Four magazines covering social media — with separate titles devoted to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google — have launched this week from GSG World Media. Perhaps not too surprisingly, only a tiny percentage of the 14 million recipients are expected to get printed copies.
GSG CEO Larry Genkin had earlier tried a print publication, Blogger & Podcaster, in 2007 and 2008, but it never gained traction as a print vehicle and he shut it down.
Then he hit on the social media magazine idea.
“I had to pinch myself when I realized nobody else was doing this,” he said.
He’s getting a big boost this time around from Office Depot, which is sending e-mails alerting 5 million small business owners that they can get free copies of the magazines, provided they order them digitally through one of seven platforms on which they are available.
The titles are called: FB & Business, Tweeting & Business, LI & Business and The Big G & Business.
“Small business and entreprenuers are the target,” said co-founder Eric Yaverbaum, the author of “PR for Dummies,” and the associate publisher for all four publications.
About 250,000 print versions of the magazines mailed this week to customers who requested them.
“There are still some people who will want print versions of the magazines, but my guess is it will be less and less as time goes on,” said Yaverbaum. One reason is the print versions are priced at $7.95 a copy. The digital editions are free online from socialmediamags.com. He expects that more than 14 million copies will go out digitally.
Genkin has invested $250,000 to get the current crop of digital magazines started. He said they will be available on iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, Kindle, multimedia and print.
“I’ve already made the money back,” he said.
Monica Luechtefeld, Office Depot’s executive vice president of global e-commerce, said the company is taking ads in all four magazines but is not reviewing the copy prior to publication.
Although Genkin bases his HQ in Sarasota, Fla., the 20-person staff putting out the magazines is scattered across the country — doing much of their work digitally.
Associate Publisher Yaverbaum is based in New York; Jay Abrahams, the executive editor of the Google magazine, is based in Los Angeles; FB & Business Executive Editor Mari Smith calls San Diego her home; LI & Business Editor Nathan Kievman is based in Cleveland; and the overall editorial director, John Persinos, is based in Barrington, RI.
Convey cornered
With little more than a week to go before the Nov. 1 release of daily newspaper circulation figures, rumors are swirling that Daily News Editor-In-Chief Kevin Convey is coming under intense pressure from owner Mort Zuckerman.
The rumor du jour is that Convey will be replaced by Editorial Page Editor Arthur Browne.
Browne has worked most of his career at the paper, aside from a short stint at a pet Web site and then at Bloomberg LP. He started as a Daily News copy boy and has worked just about every job at the paper from reporter on up.
The company just axed its senior managing editor, Stuart Marques.
Zuckerman, a billionaire real estate developer, is said to be fanatical about cutting costs at his media properties. At Zuckerman-owned US News & World Report, he has pushed the perennial money-losing title to near breakeven by cutting staff drastically and moving heavily into digital. He dropped all subscriptions and prints only very limited monthly editions destined for newsstand outlets only.
At the News, Zuckerman spent $150 million for new high-speed printing presses in 2009 that make color available on all pages. He also moved from West 33rd Street to digs near the World Trade Center site — but the moves have not stemmed the circulation and advertising slide.
Zuckerman, Browne and Convey, who was imported from Boston, where he was the editor of the Boston Herald, all did not return calls seeking comment from Media Ink.
Martha maulings
For Martha Stewart, this is not a good a thing: more cutbacks have hit Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
As Media Ink predicted, Sarah Carey, the food editor of Martha Stewart Living, was installed as the editor-in-chief of Everyday Food on Friday — much to the shock of tincumbent Editor-In-Chief Anna Last.
But that was only the start.
By the end of Friday, several senior editors at Whole Living, as well as a handful of Web staff and the flagship mag were cut as well.
It could not be determined how many people were laid off. One source said at least a dozen were out, but mogulite.com said 40 people were cut. MSLO declined to comment.