With Magazine Advertising, Artists and Galleries Need To Ask Tough Questions
WAJ Prides Itself On Telling Good Stories And No Ad Gimmicks
Written by Wildlife Art Journal Staff (Authors Bio)
Posted: January 17th 2012
When was the last time you bought an expensive ad in a printed art magazine and felt satisfied?
We hear a lot of grumbling about how artists are treated by certain print magazines. And we're sympathetic to your beef. Some artists feel as if they are taken advantage of, and that the investments they make in advertising never seem to pay dividends.
"We don't know what to do," artists have complained. "The stories being written are puffy and shallow. Our ads seldom generate any phone calls, let alone sales."
What can and should you do? Be discerning. Don't be afraid to ask tough questions. Demand more from print magazines and tell them you expect more. Ask yourself: Are the ad strategies being sold to me by print magazines really worth it?
Wildlife Art Journal is an online magazine and it offers stories about nature art and artists that are unsurpassed. All you have to do is read what's on our virtual pages. What other magazines tout as being "major features" or "art journalism", we consider to be mere abbreviations and shameless ways of selling ads. Some magazines don't care about you. They only want to take your money.
Here are a few questions to consider:
° If a magazine demands that you pay out of your own pocket to be in their magazine, ask them why? Wildlife Art Journal never tells artists, "If you pay us a few hundred dollars, we'll mention you in a story." That isn't journalism.
° If a magazine tells you it will cost you thousands of dollars to buy an ad in their print edition, ask how long the shelf life of the ad is? Indeed, that's the problem with ads in print magazines. The magazine may be out on newstands for one or two months, but then they vanish. Is that kind of investment worth it? At Wildlife Art Journal, you get more by paying less—for ads and for a subscription to the magazine. Online is the future, whether one accepts the inevitability or not.
° If the magazine claims that artists and galleries advertising in its print magazine are regularly selling artwork out of its pages, it's only fair that you ask the magazine to prove it. Is it a regular occurrence or merely anecdotal? If you have advertised with one of these magazines, you should ask yourself: Can I be more effective pursuing a different strategy?
These are tough times for everyone in the art world—for artists, galleries and collectors. We empathize. You need to be savvy; you need to be strategic; and you need to support a magazine that puts a premium value on telling great stories, valuing the artists whose work it highlights and doesn't treat you as a mere commodity.
We can't guarantee that you'll ever make a sale by buying an ad with us. We're just being honest. But readers of Wildlife Art Journal will tell you: Our stories and ads are memorable and they help elevate the profile of great artists and galleries to the attention of collectors.
Spot on
From Todd Wilkinson, Wildlife Art Journal Editor
I’m actually glad you asked the question: Why isn’t WAJ printed in hard copy form?
First of all, happy holidays!
A few years ago I appeared on a panel discussion about media at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. My friend, the Swedish painter Lars Jonsson, was in the audience with his dear friend, Kent Ullberg. Lars confessed, with some pride, that he is basically computer illiterate, that he isn’t a big fan of the Internet and doesn’t have a lot of time for it, apart from his painting and family time.
I told him that I understand. I, too, have neo-Luddite tendencies, for as a journalist I am old-fashioned and relish holding paper publications in my hand. Unfortunately, the reading public, and the younger generations don’t care what my sentimental preferences are. In half a decade, I’ve literally watched the print industry that I was raised in crumble, like dinosaurs being struck by a meteor. Newspapers and magazines are link endangered species with the vital habitat they need for survival winnowing away, never to return.
I am a media junkie and as part of my work have interviewed the chief marketing officers at some of the largest companies in the world. I just read a statistic that says within a few years, there are likely to be only four major printed newspapers in the US still left standing. Every day, more and more printed magazines, too, are going out of business because their blueprint for operation isn’t sustainable. That’s not my conjecture; it’s a fact.
So the reality is: What good would it be to publish a few paper issues of Wildlife Art Journal if it means the economics aren’t there to support it. I’m not into this for personal ego. It’s to build a global audience for wildlife and nature art that hasn’t existed before.
As I told Lars Jonsson, artists, like the media, need to stay relevant with the way society is changing, or they’re liable to perish. Print magazines are failing for a number of reasons: They are exceptionally expensive to produce, they have a short shelf life, most of them have ever-shorter stories that are brief, dumbed down and frankly not very interesting. A blunt fact is that most of the printed art magazines out there all read and look the same. They exist as vehicles for advertising, not for bringing artists, collectors, galleries, museums, and the general public together around the nexus of good storytelling.
In addition to being expensive to produce, most print magazines charge thousands of dollars for ad space, which artists and galleries are reluctant to pay and often they feel disappointed after the fact. They feel like they’ve shot their wad and spent a lot of cash on expected sales that didn’t pan out.
I am, in my heart of hearts, a journalist. Quality content matters, so does having ready access to our archives so that if you miss a story, you can easily find it. I believe that if readers are going to make the effort to reach your site they need to be rewarded for it.
At the same time, I’ve tried to make WAJ more than affordable. Readers are getting stories here that they won’t find anywhere else. And they’re able to get them for a fraction of the cost they are paying to subscribe to other art magazines. $12 a year for a subscription to WAJ is less than the cost for two people to go to the movies, or a quarter of a tank of gas or a pizza (or a couple of tubes of paint). Is that really too much? I don’t think so.
In three short years we’ve built up a readership that extends around the world. Lars Jonsson is a great, great artist and given my own Scandinavian heritage, I feel a special affinity for his work. As printed magazines and old gallery models become obsolete, artists who stubbornly stay away from digital do so at their own peril. They risk becoming irrelevant. While the new, young hungry generations out there may not have grown up reading the morning newspaper or subscribing to print magazines, their lifestyle revolves around being connected. They have buying power. Increasingly, those of the Baby Boom generation and older, are making the switch to online. (Those who wish to print out WAJ stories can do so and read them on the couch or before they go to sleep at night).
Artists and galleries begrudgingly are waking up to the fact that the internet is where they can find collectors faster, better, cheaper. Wildlife Art Journal exists with them in mind. Thanks, Kate, for your note.
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