A few days ago, I got the season's first issue of Mountain in my PO Box. It was fat with ads, packed with features, and sported a pro-print editor's note (reprinted here, with permission) that got me fired up to power down and hunker down with the mag and a cup of the blackest coffee I could find.
Mountain launched last fall. For those of you keeping score at home, yes, that was also the fall where the death of print was loudly proclaimed by castles at every corner of the kingdom. And yes, it was also the fall after the collapse of a couple notable outdoorsy titles.
So to see a full-scale magazine rise from the carnage .... hell, to see it practically puking with ads in my mailbox in its second season ... is heartwarming. Maybe it's because of the lean spirit of the publication (their minimalist office in North North North Boulder is renowned for daily homemade burger grill sessions). But maybe it's because their recipe is working.
The editorial vision for Mountain comes from the mind of Marc Peruzzi ... a former editor at Outside and Skiing, who a few years ago penned the best article ever written on the love-hate relationship we all have with Boulder, Colorado (as well as another gem on "pot for athletes"). I pestered him via email until he answered a few of my questions.
WO: Was the kernel of the idea behind Mountain to offer content that isn't already available out there? Or was it to gather together an advertiser community that wasn't being served in some way?
MP: The answer to that question is “both.” Here’s why: I’ve always thought that there was a void in the market between the vertical ski, bike, climb, backpack titles and the bigger general interest, lifestyle-driven outdoor mags. Ultimately you write for the people you know, and I know a lot of people who are passionate skiers, cyclists, and mountain athletes that are looking for sharp content that speaks to a sense of place—the mountains of North America. Our readers have generally outgrown the verticals, but they also don’t connect with six-pack abs in Sayulita, or Lance on Everest stories either. So we can give them their correct dose of skiing and trail running (not the overdose of a vertical) and then surprise them with a story about wolf reintroduction or meth in the high country or an advocacy piece about grass fed beef. You would have to subscribe to five or six magazines to come close to our mix of content. And even at that you wouldn’t see the photography we run.
But none of that would matter much if we couldn’t get the ad support to make it happen. We went into this knowing that people who live or vacation in the mountains have a lot in common. Do you know any skiers who don’t own mountain bikes? Do you know any trail runners who don’t own a waterproof shell? Any Nordic skiers who don’t care about their food supply? Obviously the resorts understand this and that’s where we get most of our support; we push people to the mountains. But regional craft brewers, bike companies, apparel makers, ski manufacturers and on and on, like our readership, too. There’s no waste. We aren’t selling magazines to surfers or people looking to vacation in Monaco.
WO: If I were a writer, and I was looking to pitch you a story, what should I say to guarantee I get the assignment?
MP: First I’d subscribe to and read the magazine. Which is the first thing I learned in Intro to Magazine Article Writing in college. Spending a few dollars to potentially earn hundreds or thousands just makes business sense. And I’m nauseated by freelancers who bemoan the state of print but don’t give anything back. After that, I need to know that you’ll crush it on draft 1. There’s a tendency among today’s writers to phone in the first version because they’ve been trained by fat edit staffs to expect multiple rewrites. I don’t work in that world. One sloppy draft and you’re out forever. I’m not expecting everyone to deliver copy like a Hampton Sides, Mike Kessler, or Florence Williams, but work to the best of your ability.
WO: Now that half the world's freelance outdoor writers live in Boulder, is Boulder the best place on earth to run a magazine or the worst?
MP: Occasionally I capitalize on all the great local freelancers here in Boulder, but our creative director lives in Glorietta, New Mexico, and our contributors are, by design, spread out throughout the mountains of North America. If I had a connection I could do my job from a cave in the Sawtooths. But the ad sales guys are in a good place,
WO: How many medical marijuana dispensaries do you go past on your ride to work?
MP: On my 1.5 mile bike commute I pass four. One just opened across the street (they put out green balloons for their open house.) My favorite has a crude hand painted plywood sign that advertises: Used Books, LPs, Weed.
WO: Back when you were at Skiing, you worked on a couple generations of "Mountain Summer" ... a warm-weather edition for the Skiing crowd. But as I recall, the issue really struggled to draw advertisers. What did you learn from that experience that's being used by the crew at Mountain?
