The collision at the heart of production

To say change is a constant in our business is a thumping cliche. Yet, like many cliches, it is true, and nowhere more than in the production department. 

From time to time I have guests attend the class I teach at Ryerson University (Magazine and Website Publishing) to give the students a perspective from people who are doing what we're talking about. Last night it was Kim Latreille, the national production director of St. Joseph Media and, after her visit, she posted an item on her blog about the experience -- and mostly about how difficult it is these days to explain what she does.

Gone are the days when that was a simple explanation. When faced with the question “What do you do?” at the top of the class, I had a difficult time answering.

What I do has morphed from what used to be a more simple, hands-on affair where the majority of my time was spent planning a single publishing schedule for each magazine, negotiating print contracts, booking in film for advertisements, maintaining deadlines and sorting out print budgets, to something I can’t explain in a way that has anyone comprehending how I spend my time or what I do exactly.

And they also glaze over.

Or drift into a lolling slumber.

Latreille says that print production has been digital since the early 1990s, so developing and working with it is "old hat". One of the biggest challenges is adapting to rapidly changing technology and bringing colleagues along.

The technology we use today resembles nothing we used 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. In fact, it is changing so rapidly, it’s hard to stay on top of it.

I find, as someone who sits in the middle of print and digital publishing, that due to my experience with print, it is up to folks like me to help our publishers sort out the mess that has become publishing, where two worlds are colliding that up to now have not spoken the same language.

If you want to learn more, Kim is to teach her 13-week evening course in Magazine Production at Ryerson University starting  Tuesday, May 1. It's on the menu of courses offered in the Magazine and Web Publishing program at the Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson.

A compressed and amusing view of how a magazine is made

Here, (thanks to the magCulture blog), is a happily frenetic video portrayal of how an issue of the British magazine Little White Lies is made.

"We wanted to make a short film that captured some of the love, care and hand-crafted passion that goes into the making of an issue of LWLies. We produce six issues each year, and for the two month period that we're working on a particular issue, we totally immerse ourselves in the movie and in the production process. While we obviously embrace digital in all forms, first and foremost we're makers of honest, tangible and fine-smelling objects, and we hope that comes across in some way here.

We filmed this ourselves over the course of November/December 2010, and the film was edited for us by our friends at production company Archer's Mark.

Darren Aronofsky's musical collaborator Clint Mansell kindly offered us use of the track 'A Swan is Born' from his Black Swan soundtrack, and so we've called our short film 'A Magazine is Born'."

Little White Lies is published 6 times a year in London.

Making customized magazines

Interesting video showing how Wallpaper* magazine recently provided its readers with an opportunity to custom-design their covers, using a toolkit of icons, type and artwork. [thanks to Magculture]

Publishers' outsourcing of pre-press steadily growing

It would seem that magazine publishers, at least in the U.S. (and probably in Canada) are moving steadily away from doing all of their own pre-press in-house. According to Folio: magazine's 2010 manufacturing and production trends research, the number of publishers doing it all themselves was 60% last year and only 51% this year. Complete outsourcing has stayed steady at about 17% of publishers.

Interestingly, the majority of respondents to the survey spent less than $5,000 on new technology last year and just 2% said they spent more than $200k.

Fast track production system will shorten deadlines for ads in Rogers consumer magazines

Rogers Publishing says it is launching its promised Pressxpress production schedule with the January 2010 issues of Chatelaine and its French counterpart Châtelaine. This will be followed by the March 2010 issues of Flare, Today's Parent, Loulou and Glow.  Under the new sped- up manufacturing and production system, advertisers can submit material for publication within two weeks of the final issue being in readers' hands.

"When combined with the flexibility and speed-to-market already offered by Rogers’ weekly and bi-monthly titles — such as celebrity weekly Hello! Canada, current affairs weekly Maclean’s, L'actualité and Canadian Business — the Pressexpress schedule offers advertisers the agility they require to reach some of Canada’s most highly-engaged readers and consumers,." the company said in a release. 

Rogers and Transcon team up to cut ad insertion lead times to 2 weeks

Canada's two largest magazine publishing companies, Rogers Publishing and Transcontinental Media, have announced that they are cooperating in cutting the lead times for advertisers' insertion in the companies' monthly magazines. Pressexpress is an ad-close schedule that means ad creative can be sumbitted only two weeks prior to publication.

Brian Segal, president and CEO of Rogers told Marketing magazine that Pressexpress will make advertising more atttractive.

