You know, what works for us may not work for others - and vice versa. If LensWork were a traditional magazine - with advertising, full sized, printed on a web press, etc. - there would be no way I would be absent from the newsstands - at least not today. It's too crucial a component to the total business strategy. However, LensWork isn't your traditional magazine. In fact, we even resist the word "magazine" because that conjures up a vision of a type of publication that simply isn't what LensWork is. Unfortunately, after 15 years of publication, we've never found a suitable substitute term that better describes what LensWork is.
I've always lamented that LensWork cannot be over with the other photography books, but it can't. It must have an ISSN number (as opposed to an ISBN number) according to postal regulations so it can be mailed via our periodicals permit. Because it has an ISSN number, bookstores insist it is a magazine and refuse to allow it onto the same shelves as books. Your rock and your hard place. Oh, well. The place I've always really wanted LensWork is in the hands, hearts, and minds of readers who love it. Thanks!
The other factor that has so radically changed the world since we began LensWork is, obviously, the Internet. The newsstands used to be the only way to get exposure for one's publication and the only way to find new magazine subscribers. We've seen the impact of the newsstand continually diminish over the years as more and more people now use the Internet for information. For example, in the 1980s I was an avid photography magazine subscriber so I could read camera reviews and keep abreast of the latest equipment. Sometimes it would take months for a review to appear of a particular camera I was interested in. Who waits now? With the likes of dpreview.com and a thousand other websites, all such information is available 24/7, instantly, at our fingertips. Forums like this one are such a great resource for the information I used to look for in magazines. I used to look to magazines for buying things, too. How many people still read those ads from Adorama and the like with the tiny, tiny print in the back of the magazines like we used to way back when? Now, I can find virtually anything I want from ever-so-many resources online by simply typing it into Google. In the 1970s I lived for Shutterbug where I could find used LF gear. Now there's eBay with everything my heart could desire.
The bottom line is that the purpose and roll of magazines in today's culture is changing. They aren't what they used to be. Ergo, neither is the newsstand. Think about the very term - "newsstand." Do we go to the newsstand for news? Maybe some folks do, but in the age of media, the newsstand is no longer the newsstand, either.
Our thinking about this and our decision to leave the newsstand was motivated by the waste of resources, as I discussed in my comments in LensWork #75. However, the comfort level in making this decision was enhanced with the realization that consumer patterns are changing in this age of the Internet. We might be the first in the photography world to take this step, but I suspect the magazine business will undergo lots of changes in the next 5-10-20 years. This is not, BTW, anything unique to LensWork or the other photography magazines. Look at what's happening to newspaper and magazine circulations everywhere. It's a changing world!
So, we are still planning on growth. We have had an increase in subscriptions for 75 issues in a row and see no reason for that to diminish. I guess the proof in the pudding is that LensWork Extended has never been on the newsstands and it has more subscribers now than we had for the magazine alone on our 10th anniversary issue! Thanks, everyone!
Brooks Jensen
Editor, LensWork Publishing
Good to hear, Brooks.
Keep up the great work!
Best wishes Brooks!
I look forward to each and every issue (and podcast btw).
Héctor Navarro Agraz
Brooks, good to hear Lenswork business is up. However, I was convinced to subscribe Lenswork Extended (in addition to the standard version) by your free disk sent with printed issue last year. It is not that I was against, I was rather not interested in this form of Lenswork. Simply as a person working in front of the monitor entire day I do not enjoy reading from the computer screen too much (reason I prefer traditional wet darkroom). Now I have to admit your disk is worth the "effort", especially that quality is excellent. Still, if I would have to choose only one version, it would be the printed one.
I recently bought what, will probably be my last issue of Lenswork. It is a fine magazine, but there is just too much digital content in it for me to subscribe. But, I wish Brooks the best, regardless.
I thought LensWork is just about photography. You subscribe to the content, not the way it is produced.
As for doing away with newsstands, it seems pretty simple: you loose all your newsstand sales and are stuck with the subscribers. The publisher will easily know whether that's a problem or not (economically speaking).
Greg Lockrey
Wealth is a state of mind.
Money is just a tool.
Happiness is pedaling +25mph on a smooth road.
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