Welcome Back!
This blog will be a continuation to the previous blog, we will continue to focus on the History of a Magazine.
Development of money-making magazines
Learning from early American Magazines, publishers began producing less expensive magazines in the 1830s, the decline in the cost of printing and mailing helped and possibly encouraged this development. This meant magazines weren’t focused on selling to just a higher class.In addition, publishers started focusing their magazines on reaching a wider audience, they learned from early American magazines that reaching a writer audience will attract more readers which will gain more profit.
This is also around the time magazines started getting closer or related to the modern magazines today, starting with the style. Earlier on, magazines mainly consisted of information and advice, but publishers soon realized that those topics don’t attract as much attention as entertainment and amusement. However, based on reaching a wider audience, different types of magazines began surfacing. Family, children’s, and especially women’s magazines were being put out by many publishers. Similar to British magazines, women’s magazines became popular very quickly and it’s proved to be a real money-maker. In fact, one of earliest American women’s magazines was Godey’s Lady’s Book, a Philadelphia-based monthly, printed between 1830 and 1898. This magazine alone reached a plethora of women readers along with leading to the employment of about 150 women.
The start of a revolution: The Saturday Evening Post
The magazine that created a revolution in the magazine business was named The Saturday Evening Post, a weekly magazine that first began printing in 1821 and remained in regular print production until 1969, when it momentarily ceased circulation. In 1971, this magazine was changed to focus on health and medicine news or breakthroughs. However, this wasn’t what made this magazine so popular, it was its format.
The Saturday Evening Post was the first magazine to put artwork on its cover. It’s publishers said that this decision “connected readers intimately with the magazine as a whole”. Not only did it do that, it became widely recognized and grew in popularity. By 1855, it had a circulation of already 90,000 copies, not only that, its publishers came up with a way to increase it popularity along with making more money. The cover of The Saturday Evening Post was used to feature artworks from famous artists, this would generate publicity for those artists and attract attention to not only a larger audience, but also a wider profit margin. Works by famous artists such as Norman Rockwell, was used, so instead of releasing artwork by themselves, The Saturday Evening Post served as a way to release that artwork. This would have different audiences awaiting the next publication. However, this didnt stop at artwork, this idea traveled to including famous authors and writers such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, and Ring Lardner. Gaining all of this popularity using already popular figures was a genius idea that traveled to impact modern magazines now.
Children’s magazine: Youth’s Companion
The idea of gaining a variety of audiences did not stop at women, it spread to focusing on the welfare of children, specifically the term youth. If you look at pictures of the youth back then and compare them to pictures of the youth now, you will see a very prominent difference in physics. Not only that, if you read any articles that are meant for the youth now, you will see their focus to be on entertainment through scandals and drama in the latest celebrities. In addition, if you do see any advice given, it would mainly relate to dating, makeup, or skincare advice. Back then, the youth’s mental, physical, and spiritual health was very important. This was showed in Youth’s Companion, which published between 1827 and 1929 when it merged with The American Boy. An early U.S. mass periodical magazine. This magazine contained mostly religious content which became known to be a wholesome magazine to promote pure and virtuous youth. Over time, this magazine evolved to reach farther then just the youth. By including a lot more PG entertainment pieces, a larger adult audience became attracted. A lot more literary pieces became added as well, regarding to a audience of adult and children. In time, this magazine became known as “a literary force to be reckoned with”.
Development of prices for magazines and its impact
Even though magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Youth’s Companion were popular and had great circulation, the magazine industry as a whole didn’t have the best circulation, at least not enough to make a great profit. Back then, $0.25-$0.35 was a pretty big sum. This is how much publications would cost because publishers had to gain a profit by making the price more then how much it took to create the publication. This limited, once again, the audience to readers who could afford them. However, this all changed in 1893 when Samuel Sidney McClure began selling McClure’s Magazine at the sum of $0.15 per issue. This became extremely cost efficient very quickly because even though this was less then what he paid to create the magazine, circulation did the rest and created an even bigger profit margin then before.
This result was seen and replicated by more two publishers…
- Cosmopolitan (founded 1886) sold for $0.13
- Munsey Magazine (1886–1929) sold for $0.10 (“estimated that between 1893 and 1899 “the ten-cent magazine increased the magazine-buying public from 250,000 to 750,000 persons”)
All three magazine became widely known and successful. In addition, this risky experiment showed that magazines can be sold for less than they cost to produce due to greater circulation and a wider audience. This left space to make extra money by charging for an advertising space. Speaking about advertising, in the 1900s, this became an important piece in making money. Earlier on, publishers didn’t allow advertising because they wanted to leave space for their articles, literature, and writing. However, once they found a way to in frase circulation and its effect, they found advertising to be worth it to make more money in the long run. This also gave advertisers a way to reach a larger audience though popular magazines. Publishers would make profit by increasing prices for advertising spaces and advertisers would make more money by having their advertisements seen by a larger audience, hoping for more publicity. Later on, advertising became normal to see in modern magazines, especially in women’s magazines which make up about half of their magazines.
*graphic in the beginning was made on Canva
*picture of early cover of magazine was found on https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/5-2-history-of-magazine-publishing/#:~:text=The%20first%20magazine%20was%20published,including%20the%20elite%20and%20women.
All information can be found in these sources:
https://geniuses.club/genius/pierre-bayle
https://dbpedia.org/page/Jean_Donneau_de_Visé
See you again in Pt.3!
