AppleSeeds

I was asked and I have accepted to be the consulting editor for the Feb. 2013 issue of AppleSeeds. The magazine, now in its 15th year, is published 9 times a year and is aimed to kids in 3rd to 5th grade. The Feb. issue was a special issue on How to Make a Magazine.

The Des Moines Register

I was interviewed and quoted for a story on Meredith launching a new print magazine based on the digital web site Allrecipes.com

Here are my quotes and click here to read the entire article.

“All of a sudden, the magazines are coming back to their senses,” said Samir Husni, an analyst who has covered the magazine industry since 1984. “In 2008, when the economy busted and technology burst, they lost all confidence.”

Husni praised Meredith officials for moving Allrecipes.com toward a print product, saying it’s a common-sense move and good business because publishers still receive much of their advertising revenue through print products.

As for Newsweek, Husni, who runs the website Mr. Magazine and is head of the University of Mississippi’s Magazine Innovation Center, said the 79-year-old publication may be heading out the door prematurely because of its move to all-digital.

Folio:

I wrote a column for Folio: All Good Print Magazines Go to Digital Heaven… or Do They?

Here is the intro and click here to read the entire column.

When a publication decides its earthly existence as a print life form is no longer a viable option and instead takes on a digital-only presence, is it really a heaven-sent opportunity or is it actually a gentle nudge by the minions of magazine hell to push it into its final resting place? If your print product isn’t connecting with an audience, is it really going to flourish among a billion more nondescript URLs or a million other apps?

The New York Observer

I was interviewed and quoted for a story about relaunch of The Saturday Evening Post.

Here are my quotes and click here to read the entire article.

“What Steve is trying to do is get the best of the history of the magazine and put it in a new, 21st-century outfit,” explained Samir Husni, a media consultant who is lending his expertise to the Post. “They never stopped publishing, but nobody knew. It became the best-kept secret in America, and now they are trying to reveal the secret.”

Folio:

My presentation at the Media Next Conference in New York City on Jan. 9 was reviewed on the Folio: blog.

Here is the part of the review regarding my presentation and click here to read the entire review:

Samir Husni, the director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi, presented an optimistic view of the industry, despite its tendency toward the negative—“Nobody talks as much as we do about our own demise,” he says. Husni ran through the more than 800 magazine launches of the past year, stopping to highlight several of the more amusing. His point was larger though. Though many were alarmed print been passed by other forms of media, that doesn’t mean it will go away. Print ad revenues bypassed radio in 1935; television bypassed radio in 1955—after playing third-fiddle for more than a half-century, radio is still relevant.

WSU The Signpost

My column in Publishing Executive was quoted in The Signpost, the Weber State University publication.

Here is part of the review and click here to read the entire article.

Recently, “Publishing Executive” came out with the article “A Fickle Mistress,” saying to not to discount print . . . yet.

“If we can imagine a day when print may no longer exist,” wrote Samir Husni, author of “Mistress,” “why do we not imagine the reverse: a day when digital may disappear?”

Let’s imagine the day has come when print has died. Books, magazines and newspapers are all available only through digital archives. Life is fantastic for modern bibliophiles, who can access millions of texts from one device, and college students love not having to carry heavy backpacks anymore. Great. Everyone is happy.

New York Post

I was interviewed and quoted for a story on Newsweek and The Daily Beast at the New York Post.

Here are my quotes and click here to read the entire article.

“Her biggest mistake from the beginning was merging Newsweek into the Daily Beast, rather than vice versa,” said Samir Husni, a professor who founded the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi’s Meek School of Journalism. “She was willing to kill a brand that was 80 years old that every household in America knew for one that nobody knows.”

A spokesman for Daily Beast declined to comment.

The Province (Canada)

A story on Modern Cat magazine in The Province newspaper referred to my choice of the magazine as one of the most notable launches of the year.

My quotes are below and click here to read the entire article.

Modern Cat was named one of the 15 hottest magazine launches of 2012 from a field of 800 new titles by Samir Husni, founder-director of the magazine innovation centre at University of Mississippi’s Meek school of journalism.

“Modern Cat is the best example of staying with the times, when traditional cat magazines are not enough,” Husni writes.

“This magazine not only highlights the feline experience, it actually explores life with a cat and all that entails.”

It’s not an easy time to launch a print magazine and Wilson considered making Modern Cat an exclusively digital publication.

But research showed her many readers still prefer print.

Marketwire

My review of the new magazine launches of 2012 made it to the front page of Marketwire on Dec.30, 2012.

Click here to read the story.

Media Post

The lead story in today’s Media Post Media Daily New was a review by Joe Mandese about my year-end report about the status of new magazines.

Here is the intro of Joe’s review and click here to read the entire review.

In an ironic and creepy endnote to a year that ended with an assault weapons massacre of young children at an elementary school in Connecticut, the two “most notable” magazine launches of 2012 were (in this order) a magazine aimed at the kind of extreme gun enthusiasts who covet aforementioned assault weapons, and a magazine aimed at young children, according to an annual list published by consumer magazine trend follower, Samir Husni, a professor at the University of Mississippi, who is also known as the “Magazine Guy.”

The aptly named Recoil ranked No. 1, Husni explained to online business news service CommPRO.biz, because it is “an artfully-done, gun-lifestyle magazine that is selling for as much as $125 an issue on eBay.”