Cracking the Code: Magazine Editorial Calendars

Last month’s Market Insider featured a DIY Guide to Building Your Own Press Kit. (February 08 Market Insider) This month, we’ll help you use your new press kit to approach magazines that are read by the retailers who are always scouting for great products. We’ll help you crack the code of the magazine editorial calendars and give you a strategy to make them work for you. We’ll also provide tips from magazine editors – the best ways to get in touch.

How Did They Do That?

Flip through the pages of major magazines that target craft art retailers and galleries. Have you ever wondered why some products or artists are featured and how they came to the attention of the editors?

Editors are human, as funny as that sounds: They are influenced by what’s in fashion, what they read and where they shop. They read other magazines and cruise Web sites. They listen to a spectrum of sources: If the editor’s teenage daughter squealed with delight when she received a particular bracelet for her birthday, the editor might take note of the jeweler’s name. Editors also talk to retailers to find out what’s hot. They attend trade shows, including the Buyers Market of American Craft. They are reviewing products all year long and constantly scouting for what’s new, inspired and different.

That’s why you want to put information about your product where the editor can see it: Right on top of her desk.

But it doesn’t help the editor if you wait until December to send photos of your awesome menorah or Christmas ornament. The world of the Internet makes us believe that all communications are magically instantaneous, but reality occurs at a decidedly mundane pace. Magazine editors are hard at work on stories for the next holiday season while the rest of us are still recovering from the last one. It’s March and in the garden, the crocus has just lifted its head above the mulch, but magazine writers are dreaming of sugarplums and wading through piles of photos of winter holiday ornaments.

Hope Daniels, editorial director of NICHE and AmericanStyle magazines, confirms this. Her staff at NICHE works at least three to six months ahead to produce each issue. At AmericanStyle, she says, the editors often work six months to a year ahead.

The Editorial Calendar

The editorial calendar is a magazine’s annual plan. It’s the tentative schedule of topics that will be featured in a given month or edition.

Understand that the calendar is created mostly for the magazine’s own benefit. Features are set around the major opportunities for that magazine to attract advertisers or circulate copies. In the retail gift universe, magazine schedules track closely to the annual cycle of major trade shows and events. That’s why you’ll find a special section of ads promoting glass artists in the edition of a magazine that is widely circulated during a national glass conference. Timing is everything!

The magazine editorial calendar will include important due dates: a deadline for reserving advertising space and a deadline for submitting the actual ready-to-print ad. Often, the calendar will also state the date that the magazine edition will be published or mailed out.

Remember that it is a plan, and plans can change. Deadlines may shift or topics may be revised through the year.

You can usually find a magazine’s editorial calendar online. You may have to hunt for it. Start at the magazine’s Web site. The editorial calendar may be listed on the home page. Sometimes, though, it is tucked away inside the magazine’s MEDIA KIT (a package of materials for potential advertisers), or filed with the pages marked “ADVERTISE WITH US.” At other magazines, the calendar is filed with the EDITORIAL GUIDELINES (rules for writers who want to sell articles to that magazine).

Here’s an excerpt from the 2008 editorial calendar of HomeFashion & Furniture Trends:

Here’s an excerpt from the 2008 editorial calendar of Giftware News:

Cracking the Code

Did bells go off in your head when you saw the topics “Handcrafted” and “The Handcrafted Home”?

It’s up to you to let magazines know who you are and what you are producing! You want to give your work every advantage and opportunity to be noticed. You want to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Note the deadlines. Get your press kits ready.

Editorial calendars can work for you in two ways:

First, if you can buy an advertisement to promote your work, the editorial calendar helps you decide the best timing for your ad.

Don’t look just at the months ahead. Study the calendar for the whole year to see what the magazine is all about. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Which issue is going to target a topic or product category that fits your work? Is there a special section on American-made products? When is home décor featured? Will there be a special section on tableware (or whatever it is that you create)?
2. When are your target galleries budgeting or spending for the coming season? Can you identify the magazine issue that would put your message in front of them at that critical moment?
3. Which issues will be circulated at shows where you want your work to be noticed? If you are exhibiting at the show, can you attract traffic to your booth by using your booth number in an ad?

You’re a rare and lucky artist if you have a budget big enough to buy ad space 12 months of the year. The editorial calendar can help you pick and choose your targets.

Second, the editorial calendar can be a tool in your strategy for getting free promotion.

Often, the magazine’s editors are planning to write articles or columns relating to topics on the editorial calendar. In general (keeping with the example above), if the glass edition of the magazine and the glass art convention are on their radar screens, the editors are likely planning a story related to glass.

The editors maintain the freedom to choose and tailor the stories, and to decide which products and artists will be featured. When will they decide? Again, timing is everything.

Let’s return to the example from Home Fashion & Furniture Trends magazine. Check the deadlines: The ad materials are due May 14 for the June/July issue. The editors are probably operating on related deadlines for completing their stories and artwork. So put yourself in the editor’s running shoes: How long will it take to choose the products, assign a writer, interview the artists, draft the stories, get good pictures and wrap up the package to meet that deadline?