MP: Thankfully that was before my time. Just like you can’t write about dogs in Cat Fancy, you can’t write about anything other than skiing in Skiing. The audience was correct, but if I was an advertiser I wouldn’t buy it either. For our part, we never wanted to produce just another ski title. Ski titles had more relevance back in the 70s and 80s when people identified themselves as skiers and nothing else. But the user group has matured. I’m a skier, but I’m a cyclist, and a backpacker, and a backcountry skier, and a hack paddler too. And I also care about the environment and social issues related to the mountains. Mountain isn’t limited by the seasons.
WO: How many press releases do you get in a week? And how many do you read?
MP: I unsubscribe from a half dozen a day. I only read the ones that come from somebody who gets it. Please don’t pitch me on electric shavers or anything that you would bring to the beach.
WO: You were on staff at Outside, right? And Skiing? What is it about magazines that keep you coming back for more?
MP: Before getting into the magazine business I was a philosophy major and a ski shop manager, but I was always a heavy magazine consumer. Ultimately I pursued a journalism degree with the sole intention of writing magazine articles. It’s all I ever really wanted to do. It’s true that newspapers and newsweeklies have taken a hit from the new technology. But magazines that are about something will always matter.
WO: Who would win in a 100 yard dash: you, Sam Moulton or Tom Bie?
MP: Sam wins. Tom would show up 15 minutes late, muttering about fish. I would go for a ski.
Backpacker eats Urban Climber ("Less filling," says Dorn)
Yesterday, Active Interest Media (publishers of Backpacker and SNEWS) added three titles to their "outdoor group" roster: Climbing, Urban Climber, and Mountain Gazette. According to their PR, the additions will increase the group's combined readership to more than 1.35 million and its online audience to 430,000 unique visitors a month. In addition to being the editor of Backpacker, Jon Dorn is the general manager at AIM, and was nice enough to answer some wicked questions about the acquisition.
* Why is this acquisition a big deal?
It brings together two of the most venerable brands in the outdoor industry—Backpacker and Climbing—and two brands that share so much in the way of values, terrain, technique, and gear that you wonder why the combination hasn’t happened earlier. From a reader’s or advertiser’s perspective, it’s a big deal because we’ll be able to provide content and services we couldn’t as single titles. It’s a classic sum-of-the-parts equation. An example: The combined network of gear testers that we can now call on to review products in all of the Outdoor Group magazines is much broader and deeper. And that principle will extend across everything we do, from mobile marketing events to skills books to trade media and more. On a personal level, this acquisition is a big deal for a lot of us because we’re getting paid to pursue yet another passion—we’re all multisport enthusiasts here, and the continued growth of the Outdoor Group provides another outlet for adventure.
* If print is dead, why are you guys buying other magazines?
It’s a sign of our affection for the Northeast Kingdom and all of our friends in Vermont and Maine who depend on revenue from the paper industry. But seriously, who said print is dead? There’s certainly been a winnowing of magazine titles—those that didn’t have a solid relationship with their readers or a coherent editorial premise went belly up last year—but media consumers trust magazines more than websites, and print advertising is rebounding strongly in most segments of the magazine market. We have a very high degree of confidence that print remains essential, and that our company has a very solid blueprint—one that’s grounded in service journalism and an absolute adherence to the needs of our enthusiasts and industry. And, by the way, that’s a trick question, Drew, you sneaky SOB. You know we’re not solely buying or making magazines. Our business is successfully evolving to be much more diversified than that, and part of the reason we love this deal is the opportunity for growth we see in web, mobile, and events.
* What's the structure of the Outdoor Group? And how is it different or similar to a traditional "big publisher"?
The Outdoor Group structure is based on height. I’m the tallest, so I run the show as general manager. Kent Ebersole is next tallest, so he’s group publisher, in charge of all sales and marketing. Anthony Cerretani comes third, so he’s in charge of the web operations. And so on. But jesting aside, you’re probably wondering mostly about Climbing and Urban Climber. Mark Crowther, from Skram Media, continues as publisher, reporting to Kent. Dougald MacDonald, former editor and publisher of Rock & Ice and co-founder of Trail Runner, joins the team as editorial director, reporting to me. Our structure is not unusual in the publishing world, but what is atypical is the degree of local management we’re permitted by our bosses at Active Interest Media (our parent company). The company was founded on the idea that you hire people who know their industries and let them run their brands in a way that matches the needs and personalities of their communities. That’s makes us pretty flexible and guarantees that a really unique young title like Urban Climber won’t be subject to a corporate cookie-cutter template.
