorial team won the Folio; Magazine Eddie Award for Editorial Excellence and the min’s B-to-B of the Web for website redesign.

Stock up
Subscriptions to digital art Web sites have become a cost-effective way to find photos, or at least a more inexpensive way then buying compact discs, Ray said. Another option is the web.

“There are tons of different sites out there,” Ray said. “Some of them are better than others.” The art sites are set up differently. Some allow designers to pay a rate fee to download a certain number of photographs per month or per day. Some digital art websites that offer credit programs to purchase specific pieces.

A few sites worth reviewing include:

• Shutterstock
• Comstock Images
• BigStockPhoto
• Photos.com
• PhotoSpin
• liquidlibrary

Source key
Sources are another way to find art. In her assignment letters to freelancers and full-time writers, Tormohlen tells them to ask for head shots of any or all their sources. Ray likes to work with manufacturers and sometimes asks their help in taking cover photographs. For example, John Deere has its own in-house studio and a library of images.

Both speakers said make an attempt to gain first rights to use photographs. Ray said when outside organizations like manufacturers run a photo shoot for a magazine cover, she requests that the magazine be allowed to publish the photo first before the outside organization publishes it.

EXPO Magazine reports on trade shows and conventions, which normally hire their own professional photographer and then allow publications to use the photographs for free, Tormohlen said. Convention and visitors bureaus at cities playing host to events generally have their own free images, too. Many times the images are ready to be downloaded from a website.

Picture savings
When publications can afford professional photographers, they can save money by hiring the apprentice instead of the head photographer, Ray said. Although not as experienced, the apprentice has access to the same studio and the same camera equipment. Contacting colleges also can lead to finding students who will work for a discounted rate, Ray said. Other photographers will offer a discounted rate if an agreement is reached to use them for a certain number of photo shoots per year.

Magazine cover photographs can eat up a good portion of a design budget, but they offer a great way to get a magazine noticed. Ray said she likes to perambulate through the magazine section of a book store and see which publication covers “pop out.”

Tormohlen said every other issue she tries to do a photo shoot for the cover, which can run $1,000. She selects issues where a story will lead to a good photo shoot.

“Some months we spend zero, and some months we spend $1,000,” she said. “It really depends upon the photographer we get in and where they want to have the photo shoot.”

Take it inside
Ray said her company bought a digital camera that several magazines use. Now, in-house photographers can shoot cover photographs for the two magazines she works for, she said. Publishing companies also might save money by paying for continuing education classes at area colleges, which can allow artists to pick up new skills and negate the need to contract out for such work, Ray said.

Both Ray and Tormohlen said issue reviews, which involve critiquing photographs and designs, can lead to better quality. Tormohlen said she likes to invite people outside the editorial department and art department, such as the publisher, sales representatives and circulation personnel, to a free lunch inside a conference room. There, they can spend about an hour critiquing the latest issue’s design and photography.

Meeting Recap, Part 2: Target editorial copy by niche to avoid advertorials

Be on the look out for more veiled advertorials in 2007. Phil Musser, publisher of Transmission & Distribution World, said he has seen an increase in the amount of advertorials in his sector of the business-to-business publication industry over the past year.

Some publications are becoming more innovative in how they present advertorials, he said while speaking Jan. 17 at a Kansas City chapter meeting of the American Society of Business Publication Editors titled “Trends in B2B Publishing.” Advertisers often sponsor what a publishing company may call a guide, sourcebook or case study.

“Was that a guide or a sourcebook?” Musser said. “No, it was a different way for them to draw a veil and plop in contributed pieces that were lock, stock and barrel written biased.”

Transmission & Distribution World, based in Overland Park, Kan., and a publication of Prism Business Media, takes a different approach, Musser said.

“We try to make a distinction between a targeted focus of what you’re going after by sector or by niche vs. advertorial,” he said.

He added companies in the business-to-business publication arena can find other avenues of growth:

• Developing a partnership with an existing trade shows can provide an opportunity if a publishing company or magazine is the exclusive media partner.
• Blogs and webinars are getting closer to going online for Transmission & Distribution World. The electronic media also can make it easier for Transmission & Distribution World to expand its reach internationally since mailing costs are not involved.
• A market opportunity exists for research information in the power sector since utilities are not providing financial support to research institutions and associations like they formerly did.