The early bird catches the worm in this business.

Here’s an easy-to-manage magazine strategy:

• Set a goal for yourself that is achievable: “I will review one trade magazine a month for its publicity potential for my work.”
• Study the magazines that feature products like yours, and the trade magazines that are read by your galleries. Examine their editorial calendars online.
• Look ahead – far, far ahead. Plan for the coming Hanukkah and the next one, too.
• Choose your target edition of the magazine, check the deadlines, then count back three to six months to give yourself an appropriate head start for contacting the editors.

Want to know a secret?

Some magazines that have a strong emphasis on new products are EAGER to have you submit information about your products.The editors get a certain glint in their eyes. It is recognizable to anybody who has worked in publishing for long: They NEED it. They WANT it. They must fill their pages with photographs of good quality and fresh products and they have to find MORE, MORE, MORE and the deadlines loom and they need it NOW. They can’t be at every show to look in every booth. And the truth is, there’s a shortage of really beautiful photographs of really nice products available exactly when the editor really needs them.

So the editors send a “call for product submissions,” asking gift producers to submit promotional materials and press kits that match the topics on the editorial calendar.

Just like a call for contest entries, this is a public invitation -- and you should respond!

Call for Submissions

Here is an excerpt from a “Call for Product Submissions” distributed last month by Giftware News. (Note that this call has expired, but we want you to see what one looks like.)

Calls for submissions are accompanied by specific instructions. Your chances of being considered are highest if you meet the deadlines and follow the instructions to the letter. Here are the instructions that came from Giftware News:

Sometimes, you’ll find calls for product submissions on magazine Web sites. Sometimes, they are e-mailed to advertisers. Additional sources are the Web sites of HGTV, DIY television and other television programs that feature home decorating ideas or crafts. Yet another source: ProfNet, a paid publicity service that writers and television producers use to search for experts to interview or products to write about.

We recommend that you avoid solicitations that ask you to send your actual product: Stick to calls for press kits, photos and e-mails. If your promotional materials succeed at opening a door, you can negotiate later whether to send a sample product.

Market Insider is always hunting for calls for product submissions. Starting this month, this newsletter will pass them along to you whenever they look promising.

Helpful suggestions from magazine editors

We contacted John Saxtan, the editor-in-chief at Giftware News, to learn more about product submissions. We asked him to share some advice for artists who are giftware producers, and who want to submit their work for consideration. He was very gracious.

“You asked for top tips for giftware producers:

1. If you are submitting PR, study the magazine(s) to see what it is they use and how they use it. If it is a product release, chances are they have a standard format. We always want a product description (factual, not flowery), suggested retail price(s), and company contact info for retailers to get in touch with the company. More info is better than little info.
2. Submit high quality images. We need 300 dpi and no smaller than 3 inches by 3 inches. If you don't know what 300 dpi is, and you take your own digital images, set your camera to the fewest pictures it can take. That usually makes the images large enough for us. Plain backgrounds are preferred.
3. Do not expect editors to acknowledge your press release. You may query once to see if it was received. After that, you become a bother (not good).
4. If you aren't sure what is required for a submission, you may call the editor or one of the editors and ask what they require. Despite "The Devil Wears Prada," most editors are fairly civil.
5. Do not send more than three or four pictures at one time, either on a disk or via e-mail. We have had people send 35 separate e-mails, one for each image. It does create a lasting impression, but not one you would want.”

John Saxtan, Editor-in-Chief, Giftware News Editorial Director, Talcott Publishing

Thanks, Mr. Saxtan!

More great advice

We also asked Ms. Daniels, of NICHE and AmericanStyle magazines, for tips for artists seeking publicity.

1. I really prefer to receive a simple press release or press kit by snail mail. You have to understand that on a daily basis, I receive 200 to 400 e-mails, and managing all of that information is a job in itself. Items that are no longer visible on my computer screen unfortunately tend to turn into “out of sight, out of mind.”
2. To be fully effective, your mailing must include at least one color postcard or photograph or other good image of your work, otherwise I can’t possibly know what you make! You can print an image using your computer, or send a color reproduction, both of which are acceptable. But do give the editorial staff something to look at. If you are sending a press release by e-mail, please do not send me high-resolution (300 dpi) images. Send low-resolution images with the release instead. You can send high-resolution images later or on a disk if we ask for them. Why? Because it can take a while for the computer to open those high-res images one by one, and it slows our computers down. You always win friends by making an editor’s job easier, or at least, not more complicated.
3. Please don’t call. If you haven’t heard back from anyone on the editorial staff in two to four weeks, send another gentle e-mail reminder.
4. Use NICHE and AmericanStyle’s yearly editorial calendars to educate yourself about each magazine’s annual cycle of special topics and shows. Then send your press release four to six months ahead of the issue you would like to be featured in. Anything else that comes in gets filed away for next year.