* At 6'11, do you have a hard time finding sweaters that fit you? I'm only 6'4 and it's a pain in the ass.
Sleeve length is a serious problem, Drew. Like me, you probably suffer from frostbitten wrists. It’s that gap between sleeve and glove that’s prevented me from climbing the 8,000-meter peaks. If I weren’t 6’6”, who knows where I’d be.
* Is the natural conclusion of this news that Backpacker is making tons of money?
Wait a minute—how can you allege that print is dead, then turn around and ask that?! [Bemused laughter ensues.] Here’s what I can tell you: Backpacker is a profitable and very solid business, and we all work extremely hard to keep it that way. We’re fortunate to be part of a company that is able to expand when others are shrinking, which is testimony as much as anything to how careful we’ve been in the last several years and how creative we can be in making acquisitions happen.
* Hostetter likes to tell me that she hired you at Backpacker. Is that true?
It is true, and for a song. I took a $10,000 pay cut when I started back in ’97, but it was the best decision I ever made. Mid-July will mark 13 years of living the dream…
Is that a Buff in your pocket, or are you just happy to be adventure racing?
To be honest, I'm not sure where Stephen Regenold came from, though I've heard it's a place called Minnesota.
As a nationally syndicated columnist in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Spokane Spokesman-Review, Redding Record, Casper Star-Tribune, Billings Gazette and Twin Falls Times-News ... nobody rocks the red states like Stephen.
But as much as Stephen loves the adulation of the Casper, Wyo., crowd (who wouldn't?), he hasn't rested on those dusty laurels. Instead, he has parlayed his newspaper savvy into an ongoing series of cool pieces for the New York Times (like this one about natural water parks in Vermont), a spotlight slot on Outside Online, and a recently redesigned www.GearJunkie.com.
Didn't you used to work in a climbing gym? If not, I seem to remember talking to you when you were IN a climbing gym ... and you were telling me that you were thinking of getting into the outdoor gear space as a journalist. What was your original plan then?
I was the editor of a climbing magazine called Vertical Jones. Might be what you're thinking. Although I used to hang in climbing gyms a lot (though was more of a "trad" climber outdoors.) I started Vertical Jones while in journalism school in the late '90s at the University of Minnesota. It was a quarterly 'zine, and it lasted for about four years. Not successful in a financial way. But it launched my career into the world of outdoors writing and travel journalism.
How many people get a paycheck of some sort from the Gear Junkie world at this point?
I have three business partners with GearJunkie.com, a tech/design guy (John Peacock), a marketing guy (Pat Petschel), and a publisher, who sells ads and sponsorships (Mike Santi). Through our company, Monopoint Media (http://monopointmedia.com), we partner with web sites like TrailSpace.com, SuperTopo.com, Gear.com, GetOutdoors, Wend, and
WildSnow.com. We sell -- Mike and Pat sell, that is -- network ad buys. So people from some of those web sites get paychecks that come through us as well.
If you hadn't called it Gear Junkie ... what would you have called it?
I used to have the list of names I brainstormed for the newspaper column -- this all started as a newspaper column -- and I think a few of the other thoughts were Gear Fix, Gear Guru, Gear Jones. . . a few other bad ideas, too. But I think it was always something to do with gear in the name. Gear Junkie just seemed to work best.
Your blend of newspaper syndication and online media is pretty unique. It's almost the direct opposite of those who start in the very visible outdoor magazine world, and THEN try to get online and into the papers. Was this something that grew organically? Or was it part of the plan?
Organically, I guess. I have always preferred writing for newspapers versus magazines. I can retain the rights to my material easier in the newspaper realm. It was the key ingredient that allowed me to launch GearJunkie.com in 2006 with hundreds of pages of content -- I had all these "old" newspaper columns sitting on my hard drive, and I owned the rights to everything. With magazine writing, most freelancers sell all rights and get paid only once for their words. A syndication model, what I do, allows me to sell my content to several places around the country. And then I can post it to GearJunkie.com as well.
Remember those Evil Kneivel ski gloves you wore at Alta? Where did those come from?
Those things rock. They are the Kombi Captain Freedoms from 2007. I get many questions about those gloves.
Is your newspaper syndication work growing at the same rate as your online presence?