“They are always calling us, asking us for (research information),” Musser said. “That is an opportunity for us.”

Meeting Recap, Part 1: Manage your brand to thrive in online revolution

Brand stewards, although their job titles might say editor, may lead the online revolution in business-to-business publications. Cameron Bishop, president and chief executive officer of Ascend Media in Overland Park, Kan., offered the term and the prediction when he spoke Jan. 17 at a Kansas City chapter meeting of the American Society of Business Publication Editors titled “Trends in B2B Publishing.”

“You are brand stewards,” he told the editors. “You are no longer editors of a magazine. You are managers of a brand.”

Bishop said the title of editor may be outdated. He added the American Society of Business Publication Editors even should consider changing its name.

“I would submit to you that that title is antiquated,” he said of the editor title. “I would submit to you that you all begin to call yourselves directors of content or content managers or content creators. Our business today is about the creation and dissemination of content. It is not about editing a magazine. It is far more than that.”

Bishop defined another term: media agnostic. No longer does content appear solely in print magazines.

“Media agnostic is what we are about today in the creation of content,” he said. Ascend Media delivers content through many outlets — print products, online outlets, e-mal newsletters, wireless handheld PDA devices and various shows and conferences.

The multiple mediums can offer advertising opportunities. Annual growth of 8 percent to 10 percent was common in print publication advertising in the late 1990s, he said, but it’s now fallen to 1 percent to 2 percent.

“The (advertising) budgets are the same, but dollars are being allocated in different ways, and most of those dollars are going online,” he said. Ascend Media saw 500 percent growth in online revenue in 2006, he added.

During the online transformation, editors/brand stewards need to think differently in several areas, Bishop said. Not only should they know the circulation of their publications, they also need to know their websites’ traffic numbers.

“If you don’t know the traffic statistics of your website, you’re not doing part of your job,” Bishop said.

Bishop has challenged Ascend Media to have video capability, such as podcasts, on all its websites within the year. He wants to equip every editorial team with a digital video camera, which he compared to micro cassette recorders. Whereas decades ago reporters began carrying recorders with them for interviews, now they can take digital video cameras.

Editors also should find ways to use print publications to promote the websites. They can put a table of contents for the online product inside the print product.

“Your print product is a promotional vehicle for your Internet product,” Bishop said. “If you don’t choose to think of it as such, then shame on you.”

Thought also should be given to archived content, said Phil Musser, publisher of Transmission & Distribution World, who also spoke at the Kansas City chapter meeting. Transmission & Distribution World, based in Overland Park, Kan., and a publication of Prism Business Media, contracts out content.

“We’re going back now and tagging content,” Musser said. “We’ve got nine years of feature content on the websites. To be able to sell content categories, we’ve got to put it in the right bucket and have the right association.”

Finding veterans for advice on all these online topics could prove difficult, Bishop said.

“There are no experts because it’s all too new,” he said. “It’s a highly entrepreneurial world we’re in today. We’re making it up as we go along.”

Meeting recap: Put the web to work

Effective ways to build your Internet presence
By Jody Shee

Your budget may be tight, and your editors may groan at the thought of adding online responsibilities, but once they adjust, it’s not very challenging, and it’s necessary for a publication to thrive.

The younger generation automatically turns to the Internet for information. When they become the next business leaders, publications can’t afford not to have a strong presence on the web. Online product accounts for only 10 percent of The Kansas City Star’s revenues, but it makes up 90 percent of the daily newspaper’s growth, says Rick Babson, online business editor. He was one of two panelists at the recent Kansas City chapter meeting of the ASBPE on “Putting the web to work.”

Though he feels like The Star is in its infancy with the web, Babson has plans for the paper to compete with television news programs as reporters are equipped with video cameras to capture stories and interviews for the web. The Star has built a small room in which to record video programs and eventually will produce a daily morning business report for its website. It has entered into an agreement with a local television station and former television news anchor to go out and shoot stories for the television station, which also will appear on The Star’s site, he says.