Thanks, Ms. Daniels!

Be patient, and remember this basic rule of promotions:

If you follow the magazine’s directions and send a beautiful picture and press release, there’s no guarantee that the magazine will write about you -- but you improve your chances.

If you never send a beautiful picture or press kit, chances are the magazine won’t even know about you.

COMING NEXT MONTH in MARKET INSIDER:

Beyond Etsy.com:  Best practices and next steps for improving sales and growing your business so you can sell wholesale to galleries and spend more time making art!

POSTSCRIPT on PRESS KITS

Thanks so much for your e-mails and replies to our February newsletter, the DIY Guide to Building Your Own Press Kit.   Here’s a response from Doug and Pat Jones of Amelia Island Pottery, www.ameliaislandpottery.com.

“Great article on Press Kits,” Doug wrote.  “Before I read the article, I recently, through dumb luck, used some of the tips given and received an e-mail from a magazine for me to proof read the tear sheet they had attached for publication in their upcoming April issue.  It was for a half page, had three images of my work, a short bio and location of a new gallery which displays my work in Maui.  I sent back a thank you note, with an offer to give the Editor one of my coffee mugs.  He e-mailed back and replied that he would love to have a piece of my pottery, as he loved it.  I also notified the gallery and they are ordering more pottery, as they are very familiar with the magazine.”

Thanks for sharing your story, which included some great lessons worth highlighting:

1. When you succeed at placing a story about your work, it’s so important to contact your galleries.  A surprising number of shoppers and collectors will clip or download an article, and refer to it later when they go hunting for a treasure.  Your galleries will appreciate notice that an article will run.  They might want to hang a framed copy of the article near your work.  The publicity can be as good for them as it is for you.
2. Mom was right: Send a thank-you note.  While it’s not necessary to send a gift to the editor (in fact, some media companies, especially newspapers, do not allow editors to accept them), a brief thank-you note is always appreciated and will ensure that you are remembered.

OPPORTUNITIES KNOCKING

Stand Up for Art!

What issues affecting the arts and art retailers should be foremost on the minds of America’s presidential candidates?  Make your opinion heard.  Complete a brief online survey identifying the issues and concerns of artists that should be addressed by the candidates as they pursue their parties’ nominations.  The sponsor is the American Made Alliance, www.Americanmadealliance.com, a nonprofit trade association created to advocate for national policies supporting and protecting the products and the livelihoods of American artists.

Calls for Submissions

Greetings etc. magazine will feature the following topics in its July/August 2008 issue:
Back-to-School Stationery-Related Products
DIY Merchandise (e.g., card-crafting items, customer-personalized products)
Top-of-the-Line Plush Toys
Partyware for Women
Humorous Gift Books
Stickers
Halloween Cards
Thanksgiving Cards

To be considered for an editorial mention in this issue, please submit product details (including inner versing for cards), retail pricing (this must be included for consideration), plus a HIGH RESOLUTION image (at least 3 inches big and at least 300 dpi, saved as a jpg, tif or eps file. Do check that your images are large enough!). Please do not send more than six images.

The following information must also be included: your company name as you would like it to be printed, toll-free phone number (or regular phone number, if you don’t have a toll-free one), and website address.

Info and images should be e-mailed directly to Greetings etc.’s editor, Kathy Krassner, at kk@edgellmail.com. Or, you can send high-resolution images on a disk (with image printouts) via regular mail to: Kathy Krassner, Greetings etc., 4 Sheridan Lane, Ringoes, NJ 08551. All info and images must be received by Monday, April 7.

Lark Books has made its name by publishing photo-filled books billed as juried collections of jewelry, metalwork and other crafts. On its Web site, http://www.larkbooks.com/submissions/artist-submissions, and in advertisements that appear in Metalsmith and other art magazines, there are calls for submissions.  This month, for example, Lark Books is looking for art made of recycled plastic, in sculptural and innovative forms; enameled objects, including studio jewelry and metal art; and ceramic sculpture, which can be abstract or figurative or representational.  Study the books closely and take a good look at the Web site.  The submissions process and reviews of the some of the company’s books can be found online.  Check out articles by jewelry blogger Maire Loughran at http://jewelry.suite101.com/article.cfm/500_necklaces_book_review.

Who are the 2008 Top Retailers of American and Canadian craft art?
Vote now!  Artists can nominate their favorite retailer, gallery, arts nonprofit or guild for the 2008 NICHE Top Retailer Awards competition by completing a paper ballot, downloading a form or voting online. Nomination ballots can be downloaded at www.AmericanCraft.com through the Top Retailer Awards link.  Nominations will be accepted until March 31.

Show time!
Apply today to exhibit at the Buyers Market of American Craft summer show, scheduled Saturday-Monday, August 2-4, 2008, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. For more information, see www.americancraft.com or apply online at www.zapplication.org.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
Eleanor Roosevelt