Online is the future of Gear Junkie. I still have about eight syndicate newspapers and a few magazines that run the column. But my reach is growing almost as big online. And last year I made about 50% of my income from Gear Junkie from online ventures.
Last year, you did a sweepstakes where readers could "win a trip with the Gear Junkie" ... do you think you'll ever do that again?
It was a big success. Here's a wrap-up of the trip: LINK. The winner, Matt Eder of Portland, was an awesome candidate to win this trip, as he was a resort skier dabbling in backcountry travel. The trip -- to mountaineer in Sequoia National Park -- was the perfect introduction for Eder.
What's next for the Gear Junkie empire?
We just got back from the Teva Mountain Games. Did a big push there making an event out of my experience racing in the Ultimate Mountain Challenge. (Here's the area of the site on that). Next up, we're putting our noses
down for a couple months of traffic building initiatives. And, as always, we'll be at the Outdoor Retailer trade show in July.
Do you get much teasing for listing the Original Buff as the top gear innovation of the last 10 years? If not, can I tease you now?
It was five years, not 10. But, dang, I tell you, no other product has served me so often and so well. Make fun all you want. I love the Buff. (No, they do not pay me a retainer fee!) And the company just made me a happy man: They designed a custom Gear Junkie Buff for the Teva Mountain Games.
I just read about how the media and PR are dead and I can't stop hyperventilating
Relax.
I also feel like the oxygen is being sucked out of the room when somebody starts spraying about the death of media and PR. But then I remember that the media delivered the story that made me hyperventilate, and that the sprayer-in-question was using the media as PR conduit for their message.
Ahhh. Breathe.
Sure, media is changing … but it’s far from dead. Public relations is changing too, but it’s been doing that since my first job out of college where I’d spend 6 hours a night faxing basketball results around the country.
The first pose of my mental yoga on this matter is keeping in mind that we are living through an era that could truly be called the “bubble bubble.” One more rapid deflation of a seemingly impervious and skyscraping market shouldn’t really surprise us at this point ... but it does. After the dot-com bubble crashed, we didn’t stop using computers. And after the housing bubble imploded, it’s not like we scrapped windows, doors and wood.
I suppose it’s more than a little ironic that the media (which has definitely profited from covering bubbles) is enduring a bubble of their own. But the bursting of any bubble, even that of media, should be recognized as a valuable opportunity for change. The fact that PR is undergoing some changes at the same time shouldn’t be seen as a Swine Flu-level disturbance in the Force … it’s just business.
If you're still hyperventilating, try thinking through these cocktail party conversation starters:
* The best that social media has to offer comes in links to published works. Published works are supported by advertising. Advertising-supported works are considered media. Ispo facto, media is not dead.
* We crave the voices of leaders.From Walter Cronkite and Hunter S. Thompson to the more recognizable voices of the outdoor world, citizen-consumers love to hear what people with a point of view have to say. At the moment, those leaders are refining their voices within the new rules of media engagement. Take the hyper out of your diaper and give them some time. They’ll be back.
* We are all capitalists at heart. As much as you think you’re a groovy, nerd-geek chic hipster with three Twitter feeds and a couple fixies in your garage, and the end of the day you are going to look at yourself in your deliberately skewed mirror and admit that figuring out a way to make money is in your DNA. That's what your parents did, that’s what Americans do and that's what makes us different. And it's what most pros are doing with their conversations on Twitter and Facebook right now. Trust me, when somebody finds that leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, the secret won't last long and the resulting emergence of structure in the previously unstructured social media landscape will be faster than a house falling on the Wicked Witch. Media will be back. Hard and fast. Of course, if the money doesn't get found in this big Twitter-treasure hunt, you can bet that things are going to dry up fairly quickly over in social media land.
* The current leaders of social media only talk about how much they know about social media. Ironically, the most money to be made in social media appears to be from being an expert in social media. Did I mention that we’re living in a bubble bubble?
* Public relations professionals who think it’s only about media relations should never have gotten into PR in the first place. I spoke with a prospective client the other day who was simply speechless to hear that paper press kits were a no go. The fact that her current PR firm is – yes, in 2009 – spending hundreds of billable hours per year designing, printing, stuffing and mailing paper press kits is all the proof you need that old school public relations firms are off the back. The efforts of their PR pied pipers to replace the old PR management structure with a bright-shiny-new management structure is nothing more than a shell game. Same shit, different piles.