Read All About It: Print is Alive and Kicking

Print is not dead.

It's not even under the weather, according to local entrepreneur Brian Edwards, who is taking a somewhat contrarian view of the publishing business by launching a monthly printed magazine that covers greater Lansing, Mount Pleasant, Jackson, and western Livingston County. 

 "Print is just fine," insists Edwards, 45, president of REVUE Holding Co. in Grand Rapids that publishes the newly launched REVUE Mid Michigan and the REVUE  entertainment monthly magazine that has served an audience of primarily 18-34 year olds in West Michigan for two decades.

"It will always have a place along with other forms of media," he says. "People are very tactile. They still like print media; they like its look and feel."

Edwards is a veteran of the media business with additional background in marketing, public relations, and corporate development. He has been a partner, co-owner, or founder of several businesses and enjoys the challenge of building a successful enterprise. Edwards would not divulge financial information about the privately held REVUE Holding Co., but he expects this year's revenues to more than double over 2008.

"I'm an entrepreneur," Edwards says. "I've been around 20 years and I'm always looking for an opportunity. We saw one here in Grand Rapids when we purchased the first REVUE magazine."

That was last year and, after a successful makeover, the publication is turning a fair profit.  So will REVUE Mid Michigan, which broke even its first month of operation, Edwards says.
 
Who's Dooming Who?
Are Edwards and company just lucky? Or have they have found some magic in an industry where projections grow more dire by the day?

For instance, a recent report by  the Newspaper Association of America, indicated that newspaper ad revenue dropped by nearly 30 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

The once tried and true classified sections of newspapers have declined by over 40 percent, losing revenue to options such as Craigslist and Kijiji. Web advertising cut further into print budgets. Roughly $1 billion in American advertising shifted from print and television to the Web last year.

Magazines suffered just as much. According to Media Industry Newsletter, ad pages in national magazines dipped an average of 22 percent from the first half of 2008 through the first half of 2009. In addition, more than 500 magazines folded within the last year.

While the numbers don't lie, they don't tell the whole story. 

"We look at what we value," Edwards explains. "A good niche publication will always survive."

The key word in this equation is niche, and whether it is news, sports, or entertainment, it has to find and hold its audience.

Finding the Right Niche 
Niche publications are a specialty of Gemini Publications, a Grand Rapids-based company owned and operated by John Zwarensteyn since 1979. Gemini currently produces 10 publications in the West Michigan market. One of them, Grand Rapids Magazine, has been around for nearly 40 years and is still going strong.

"The print market in West Michigan is fine," asserts Zwarensteyn, 64. "If you find the right niche you can have incredible success."

Zwarensteyn has his own take on media struggles: "Mass media continues to shoot themselves in the foot by giving away content for free." He adds that the Internet alone is not the answer. 

"Webs are run by aggregators — like Yahoo and Google," he points out. "They determine the value of the space. Unless you're a really small operation you won't make enough money to pay the bills.

"There has to be a print presence. Even if you are directing people to a site, they have to have directions." 

Internet-based publications create a dilemma for advertisers as well, Zwarensteyn suggests: "People in branding have a lot more choices to make. You can't brand just based on the Internet. Print is measurable. Web audiences are not. We are still developing measurement rules for on-line activity."

Zwarensteyn is not about resisting change, however, but about being practical. Like the REVUE, Gemini publications have a web presence, including social network sites.

What it seems to come down to is finding an audience and a manageable market. Both Edwards and Zwarensteyn agree that, even now, it's fairly easy to start a publication.

"When we looked at markets, every GR-sized market has a print publication," Edwards says ."They're usually run by hobbyists, former journalists...usually in their home."

Yet as easily as they're launched, they're often just as easily sinking.

"What happens is that they end up struggling to sell advertising, or trying to adapt to the Web," Edwards says. "They get into a defensive mode and stand still rather than invest."

But the opportunity is always there. 

Building a Bigger and Better Publication 
This is what Edwards and his business partner, Remos Lenio, saw in the REVUE when they purchased the publication in 2008.

The REVUE was started by Doug Fast in 1988 and had a loyal following for a number of years operating as what Edwards affectionately calls "West Michigan's dirty little rock magazine."

"It was growing...Doug had a good strategy," Edwards says. "Then 9/11 hit and people stopped going out. The entertainment industry was hit hard so Doug sold it to a radio guy. We bought it from him last year."

Edwards viewed the publication as "a 20-year-old startup. We wanted to remake it. We tried to use best practices, to run it like a growth investment. We wanted to use it as a platform to branch into web content and acquire similar publications."

Edwards' background in journalism and public relations were key elements in the REVUE's makeover. He was a contract writer and columnist, focusing on real estate and technology, for The Chicago Tribune for more than 10 years. He worked as a vice-president for Seyferth & Associates Inc. public relations firm in Grand Rapids in the 1990s and later co-founded his own PR and communications company, Lambert,  Edwards & Associates, Inc.

"I think what I've learned is that good feature journalism and good marketing are not all that different," Edwards says. "We put that into practice here. We present the things we write the way readers want them. We work to make them pertinent. And we try to be hyper-local — people can read about Jewel on the Internet.

"We work hard on presentation. We have a full-time print publication designer...we try to use local images on our cover." The October issue of the REVUE is a perfect example, featuring the Grand Rapids Ballet's presentation of "Jack the Ripper."

And, in what Edwards considers a vital plank in the company's business plan, the REVUE publications also serve as adjuncts to their advertisers' marketing efforts.

"We're not just interested in selling ads," he explains. "We ask what we can do to help. We design ads. We do copy writing. This is allowing us to grow."

In addition to Edwards, the REVUE has two full-time editors, a handful of regular freelancers, and  a group of young, ambitious talent, known as minions, who work largely for free tickets and backstage passes. The minions get access to artists and a forum for their work. The REVUE keeps operating costs at a minimum.
 
Good seats still available
While the magazine is the centerpiece, Edwards relies on a range of marketing options to optimize effectiveness. "We use street teamwork," he explains. "Posters, leafleting, along with social networking — Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. It's a broader tool kit."

Edwards also tracks events to ensure information us up to date.

"We only write about things that are going to happen," he says. "And we try to make sure there are still tickets available for an event we promote. We might tweet, for example, about pre-sale ticket information and provide a link and a password."

It all seems to be working. Each REVUE publication placed 15,000 copies in its market in October. With its pass-along rate, blogs and social networking, Edwards figures REVUE averages roughly 100,000 readers per month.

As the REVUE publications grow, they will be further refined. What it comes down to, according to Edwards, is "finding how to take print publications and maximize them; to turn them into a model; to build a platform to replicate that model.

"We want people to look at us as the match.com for entertainment," Edwards says.

He estimates that REVUE publications cover about a quarter of the state, including close to a quarter-million college students.

That's a decent base for any communications venture, one that Edwards plans to build on by launching two or three new publications next year.

And you can print that.