Once a month we invite our member magazine publishers and enthusiasts to guest-edit our fortnightly email newsletter. The aim is to inspire others with magazine-related content, connect members and build our community so we can learn from each other.
This month our guest editor is Business Coach and founder of Inktop, Helen Coston. You can follow Helen on LinkedIn – remember to connect and say hello!
And why not join Helen’s ‘5 Ways to Build a Steady Stream of Clients’ session on 12 February – sign up here – it’s free!
Tell us about yourself
I’m passionate about the magazine industry, having been an avid reader as a child and spent my career in the publishing industry. I spent years in B2B press before working for a contract publisher where I created commercial strategies for membership organisations and charities.
In 2019, I became founder of specialist consultancy and training for the publishing industry, Inktop. In 2023, I opened a 1:2:1 coaching practice where I help small business owners and publishers achieve their business objectives.
Members receive their first 5 Ikon Images illustration uses for £50 each
What’s on your mind?
Just last night my 9 year old daughter was on my laptop and playing about with prompts in ChatGPT. As she laughed at a picture of a pig eating a cabbage I was really taken aback at how at her age I had my nose buried in comics and later, in The New Scientist (always on our coffee table at home).
We all know reader habits are changing and my job for much of the past five years has been about helping publishers to diversify and commercialise to stay profitable.
I’m quite interested in how AI has become so massive this year, but also the impact it has had on content. If my daughter can “create” a funny picture in seconds, we all can. And I’m interested in how this has led so quickly to a lower quality of online content across socials and websites.
Will people want to have a reliable source of trusted content again? And if someone has taken the bother to print it, it must be worth reading. Or that’s what we used to say at my first job. Print could well make a comeback.
What’s the best article you’ve
read this month?
I moved house this year and have been eyeing up the garden since we moved in. I’m absolutely obsessed with gardening – I’m mainly a vegetable grower through – and cannot wait to get started. My kids are really keen to be involved and want to make it a wildlife friendly zone. So we read an article from the Natural History Museum on different ways to create a wildlife friendly garden and it sparked lots of ideas we can incorporate into our design. I loved it because the article was fairly simple to follow, shareable with kids and just made me feel good that we’re doing our bit.
I also subscribe to Kitchen Garden Magazine and find their monthly tips very helpful.
Show us an incredible magazine cover
I’m not picking one out here, but going to go with the Private Eye. As a kid my mum would bundle me and my sisters into the car on a Friday evening to go food shopping. Once inside she’d send me off with a list of things to find, but instead I would sneak into the magazine aisle to look at the Private Eye front cover for the week. Even now seeing the Private Eye, reminds me of being a child and seeing the headlines from a funnier perspective.
What’s your top tip for publishers?
If people don’t want to buy print ads, don’t sell print ads.
I don’t mean don’t have a print mag. A print magazine offers credibility and a curated audience. But you can commercialise in a different way. Some sectors are doing well in print, others less so.
My Top Tip would be to talk to your audience/advertisers about what they do want and look at how that can fit with your business and editorial standards etc. But selling something that no one wants to buy isn’t a good business decision
Questions for the community
What subject or issue would you like the International Magazine Centre Members Group to discuss and untangle over on LinkedIn?
My question is: Why do media buying agencies take a 10% cut?! This means it is in their interest to pay higher prices to publishers as their commission is then higher, rather than negotiate like a pro on behalf of their clients. In nearly 20 years in the industry I have never got it!
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