Content Ideas
The following are other ways the panelists suggest building Web content, many of which can be used to draw attention to your print product:

1. Podcasts work better for some topics than for others. Babson says he’s found that technology and entertainment Podcasts are more popular than general business topics.
2. Blogs are a good way to connect with readers and drive traffic to print editions, Babson says.
3. A breaking news section is important for publications that serve as industry news leaders. Babson notes that you can include an initial few paragraphs about the story and refer readers to the next print edition for more details. Then, in the print edition, tell readers they can find updates on your website.
4. Lengthy documents and reports that you can’t include in print are perfect for your website, Babson says. You can refer to these documents in your print edition. These could include complete meeting reports or legal papers.
5. Electronic newsletters are popular and allow you to track results, but make sure you do more with your newsletters than provide links to stories. “You need to have a plan. You need to deliver editorial product. ‘Talk’ to people on a daily basis, don’t just say, ‘Here it is. Go get it,’” says Susan Robinson, director of content management for Sosland Publishing, Kansas City, Mo.
6. Offer digital replicas of your print publications. “Weekly magazines are victims of the post office,” Robinson says, adding that international readers will appreciate receiving the digital version in a timely manner. Plus, you can track how it is read. Find a vendor that helps with digital replicas.
7. Sell access to research reports, including charts and graphs. “People love that to drop into PowerPoint presentations. We make PowerPoint graphics available,” Robinson says.
8. Make photo galleries with captions. Robinson notes that readers love it, and it’s a way for you to use the many photos you can’t include in print. The gallery adds a human element to technical publications.
9. Offer article archives and sell access to nonsubscribers who are doing research, Robinson suggests.
   

Make it work
Before you go crazy with online ideas, Robinson offers these suggestions, many learned through trial and error.

• Serve your readers, not the technology. “Using every bell and whistle on the website is not sustainable,” she says. Remember that you are an information provider first. Think of the best way to serve your readers through the various media. Content, not “being cool,” is king.
• Have a plan. “ ‘If you build it, they will come’ does not work in our business,” Robinson says. To build revenues with your website, you have to know where you want to go with it.
• Develop an editorial calendar for your website. And have it go along with your print edition using much of the same content.
• Repackage some of your content for the Web. For example, compile statistics or profiles.
• Cross-promote your print and Web content to draw traffic to both. It’s not enough to mention your website on a banner or in a house ad in your print product. Include cross references in as many stories as possible.

Conference coverage: Digital publising

Digital magazines: Do they do more than just save circulation money?

Speakers:
Rebecca Fannin, editor of Digital Magazine News
Russell Haderer, vice president of international operations for BPA Worldwide
and an editor from Advertising Age

Summary: As postal costs continue to rise, digital editions save costs and allow immediate delivery to international subscribers. The BPA formed a task force of publishers and vendors to look at digital magazines and in December 2001, the BPA began reporting digital with print and auditing digital publications. In 2005, 20 consumer magazines reported digital magazines, and 200 B2B magazines had digital publications. Rebecca Fannin said digital magazines are easy to archive and retrieve and are available anywhere and anyplace. She said by sending out an enhanced PDF, it’s possible to instantly update text, and the cost is much lower than publishing a print publication.

Survey results on digital publications

• Reader had a 10 to 1 preference in sharing articles in digital rather than print.
• There was a 5 to 1 subscription renewal preference for digital publications.
• 46 percent of readers decreased their use of or didn’t use the print edition.
• The most popular age group of readers is 45-49 years old.
• When asked how many of the last four issues that they read, 61.2 percent read the digital edition and 63 percent read the print publication. About 20 percent of the readers spent an hour reading the digital edition and 27 percent spent an hour reading the print issue.

Case study on Advertising Age

• Makes full contents available online each Sunday
• Attracts new readers who don’t want to read the print issue and exposes an 18-year-old franchise to a new audience.
• 5,000 subscribers with 8.5 percent international readers
• When they did a survey, 57 percent said they liked that they could access it anytime, 42 percent enjoyed the earlier delivery, 51 percent wanted to search the contents online and 47 percent were looking to access back issues. About 79 percent were satisfied with the product.
• In 2005, the magazine had 8,389 unique visitors, 43 percent single views and more than 52,000 page views. When it started to include video in its digital publication, it got 20 percent more return visitors and 63 percent more page views.

