For another Top Ten List!

It has been 4 years running that People and New Yorker have remained in the top two spots. I love what the selection of top ten domestic titles says about the variety of customers that come through our doors. We always maintain that we have something for everyone. Halifax Magazine has moved up the ranks to knock Dwell off the list. Go Halifax!

For the imports, there is no doubt that Country Living UK is #1. It is the one title that our regular customers wait with bated breath for and can't help but ask "When will it arrive?" It also far ahead of the number 2 spot by almost double the copies sold.

Further to my last post on how kind our customers are, we've been touched yet again by more thoughtfulness. One customer made sure he came in before he moved away to say " I officially wanted to say thank-you for being so gracious." Another dropped off a sweet card plus some yummy chocolates because she appreciated the phone calls letting her know her publication arrived. How lucky we are to have so many great customers.

Is in the air

We sure can see each season's pending arrival even before it is truly here. Our baseball & gardening sections are bursting with abundance. Magazines have fresh greens and bright colours. Our cooking magazines are heralding spring dishes and Bon Appetit proclaims "Spring Finally! 33 Market Fresh Ideas" Of course with Spring comes cleaning but I think most people really like the act of airing out their homes and the work that accompanies that. I certainly do. Real Simple would like to help us make the job easier with their "Spring Cleaning Shortcuts." V magazine arrived with covers that really remind me of Easter colours ( even though the subject isn't exactly sweetness and innocence!)

Bring on Spring.

Lots of great new issues

I love Tuesdays, which we call Magazine Day. It is our largest shipment day so it is always interesting to see if anything intriques us on the covers while we are trying to process the magazines. It can get quite distracting at times. With teasers like "Google, Is the coolest company already over the hill?"- Canadian Business; " 1 Million Workers, 90 Million iPhones, 17 Suicides...Should you care?" - Wired and " Just Food, How to fix our food system" - Alternatives, I was indeed intriqued. Plus there was " Print me a Stradivarius, The manufacturing technology that will change the world" - The Economist and Why machines will never beat the human mind" - The Atlantic. Now it is just a matter of figuring out when I am going to read them! ( I just linked the magazines and strangely the first three were previous issues that were still listed as current issues on their websites. Nice to think that newsstands have the magazines available first!)

 I am also very proud to let you know that we received the Bronze Award for Small Business of the Year at the Halifax Business Awards. The Chamber of Commerce put on a special evening

and my world...

 I was just at a large trade show in Toronto over the weekend called Print World 2010. I really do enjoy trying to learn about various aspects of the magazine and newspaper industry. Needless to say printers are a big part of it, on the flip side periodicals (5%) and papers (2%) are a small portion of their overall industry. That being said, one of the printers to speak at one seminar was Transcontinental. They are the fourth largest printer in North America and is Canada's leading publisher of consumer magazines and when they said that they believe in print and that they have invested a billion dollars on improved technology that makes my day! Bring on those magazines...

 Also part of my world is my manager Angela Carlsen, photographer. I just want to pass on something from her 

Images on first page are on 16x20 paper, hand-printed by yours truly in a darkroom. That's right,  these prints are old school. They are all on sale for the low price of $50, which is 1/3 of the original $150 price. The first 20 sold come packaged with a mat. All are signed.

Plus, I have just added some digital prints to the mix. These images are of buildings that no longer exist. They are digital prints on 13x19 paper and are also selling for $50 a piece. Mats are available while supplies last.

http://angelacarlsenearlyworkssale.weebly.com/
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But with different magazines this time.

I think it is rather interesting that  magazines covers rarely mirror each other (mind you, womens fashion covers are rather formula driven so they do look very similar!) . Yet here in the span of four weeks it has happened twice.  In the case of these two covers, the grey mastheads , same words in bold white, similar placement  and dark backgrounds are so similar you have to wonder how that can happen, especially when they arrive on the newsstand the same day. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of the art director and editors office after the magazines had hit the stands.

How about $175.00!

I have previously been asked what is our most expensive magazine. It used to be $125.00 but about three weeks ago, Bloom arrived ( we have 2 of only 6000 published) and it was $169.00! Yesterday though, Box arrived and it is $175.00. So there you have it, our most expensive magazine.

Our staff are great! And interesting and doing their own thing. Recently Ryan was invited to submit a film of his for the 10th anniversary of the Chicago Anarchist FilmFestival. Not only was  'Danger Dead End 5' accepted but it will be the opening film of the festival's Friday evening theme of "unembedded" films. This means the filmmakers have not been officially sanctioned by the governments involved. "Embedded" journalists are attached to invading or occupying armies. Their purpose is of course to reflect the official line. The scheduled films are activist documentaries or comments on heavy handed government activity that has not been properly covered by the popular media.  

