Ankesh,

Thanks for Touching on magazines.

Here's a couple of ways mags can be used.

Ads: You briefly mentioned this. But there is More Depth to it.

Bill Myers used Ads as a way to Figure Out if something related to the product advertised was viable. And in his case it was newsletters. That is, if he saw a consistently run ad he figured you could write a Newsletter based on the product sold.

In his case it was a Greenhouse. And so he started the Greenhouse Gardeners Journal. The idea being, the product (Greenhouses) has a following as proven by the longevity of the ads which sold them. And those who bought the product would Want Additional Information to Help them with their product. Problem solving, tips, etc.

As the subscriber base would be rather niche, then advertising could be accepted from companies who wanted to target that niche.

He ran Workshops to teach these concepts to people. All attendees started newsletters - but - as far as I know, None were able to keep one going for any length of time. Bill blamed this on Bad Topic Choice, and not his advice which was followed to come up with the topic.

His advice might have some validity for creating a single product or small product range to Ride Along with the advertised product. But being able to create a newsletter around it is more difficult - not impossible, but difficult, and your success would be more due to happenstance than good management.

Going back to the Greenhouse... A book on Making The Most Of Your Greenhouse would have been a better product to create. Less time and effort needed. And could be done using the Halbert Technique I mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

Of course, Bill's Market Identification Technique is mentioned by Jim in one of his reports - Mailorder, maybe - but with the advice to Still tread lightly. Because not all ad running means the product is selling.

Another point to be Aware of is, running ads do not tell you much about the State of the publication - Paid Subscribers, Bought Circulation not just Distributed Circulation, ad so on. Just because a publication is being published does not mean its readership is not Declining.

Articles: Generally speaking, people buy magazines for the Content and not the ads - even if they do enjoy Looking at the ads. The content (articles inside) is Often advertised on the front page by use of headers. To entice Newsstand Browsers to pick up the magazine and buy it. Because I'd imagine that the hardest thing with magazines, as with books, is getting the customer to pick up the items off the shelf in the first place. Which is why Time is spent on the Front Cover Teasers.

The idea then is, create a product based around the Main Articles within the publication - people read the publication because of the articles and are interested in those topics, so maybe they would like Additional Stuff (information or goods) on those same topics.

This is Close to the Ebay idea of...

People who are shopping on ebay for _______, might also be interested in (and be willing to pay for) Instant Information on _________.

E.g. People who are shopping on ebay for silk flowers might be interested in (and be willing to pay for) instant information on how to make a flower arrangement.

That Same Approach could be used with any Product advertised. However, this doesn't mean you have found a Good product To Sell - as this thread is leaning towards - but how to find something people might have an interest in and be willing to spend money on. They BUY the mag because of the Articles (in a sense they are buying the articles) and so it could stand to reason those readers might also be willing to buy more articles or information.

Any Examples pop into your head when you think of the Sentence above "people who are shopping on ebay for..."??

Michael Ross