Conference coverage: Magazines of the Year

Magazine of the Year case studies

CSO: winner in the under 80,000 category
CSO, which goes out to chief security officers and has 27,000 print subscribers, launched in September 2002.

CSO’s secrets to success:

• A strong staff—The magazine has excellent writers, reporters, editors and designers, says the chief editor. CSO has three designers, who spend time presenting the information graphically. He said it’s important to compensate employees well if a B2B publication wants to attract good people. The magazine has a twice-a-year review process and asks the employees what is energizing for them as writers and editors. CSO has eight editors, and four of them have been working together for the past five years.
• Constant improvement—The magazine staff looks at covers for the past six months to make sure it’s not stuck in a rut and has idea meetings every two weeks.
• The idea puddle—CSO maintains a communal Word file, and the editors add ideas to it.
• Readers are the sources—When interviewing CSOs for the magazine, reporters ask them what else is going on in their world and what their thoughts are on the magazine. They also try to talk to sources outside the security industry like psychology or finance professionals.
• Include longer articles—CSO published an 8,000-word feature because the author was able to find a great story and then weave valuable lessons into it. The magazine also includes in-depth charts and graphs.
• The surprise element—If you don’t surprise each other, you won’t surprise your readers.

Computerworld: winner in the over 80,000 category.
It has a weekly circulation with 180,050 print subscribers and 1.3 million online.

Computerworld’s tips:

• Writers and editors are professional journalists, not professional technologists.
• The publishing company has a strong corporate culture and recognizes people as its number one asset.
• The magazine allows for flexibility in assignments based on specific talents.
• Computerworld holds vendors accountable.
• The publication conducts many editorial surveys and polls the attendees at trade shows.
• The magazine tries not to break news in print but rather analyze the news after the fact.
• Honors 100 CIOs each year with the Premier 100.
• Never cuts back on the travel budget or loses sight of making funds available.
• Interacts with readers by having them send in their funny stories. The ones that are chosen get T-shirts.
• Its award-winning design team is big on practical takeaways.
• As a result of its editorial excellence, one of its readers said the magazine knows what he is thinking. When he has something on his mind, he said he opens up the magazine, and Computerworld has a story about it.

Conference coverage: Covers

Making covers noticed, read and useful

Speakers: Robert Ayers and John Johanek, Publication Design

Summary: Since 1986, Robert and John have designed 100 publications. Here is their four-point approach to award-winning design.

1. Simplicity—Use clean images, pull out the color scheme of the image and use restraint when it comes to color.
2. Strength—Use tight cropping and bold colors and don’t overlap your logo with a cover image unless your magazine is well established.
3. Sizzle—Designers can suggest mood through typography. Cover lines need to be benefit oriented.
4. Sophistication—You need to make sure all your cover lines are the same font and type size and use simplicity in fonts.

Other tips

• What works well on a newsstand works well with B2B magazines .
  
• Use buzz words in the cover lines.
• The concept shouldn’t undermine the message.
  
• Logos should explain what the magazine is all about and have a strong presence.
  
• Logos should be on the left rather than the right.
  
• If possible, try not to use skyboxes or any other elements that push the logo further down on the page.
  
• Consider placing the mailing label on the back cover to allow for more creative design on the front cover.

Conference coverage: Convergence

Marketing myopia, journalism-style

Speaker: Rance Crain, president of Crain Communications and editor-in-chief of Advertising Age

Summary: Rance compared a magazine’s website to a worldwide TV station and encouraged publications to start up a TV program on their website and film reporters interviewing sources. Reporters need to become better marketers because they understand what their readers want. B2B magazines also need to understand that it’s possible to make as much money on the web as they do in print by organizing the sales force.

Conference coverage: Ethics

Resolving ethics issues: A town hall meeting

Speakers:
Rance Crain, president, Crain Communications and editor-in-chief of Advertising Age
Jeffrey Seglin, ethics consultant and professor of publishing at Emerson College
Portia Stewart, national vice president, former president of the Kansas City Chapter, and editor of Firstline
Roy Harris, national president and senior editor for CFO
Paul Heney, national past president and current president for TABPI

Summary: ASBPE conducted a survey on ethics and had a 43 percent response rate. The survey found that 40 percent of editors have low job satisfaction because they have less resources and more pressure from advertisers.