 Congrats Ryan.

And back to work...

I felt like I was in and out of the store for the month of August grabbing days off here and there. Several of the staff took well deserved holidays and thankfully the weather held for them.

There is something about the day after Labour Day weekend, psychologically it seems to be the herald of fall, when it is time to pull up the boot straps and get back to work. Mind you maybe that is just me needing to get back to work! The university students are out in force all around our area, doing their frosh week fundraiser for Cystic Fibrosis. As the shop door opens you can hear them hooting and hollering and having fun all for a good cause. In this neighbourhood you definitely know it is back to school when that happens.

Just last week the magazine shipments seem to get back on track for fall as well.  We have been receiving smaller shipments and I would say it wasn't just because it was summer as one of my suppliers told me that over 300 magazines have stopped publishing. Over the summer our main supplier has been bringing us around 2200 magazines each Tuesday and then boom, right back up to 3000 magazines. We have already had the big fall fashion issues and tomorrow the October issue of Vanity Fair arrives.

Welcome to the next season and the next routine

They have lots in common!

The other day I met up with the father of my daughters friend. While he was waiting for me to arrive he was happily spending time reading a book. When I came up to his side, he said " Books are dead". Print that is; in his hand was a Sony Reader. I hope I masked the distress that flooded through me! I replied that I didn't believe that to be the case. He went on to say that his wife swore she would never read a book unless it was print. She did up trying the Sony Reader and read a whole novel in a weekend. I was given the analogy of rugs, brooms and vaccums. Can you picture in your minds eye the woven cane rug beaters? How each spring the carpets and rugs would be taken outside and given a beating. Brooms were used to tidy up and then along came vaccum cleaner sales men traipsing from door to door selling the new fangled gizmo to make your life easier. The father said how it took a few years to make the vaccum commonplace but where would we be without them today. Soon enough he believes that The Reader, Kindle, and others like them will replace shopping for and reading a print edition. My answer back is that most of us may have a vaccum cleaner but we all still have a broom. And some of us even still beat out the rugs in Spring. Print Dead? I don't think so.

And away they go...

No, just kidding they aren't leaving, but they are forging ahead with their own passions. Angela  ( Her Blog and website )  has a show this summer at the View Point Gallery on Barrington St. It gets a mention in the Summer issue of Canadian Art , which will probably arrive in June at the shop.

Leah has started installing our windows for several months now. We entered a country wide contest for two displays. I get to happily tell you she won first prize for both windows. Approximately 25 stores from across the country joined in the competition. Well done Leah. The first window was for Wallpaper magazine where she literally created wallpaper from the masthead. Then she turned the window into a setting for Decanter magazine. Most recently she created a universe for a science window. It looks brilliant.

 Caitlin one of our former staff is on her way to Toronto to work in Theatre. She graduated from the Dal program while working with us. Back in Mayof 08 she wrote the play Living my Life in Circles which got her a review stating " Pillsworth off to good start with new production by Metamorphic". So we wish her well on yet another new start. Break a leg Caitlin.

I just spent a wonderfully relaxing month in Australia staying with my husbands family in Newcastle, the farm in Guyra and with friends in Tasmania. Needless to say I did check out the newsstands of which there are many. Lots of the towns still have all their shops lining the main street. They have canopies that reach out from the side of the buildings allowing you to stroll protected from the sun. Some of the smaller towns will even have two newsstands. They are quite different from ours, as they are more a stationary and general goods shop with magazines added to the mix. Boy you should see the size of the Sydney Morning Herald it is huge, the dimensions must be nearly 2 ft by 3ft opened. I have to ask myself if I am exaggerating?? I am going to have to give a quick email to my parents in law to ask them to measure it....

 I also checked out the North American titles to see what their "import" retail prices were like.

                                   Here             There

Dance magazine          $4.99           $13.00

Grafik                         $25.50         $33.90

Adbusters                     $8.95           $9.95

Wired                          $5.99           $11.95

Yoga Journal                $6.99           $11.95

Collectible Automobile   $11.95         $14.95

Not too surprising really considering how far they have to go. Mind you the various differences don't make alot of sense particularily when you look at Adbusters with just $1 difference and then Dance with $8.00. 

The staff did a great job while I was away, as I had every confidence they would. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of "must attend to" notes on my desk.