American Printer to cease publication

[Cory Smith]

Sad to see after 128 years.

AMERICAN PRINTER 1883-2011: It’s so hard to say goodbye to yesterday | KOB on Commercial Printing

[almaink]

Yet another sign of the demise of printing, as we knew and loved it. Thanks for the link Cory.

[Mark]

Printing will go on. Books and magazines will fade into niche market.

[printerdw]

I know the last one I got only had 37 pages in it so sad these days we need all the help we can get with all the new toys out there.

[gordo]

Sad to see after 128 years.

I wonder what, if any, changes they made to the publication as they saw advertiser revenue dropping?
I also wonder why print related publications in other countries seem to be thriving.

best, gordo

[mojoprime]

wow. that's too bad.

[Keith]

Holy crap!


I'm gonna miss Steve Johnson's column.

[Prepper]

I wonder what, if any, changes they made to the publication as they saw advertiser revenue dropping?
I also wonder why print related publications in other countries seem to be thriving.

best, gordo

Is it because a lot of printing has moved from America to other countries?

[gordo]

Is it because a lot of printing has moved from America to other countries?

I don't see how that portion of printing that has moved from the US to other countries would affect American Printer magazine in any significant way. There's still a massive amount of printing being done in the US.
Magazines are financed by advertising. If advertisers don't buy ad space, publications like this will fail. If advertisers don't see the publication providing a positive/better ROI relative to other marketing dollar spends then they don't buy the ad space. So, the publication's editorial job is to make the magazine a compelling, valuable, and effective vehicle for the advertiser. That's usually done by creating a magazine that the intended market - in this case prepress, printers, and graphic arts vendors - want to read and keep.
I haven't seen any recent copies of American Printer, which is why I asked if they had done anything to improve their value to advertisers. Most US graphic arts magazines that I've seen haven't changed their editorial style in decades which may be one of the reasons that readers are no longer interested.

best gordo

[prwhite]

Most people today want their news as it happens. Some, but not all of the industry websites offer daily or live updates -- many are only weekly. Magazines, by their very nature, can't publish "news" due to their assembly cycle, and many wind up printing old news that is ancient history by the time the ink hits the paper. Gordo is right, most industry mags have not really changed their style at all. But, where they could be beneficial is to write business development articles and stories about how to transition and make money in specific vertical markets where growth opportunities exist. I'm not implying that AP was not writing great editorial, but that this has been a general trend with the industry pubs.

Another impact area for mags is the fracturing of marketing budgets away from magazine-based advertising into internet ads, Google AdWords, direct mail and a wealth of other options where an advertiser can directly quantify $$ spent with business gained form an event. Gone are the days when advertisers are merely branding. Magazine advertising is much harder to quantify in terms of "cost of sales" then looking at click throughs and direct contacts made.