Advertising Age Case Study: By having integrity, a magazine can gain trust from its readers and have stronger ancillary products. Rance Crain said editorial excellence makes good business sense, and it’s critical to get as close to the facts as a magazine can get. He discussed an ethical issue at his own magazine, Advertising Age, in which the sales team sold a mock front page of its magazine to an advertiser. All the cover stories were about the advertiser and in similar fonts to the ones used by the magazine. The mock cover didn’t go out to regular readers, but it was distributed to 1,000 attendees at an industry event. The person responsible for approving the cover wrap was fired.

Conference coverage: Research and investigation

Covering public companies: Digging up the numbers and information that matter

Speaker: Mark Skertic, business reporter for the Chicago Tribune and member of Investigative Reporters and Editors

Summary: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) serves as the investor’s advocate and gathers information for investors about publicly traded companies. The SEC makes public companies' information available on their websites, and reporters can go back 10 years to find certain company records and track its financial performance. Writers can find out such information as pay and benefit details, stock options, business backgrounds of board members and employees and details about lawsuits and what the company’s competitors are doing. They can also find out about what the shareholders want for the company by going to www.sec.gov.

Helpful websites: When Mark first started writing about public companies, he had to fly to Washington, D.C., and sit in a windowless room at a government building sifting through paper records. He can now search all the documents online at not only www.sec.gov, but also other websites such as 10Kwizard.com and freeedgar.com. To find court records, reporters can visit www.pacer.psc.uscourts.gov and pay 8 cents a page to download court documents.

SEC Filings: Reporters need to know what to look for when searching through filings. Here's what to look for:

• Proxy statements often tell which direction a company is going.
• A company often files an 8K every time there is a major event such as a sale of assets, a change in management or a judgment in a major lawsuit.
• When an investor buys more than 5 percent of the company’s stock, the company is required to file a 13D.
• A Form 144 is for when an insider intends to sell shares.
• While there’s no replacement for reading all of the SEC filings, reporters can often find valuable information in the footnotes because companies often think that if they put something in tiny type, people are less likely to read it.

ASBPE National Conference review

The ASBPE National Conference provided us with ample material to share with Kansas City Chapter members.

In the days that follow, look for posts from our chapter president, Amy Fischbach. She'll share the main points that she took away from the two-day event.

And I'll gather up the best coverage from the web, as well as add in a thought or two of my own.

Oh, and I can't forget the awards. Congratulations to all Azbee winners!

Links
KC chapter president Amy Fischbach's conference coverage

• Research and investigation
• Ethics
• Convergence
• Covers
• Magazines of the Year
  
• Digital publishing
  

Stay tuned; there's more to come!

Meeting recap: Customize for success

Increase revenues with custom publications
By Jody Shee

The best way to build your company’s business-to-business bottom line is to probe your advertisers for the messages they want to communicate to their audience and suggest and develop creative ways for them to do that.

Forward-thinking publishing companies have formed a custom communications or special projects department and added staff to manage the newsletters, inserts, guides, seminars, teleconferences, electronic products and whatnot.

“Do anything; go anywhere,” is the motto for the custom communications department at Advanstar Veterinary Healthcare Communications in Lenexa, Kan., says editor Sally Goldenbaum. She was one of two panelists at the recent Kansas City ASBPE chapter meeting “Increasing Profits with Custom Publications.”

Several years ago, Advanstar formed a special projects division, accomplishing eight custom projects the first year compared to the 90 projects it expects to complete by the end of this year. “The advertisers are looking for ways to spread their message beyond advertising. So that is our thrust,” Goldenbaum says.

Then and now
In the beginning custom projects amounted to guides, small newsletters, magazine inserts, multisponsored pieces and roundtable and symposium proceedings.

