Appraisal of a market:
Cycling Magazines
Geoff Caldwell
‘A student-researched appraisal of a
specific market, discussing openings for writers, rules for submission and the
current state of the market’
INTRODUCTION
I have consulted three editors from different places in the cycling magazine spectrum. Rob Spedding (RS) edits Cycling Plus which is a relatively recent but nevertheless powerful player in the mainstream, principally road cycling field. It is a member of the Future Publishing Group. I consulted him by phone. He was gratifyingly generous in his time and responses in view of his position as a busy major player.
Peter Eland edits Velo Vision, a well established and well respected
niche magazine published quarterly and Dan Joyce edits ‘Cycle’ a magazine
linked to membership of Cyclists’ Touring Club, a long established cycling
organisation. ‘Cycle’ is not available on newsstands but still manages to have
the second largest circulation in the
The Magazine Group (‘magazine subscriptions made easy’) lists ten cycling
magazines. A surprisingly high proportion of the list is for
OPENINGS FOR WRITERS
Peter Eland of Velo Vision operates
a mixed way of working. He tends to do reviews, show reports and news himself.
Readers contribute quite a good number of other articles (unpaid usually) and
he occasionally uses freelancers or commissions. Dan Joyce of
commissions. Rob Spedding deals only with established cycling free lance journalists whose copy he knows he can trust. In his experience, free copy or amateur copy is liable to be poor copy. He always pays for copy which he believes you have to do if you want reliable quality.
RULES FOR SUBMISSION
Peter Eland says his rules for submission are ‘not terribly formal’. There is quite a large discussion from him on:
http://www.velovision.com/contributors.html
But there is so much material in it, only some snippets can be included here.
For example, he specifies YES TO:
readers letters, a review of a bike, trike or component, feedback on
interesting items purchased, feedback and progress on a bike component you are
developing yourself and information on or about an
interesting cycle activity, culture, promotional activity, cycle business...
anything that would interest him and other readers! On the other hand he would
say NO TO: cycle racing, racing history, race coverage or the like, mountain biking (unless its something like innovative
designs for off-roading beyond standard
The lesson
is that you (the writer) have to gear your submissions accurately to the market
niche of a magazine. However, other, more general criteria also apply. Peter
provides a very generous section on submission advice for prospective writers
with tips such as:
‘Preliminaries: If
you have an idea, please drop me an email or phone up to discuss it. That could
save time later...’
and ‘bear
your audience in mind’, be informal, add human interest and so on. Dan Joyce not
only has very helpful advice that has much in common with Peters, but will send
you a five page set of guidelines on request. As mentioned above, Rob Spedding has
no formal guidelines or rules for submission.
The need to identify the suitable target
suggests you need to thoroughly research your cycling magazines before you
start. Also, you are probably better off not approaching the major players
until you have established some credibility with one of the minor or niche
ones.
In ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations) I can only find two currently active magazines listed which are Cycling Plus (a monthly) published by Future Publishing Ltd and Cycling Weekly published by IPC Media Ltd. A third magazine appears to have gone out of business. Interestingly, Cycling Plus, produced by a less well know publisher than IPC (I suppose) and relatively recent to the scene (1992), has grown steadily in circulation over the last decade to 40784 per month over the last year to September. Even though his magazine has been very successful and solid in its growth (10% per annum year on year) Rob Spedding still feels pressure in the market place. A notable pressure is that from copy cat publishing wherein somebody notes your success and attempts to produce a copycat product, perhaps a little cheaper, to carve itself out a piece of your success. Cycling Weekly, previously the market dominant product, produced by the better know and possibly more powerful publisher (IPC) and around for a long time (1960), fell back in circulation during the 90’s decade but has since recovered, (29029 per week year to Sept). Can we really say these two magazines are rivals since one is a monthly and the other a weekly? To what extent can the emergence of this new monthly (new in 1992) be said to have detracted from the sales of an established weekly?