“Both us and Transcontinental were of the view that we needed to reset the position of magazines within the minds of media buyers,” said Segal. “We think it helps reposition the industry in terms of being more urgent, more timely and more competitive with some of the other media cycles.

“My sense is that [advertisers] will see more opportunities to match merchandising strategy and marketing planning with advertising. If they know they have eight or 10 or 12 merchandising events or cycles that they’re working on for the year, but that [under the previous ad-close schedule] the creative might not be ready, they’ll now have the option to buy magazines where they may not have before.”

Transcontinental now has a long-term contract to print all of Rogers magazines, so the ad insertion system is a natural extension of their business collaboration.

Francine Tremblay, senior vice-president, consumer magazines for Transcontinental Media, said:

“Advertisers are always waiting to see what the latest thing is before making a final decision,” said Tremblay. “Final decisions are critical in our industry, and the more information you have, the best final decision you will make.”

Rogers plans to launch the Pressexpress schedule for the January 2010 issues of Chatelaine and Châtelaine, with the March issues of Today’s Parent, Flare, Glow, Pure and the French and English versions of LouLou to follow. Schedules for the company’s weekly and bi-weekly consumer magazines, such as Maclean’s, Hello! and Canadian Business, will not be affected as the already provide short lead times.

Transcontinental will launch Pressexpress with the January issues of Canadian Living and Coup de Pouce, with other titles to follow in March and April.

Concept to finished mag in a day and a half

In a day and a half, Derek Powazek created a one-off magazine called Strange Light about the red duststorm that swept eastern Australia. He blogs about how he created the finished product, complete with 54 gorgeous photos (cleared with the photographers) in less than two days. We read about it in Nieman Journalism Labs.

Quick turnarounds are not exactly new, with insta-books and special commemorative issues (for example, Michael Jackson's death). But usually those are repurposing and expanding existing, syndicated or archival content. The interesting thing about Powazek's mag is that it illustrates how digital production tools and small-batch printing can really cut the angle.

Of course Powazek has a vested interest since he's involved in MagCloud with Hewlett-Packard, the system used to produce this special issue. But it is still very cool and should set publishers to thinking about customized editorial products that could spin out of their organizations without increasing overheads. I imagine the thing that will slow these products down is the difficulties of getting the printed product distributed. But with digital and online delivery, even that becomes manageable.

Paid ad traffic management portal launched by BC publisher

[This post has been updated]Media Hill Publications Inc. of Burnaby, B.C. has announced the launch of AdSupplier.com an integrated online ad traffic management application designed to fit the needs of the small to mid-size magazine publisher.

Billing itself as an “ad traffic management portal” AdSupplier’s features include: automated insertion order confirmations; email reminders of approaching deadlines; an ad transfer portal with the ability to accept multiple file types and instructions; posting of online soft proofs for approval or change instructions.

According to president Michael Alexander, “Most of the ad portals out there have been designed for the big name publishers who no longer have the time, resources or desire to work with advertisers on ad files. Ad transfer portals such as SendMyAd tend to focus on pre-flight activities and require the advertiser to be capable of supplying almost flawless press ready files. In our experience the small to mid-size publisher is still providing customer service to advertisers by accepting a variety of file formats, working on creative and making changes to ads. Much as the industry as a whole may be trying to move beyond these activities the reality is that most publishers would not get their publications to press on time if they had to wait for their advertisers to get their files perfect.”

Magazines Canada recently launched a free online portal based on SendMyAd. [Update: The use of the site is free to advertisers and agencies; Magazines Canada has negotiated a transation-based group rate for publishers. Files may be of any size. AdDirect performs both an ad preflight and a delivery service within the rate.]

AdSupplier is a monthly subscription service with fees ranging from $39.95 to $89.95 per month. Trial versions are available.

Media Hill is a company specializing in wedding market publications and websites. Its principal publication is The Complete Wedding Directory, which has been published annually since 1996. In 2001 it launched Real Weddings Magazine and the following year acquired 12-year old Westcoast Bridal Guide from its original publisher. According to the company's website, it began developing and using the ad portal internally four years ago using a sophisticated SQL database back end.

Ad preflight portal has signed up 90 titles

More than 90 magazines have signed up for AdDirect™, Magazines Canada’s web-based magazine ad preflight and delivery portal, launched last month. The service, which was launched in July, automatically validates client PDF ad files against your own unique publishing specifications and instantly delivers them to you, print-ready, along with an automatic digital notification that the ad file is available.