Advanstar has helped its advertisers expand into larger newsletters and educational pieces. The company is even handling advertising agency type projects like diecuts and product information sheets. Goldenbaum believes the future of custom publishing holds more teleconferences, meetings, interactive CDs, web-related projects and electronic magazines and newsletters.

She notes that one of the biggest unsolved challenges with custom projects is keeping educational pieces clean from sponsor hype. “Readers don’t want to read an ad, but something to educate,” she says, adding, “But advertisers want more of a say in what we do. … It’s getting harder and harder.”

Custom process
As you develop custom projects, you must crystallize the best ways to extract the potential, manage the workload, interact with the client and how much to charge.


Rather than hire extra sales staff, the Lenexa office of Vance Publishing encourages the regular sales staff through commissions to further look into the needs of their accounts, says DJ Bell, custom marketing manager.

In one example, an animal health advertiser was facing increased pressure from activists about the use of animal antibiotics. “They needed a message countering the misinformation being discussed,” Bell says.

In his contact with the customer, the sales rep uncovered the need, offered the company’s help and said she would get back with them. “In the past, we would have just said, ‘Run an ad,’ or worse, ‘Good luck with that.’ Instead we had the internal resources to develop a project and find a solution to the need,” Bell says.

The ultimate outcome: For the past five years, Vance has produced a quarterly “For the Record” newsletter, which is inserted in several of the magazines. “It’s all coordinated by our special projects/custom marketing group, but delivered to the client by the sales rep. We do not take the place of the rep,” Bell says.

To maintain editorial integrity, the company uses freelancers rather than staff to write the copy and often uses freelance graphic artists since the design staff is not large enough to handle it.
The custom project manager is responsible for scheduling and meeting deadlines, he says.

But there’s another way. Advanstar has two sales reps and several editors who serve as project managers dedicated to special projects, Goldenbaum says. The sales reps learn the projects and they know what the company can do. The editors do some of the writing and assign the rest to qualified experts. All of the project managers meet together to discuss cover art and review final pages.

To determine how much to charge for the projects, both Vance and Advanstar begin with the calculated hard costs. Then Advanstar uses a formula and multiplies by a figure determined by the sales staff and publisher to cover the time it takes to produce the project. “We don’t track our hours. Shorter pieces don’t cost that much, but if a meeting is attached, it costs more,” Goldenbaum says.

No uncertain terms
The Custom Publishing Council has a nice rambling definition of custom publishing. DJ Bell, custom marketing manager for the Vance Publishing in the Lenexa, Kan., office, offered a condensed definition at the Kansas City ASBPE workshop session “Increasing Profits with Custom Publications.”

“Custom publishing refers to the delivery of editorial content from a sponsoring company to a target audience. Whether delivered in print, electronically or as a live event, a custom media program provides valuable information that moves the perceptions and behavior of the audience in a desired direction.”

Meeting recap: Research and reveal

The three panelists discuss how to conduct effective industry research.
By Jody Shee

B-to-B publishers no longer can merely depend on their print publications, trade shows and websites to earn the revenues they need in an era of shrinking advertising dollars. Given their expertise in the industries they cover, it makes sense to increase revenues by adding to and channeling that knowledge into sellable research, said a three-person panel at the April meeting of the Kansas City chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors.

Whether your publication conducts primary, editorially driven research or analyzes secondary research conducted by others, you can publish limited results in the magazine and sell a more complete hard copy or an online version, said Marjorie Troxel Hellmer, vice president of Cypress Research Associates in Kansas City, Mo.

One form of effective research is a brand usage and attitudes survey of the top five brands in your industry, Troxel Hellmer said. Magazines can ask their subscribers to rank the brands in several areas. In publishing the results, you may be able to increase advertising sales among those brands as you provide a service for them that they may not be able to do themselves.

Most of the 200-plus studies conducted by Prism Business Media in Overland Park, Kan., are primary editorial research projects to provide fresh content for the publications and to present at trade shows, said Lynn Adelmund, Prism’s director of marketing research. Much of the research benchmarks operations important to the trades the magazines serve.

For example, one magazine studies how much corporate marketers spend on coupons, point-of-purchase materials and other marketing methods, she said. Another survey studies salaries and another provides state-of-the industry studies.