Peter Eland of VeloVision finds that things are pretty competitive,
especially where news-stand publications are concerned. There are lots of road racing
and
Dan Joyce has the security of having the circulation of
Dan also makes an elementary but important distinction between copy sales and advertising sales that I had overlooked, in my ignorance. The two can move independently of each other. Rob supports this view. For him, income from each is about 50/50% at the moment but the advertising is getting to be the stronger of the two.
I speculate that merely to increase circulation is not necessarily the way to go for increased profitability unless this allows higher advertising rates. These in turn may be counterproductive, meeting resistance from advertisers who retaliate by reducing their patronage, causing advertising revenue to actually drop. I don’t know how advertising is priced. Is it fixed price in which case there’s less incentive to push for a circulation increase? A circulation increase will only generate an increase in income if the copy price genuinely incorporates a profit margin.
Dan also makes the niche point that different magazines focus on different areas within the whole and have subtly different target readerships but there has, in any case, been a growth in interest in cycling generally and in the words of his nicely resurrected cliché, ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’ That’s an interesting point. Apparently, as far as the cycle magazine market is concerned, there are positive forces at work even more powerful than the negative ones of the current recession and which may even have arisen as a reaction to it and to which increasing green concerns are also contributing; it’s an ill wind, they say.
THE FUTURE
Consideration of the future of cycle magazine publishing seems to have broader implications about magazine publishing and magazine journalism as a whole. For example, the emergence of digital publishing for this type of product is becoming a major factor. Rob Spedding will have to take account of both of Ipad and Smart phone interactivity as well as internet publishing, in the future.
Personally, I prefer to read hard old fashioned hard copy (as does Rob Spedding) but in the longer term, the traditional magazine may become largely redundant.
VeloVision magazine exists in three formats; as conventional hard copy, as online digital equivalent that incorporates additional features such as links not possible in hard copy and as PDF. I’d imagine PDF will become an increasingly popular option for us hard copy buffs. PDF strategy could be extended to developing comprehensive coverage of your interest through investigation of cycling magazine archives.
Taking a broader view, as the technological revolution increases the range of options it may be possible to increase the range of readership and therefore its size. There must be net savvy potential readers who can’t be bothered to go to WH Smiths in town to make a purchase, or even to opt for a postal subscription through a provider like The Magazine Group but who would be happy to subscribe to something that is accessible from their computer and would give them flexible choices of content. They could shape their own version of a particular magazine for example. Also, they could net subscribe to a whole range of cycling magazines, which in the traditional magazine situation would previously have been totally impracticable, making it possible to construct their own weekly or monthly selection, for example.
But where do advertisers fit into all this? Logically, they will want to be placed amongst the most net popular copy. They will have unwitting, accurate content control much more than they could with a complete hard copy magazine. Forecasting as to the most popular articles and therefore, the best advertising vehicles, will become critical and a very powerful and influential tool, perhaps even taking editorial control out of the hands of conventional editor’s altogether or at least changing the role definition of the editor.
The cycling press have a dependency on the very industry they are reporting on to the extent that it might be in their interests to invest more in it and that might be beneficial to the cycling scene as a whole.
Cycling events need to be as stimulating a read as possible which is partly to do with the event but also with its reporting. The journalist that that can consistently turn a disappointingly dull event into something better has got to be regarded as gold dust in the trade. Ultimately, will honest reporting be replaced by vicarious sensationalism as has happened in the newspaper industry?
The fundamental principles of how to write for a cycling magazine as outlined by editors like Peter Eland and Dan Joyce I imagine have general applicability. Good journalism, as implied in their submission rules, exists irrespective of the context. As a primers of ‘how to write for magazines’ their articles on rules for submission are at least as valuable as any material to be found on a creative and professional writing course. They are based on a view of sound journalism arising from masses of editorial experience and they come free, but will they be adequate for the digital age?
Cycling is possibly unusual in the magazine market in that there is still a healthy amateur representation in its culture, as represented in its journalism. Those who are trying to make a living or even a profit in the cycling magazine market might regret that state of affairs but for me it means it’s still in touch with its roots and that is its strength.