Magazines Canada launches ad portal to automate workflows

Magazines Canada has launched AdDirect™, a free, web-based ad preflighting and delivery portal that will help to automate workflow and ad handling for advertisers and advertising agencies. The new portal is powered by SendMyAd.

AdDirect™ automatically validates ad files against Magazines Canada and publishers’ specifications and instantly delivers them to any participating title. Plus senders receive an automatic digital receipt providing assurance that the ad has been received.

"Ad portals are the next logical step towards workflow automation,” says Gary Garland, Executive Director, Advertising Services at Magazines Canada. "With AdDirect™, agencies and advertisers can now easily and immediately upload, check and send ads with confidence that their files are print-ready. You can even deliver files to multiple participating publishers with just one upload."

Advertisers and agencies have been invited to join a free live webinar (registration required) to view how the system works and ask questions Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 1 p.m.

A demo of the SendMyAd system is available and interested agencies and advertisers can set up an account and start submitting ads immediately.

Your name and rep here; Graphic Arts hyper-customizes its covers

Graphic Arts magazine, a Newmarket-based business-to-business title has published an October issue in which all three covers are customized to the customer receiving them, according to a story in Media in Canada. The project was carried out for Fujifilm Canada and, in the process, the magazine produced more than 428,000 variations on its covers.

Graphic Arts is published 10 times a year and has a request and controlled circulation of 12,700 trade professionals in Canada and the United States.

Selective binding and inkjet customization are commonplaces in the industry, but this is much more sophisticated. The covers are customized based on the position of the customer, company size and type of business.

The front covers had a zipper ad for Fujifilm along the bottom, with pictures of the subscriber's local Fujifilm account representative and ad content based on whether the subscriber is a current Fujifilm customer, plus sales territory and customer status.

The inside front cover showed how the cover was generated for each recipient and the inside back cover showed the subscriber's actual Fujifilm team depending on what territory the customer was in. The back cover had ads from companies that were involved in the production, RP Graphics and Data Business Solutions, personalized with each subscriber's name and company.

Fujifilm initiated the project, bringing in industry expert Terminal Van Gogh, a marketing and database specialist, for creative, programming and production. After the creative was finished, the first step was for the magazine to provide TVG with subscription information. TVG then extracted key demographic information and overlaid the combined database with Fujifilm's own customer database.

TVG CEO David Murdoch says the process generated more than 428,000 different covers and combinations - not including names and addresses. The bottom line for marketers, he adds, is, "You no longer have to fit a square peg into a round hole."

(There was no indication of what it cost Fujifilm. An outside back cover on the magazine would normally cost $3,200.)

Quebecor closes Vancouver mag printing plant

Quebecor is closing a profitable magazine printing plant in Vancouver, throwing 200 people out of work, becuse it doesn't like its contract with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP). At least that's what the president of Canada's largest media union, Dave Coles, is saying publicly. The Southeast Marine Drive plant prints many west coast titles.

"I am surprised and disappointed that Quebecor has decided to abandon its employees," says the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union president in a letter to Wes W. Lucas, president and CEO of Quebecor. The comments were reported in a news release from the CEP.

The plant, in operation at that location for more than 50 years, prints a host of familiar magazines as well as products destined for other markets and the popular new commuter daily, 24 Hours. It employs 130 unionized workers and about 60 non-union staff, said the release.

"This facility is profitable," says union Local president Alex Charles. "The employer called all of the staff together to congratulate them on meeting their sales targets for the year - by April - and two days later assembled them again to tell them the place was closing."

"That's a pretty powerful admission," Charles observed. "Even though they're still getting their profit, they're closing the place because they think the workers there make too much. That's just spiteful. It's a lousy way to treat the people that have been generating your company's wealth".

"This highly profitable employer is simply trying to send a message to working people that it's okay for corporations to make good money, but not for workers," said Charles. "That's not going to wash in Canada in the twenty-first century. Our members won't be pushed backwards, to face tomorrow's prices with yesterday's wages. What is this company thinking?"

Quebecor World buys digital prepress specialist firm

Quebecor World Inc., the heavyweight magazine printer, has beefed up its prepress capabilities by acquiring Colorscope, a California-based specialist boutique firm in digital media management and overseas production support. No price was disclosed.

The company, founded in 1976, has facilities in Los Angeles and San Francisco, Seattle and Shanghai. The president of Colorscope, Andrew Cha, becomes the president of the Premedia Division.