Benefits
Research allows you to create original content that may be picked up by the national news media and wire services, Adelmund said. It also provides information about your audience, which is compelling reading to them.

Additionally, primary research leverages your publication as the most important and authoritative source for information, she adds.

Expansion Management magazine published by Cleveland-based Penton Media has created an information and marketing niche by conducting annual research to help corporate executives evaluate future expansion locations. The magazine analyzes areas of the country for their middle-class livability, including school ratings, crime rates, home costs and traffic conditions, said chief editor Bill King.

While the research primarily is intended for the magazine audience, the company has found that by offering information about the research on its website, it gets requests for the for-sale information from other industries and families. This builds the audience and the revenues. “Revenue solves all problems,” he adds. King estimates that 30 percent of the magazine’s annual revenues come from research.

Tips
All the panel members agree that if you conduct primary research, whether driven by the editorial or advertising staff, it’s important to allow editorial to have a hand in it since they know the audience better than the advertising staff does. Adelmund offers this advice to editorial teams:

• Include your research reporting plans to your annual editorial calendar to keep yourself on task.
• Divide your topic study into segments to allow for fewer, more precise questions, which will encourage a higher response rate and will give you more areas of study.
• Update your research regularly to provide a point of reference for comparing results from one study to the next.
• “And when the study reaches a point of decline, stop doing the study,” she recommends.

And when you release new research, send an email announcement to your advertising base and the media with links to your website, to the study and to a press release, King said, adding that it’s not a good idea to attach a PDF file to the email as it is slow.

Meeting recap: Editorial ethics

Panel discusses towing the editorial ethics line
By Jody Shee

Editors earn their gray hair as they are challenged not only to ensure that the publication comes out in one piece and on time, but also to maintain editorial integrity as some unknowingly (or knowingly) chip away at it.

For Lance Jungmeyer, editor of Vance Publishing's The Packer, a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 13,000 produce industry members, the decision to fire a reporter who plagiarized a story was clear-cut.

What he finds more difficult is handling sources who expect good coverage of their company because they advertise in the publication, Jungmeyer said at the Kansas City ASBPE chapter meeting in mid-February. He was one of two panelists who addressed ethics issues at the meeting.

Keeping the balance especially is challenging since The Packer’s readers also are its sources and advertisers, and the newspaper’s main competitor writes positive stories for its advertisers, Jungmeyer said.

Keeping the separation between editorial and advertising is easier for a publication that doesn’t run news stories, said panelist Angie Gates. She is an advertising sales representative for Grounds Maintenance magazine published by Prism Business Media (formerly Primedia Business Magazines and Media).

However, it still is necessary to educate sources that they cannot dictate the coverage that will appear in the publication, Gates said as she recalled a meeting with a client who requested that they write an article explaining that his product was the best on the market. Gates listened to the editor tactfully suggest alternative articles to the client. “The researcher didn’t know journalism ethics. We have to open up and communicate and let them know,” she said.

Source reviews
When asked if any of the publications allow the sources/advertisers to review the articles before they print, the panelists and everyone in the meeting agreed that it’s a dangerous practice.

If advertisers were allowed to review the copy ahead of time, they would call their ad rep to complain if they didn’t like what was in the article, and that’s something Gates said she would rather not get in the middle of. “Not knowing makes my job easier,” she said.

Jungmeyer explains to sources who request to see the article ahead of time, “If we did that for you, we would have to do it for others. Then what would be the value of the article?” he said.

While most attending the meeting agreed that it is okay to read back a source’s quotes if they ask for it, one editor said she rarely allows that to happen. Reading quotes back opens the publication up to more problems, she said.

Editors vs. advertorials
Editors should be aware of the intent and strategy of the advertorials the advertising side comes up with, but Jungmeyer said he strongly believes that the editorial staff should not be involved in writing the advertorials. “They don’t even need to know about them,” he said.
Advertorials for Grounds Maintenance magazine are written by public relations agencies, Gates said.

Yet when asked for a show of hands, nearly half of those attending the meeting said that the editorial staff for their publications is involved in writing advertorials.

Note: This meeting sparked so much conversation that we'll continue to post more b2b ethics questions online. Read the current question here.