Magazines: Paying to be featured, recognised???

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

I fully realise that Martial Arts Magazines have to rely on a certain amount of commercialism and adverts etc to stay afloat. Such is today’s world and there’s nothing wrong with that. The costs of producing a magazine must be phenomenal!

But I’m not too sure about the following?

What are your thoughts on this?

Is it “Cheque Book Journalism?”

Paying for recognition … surely not?

What does it say about those who may be “featured?”

What happened to being “featured” because you had something valid, interesting, of value to say to the wider community???

Your thoughts???

Subject: Blitz Instructors Special
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 09:35:15 +1000

Hi,

Thanks for your email and interest.

Our expressions of interest last week was towards Masters here and abroad who are interested in our Blitz Instructors Special - Masters Edition ‘Collector’s Edition’ (Nov 2012).

Blitz magazine’s annual special edition Instructors’ Fighting Techniques is all about giving readers the opportunity to expand their horizons. Through the insights offered by masters of many different martial arts, we hope to not only educate readers on the key elements of successful self-protection, but also on the broader benefits of martial arts training.

Each year, we publish up to 40k copies of this collector’s edition which is sold over three months (Nov, Dec, Jan) and always gets SOLD OUT!

The costs associated in securing your spot amongst the most practiced martial artists on the planet is below.

Two Page spread– Silver Package - $1,295

1/3 – Your details, Q/A

1/3 – Up to 8x photos of your technique workshop

1/3 – Advertisement of your dojo, club or organisation

Four Page spread– Gold Package - $1,995

1x Full page – Your details and Q/A

2x Full pages - Up to 8x photos of your technique workshop (per page)

1x Full page - Advertisement of your dojo, club or organisation

If you are willing to commit before end of June 2012, I’ll be happy to give you the early bird prices.

Two Page spread– Silver Package - $990 ( See attached 2 page-2)

Four Page spread– Gold Package - $1,495 (See attached 4 page-1 and 2)

Please don’t hesitate to contact me anytime.

Kind Regards

Would you pay to be featured?

2

[QUOTE=Minghequan;1176173]
Would you pay to be featured?[/QUOTE]

Absolutely NOT. Send a query letter to Gene. He’ll let you know if it’s good enough to publish.

3

Pay to win as a concept is more acceptable in a society that is more accepting of greed.

On one small level, this is just a reflection of that.

4

If you want to promote your school

You may start a facebook page or google+ page.

You may brand yourself with a twitter account.

You may add #pinterest account with your school.

–

They are many fee free ways to promote your school.

In terms of promotion, it is like 360 degrees or all encompassing.

Paid ad, paid mention or paid promotion on search engine

–

Promotion, promotion, promotion

Yes start youtube account or podcast account.

Free or paid.

–

People would search your school via google or bing.

People then would look up your school on facebook.

People would look up your school on youtube

People would look up your blog.

–

:slight_smile:

5

[QUOTE=MightyB;1176190]Absolutely NOT. Send a query letter to Gene. He’ll let you know if it’s good enough to publish.[/QUOTE]

Bingo! We have a winner.

Seriously, even if you are a sellout PR flack like me, you don’t pay for your clients to get coverage. Tell a story worth repeating.

6

This is like those poetry collections you can pay to have your poem published in. Sells out because everyone who pays to be in it buys copies. If your only goal is to see your name in print then maybe it’s worthwhile, otherwise… you probably get more out of just posting here. I recommend following SPJ’s suggestions.

7

No I would not, it’s nothing but a loss. A deal like this might appeal to the ego of a martial arts instructor that doesn’t have good business sense.

Look at it like this (and this also goes for value packs, money mailer magazines, newspaper inserts, etc.):

  • at 40,000 units for $1,995 you are paying just under $.05 per unit.
  • Are these magazine sold on news stands, delivered to paying subscribers or are they distributed door to door or in the mail to certain areas?
  • If it's a selling magazine out of 40,000 units how many will be bought from people who live within 4-6 miles from your school? Out of them how many of those people are even interested in your services?

It’s a pretty big gamble. It’s nice to be featured in a magazine and it looks good to have it framed and hanging on your wall but I wouldn’t pay for it. If you really want to be in a magazine honestly kungfumagazine has a good thing going. Anyone is welcome to submit a piece. Not only that if your school subscribes as a distributor you get listed in their school directory. You can sell the magazines in your school or use them as give aways to students.

8

I wish it were that easy

Pay-to-play coverage just isn’t viable over the long term. My life would be so much simpler if it was. While I’ll be the first to confess that KFTC, like any magazine, favors its sponsors and those featured in its product line, pay-to-play publishing is more like those collections of ‘interesting people’ that you can buy into - it’s very dated marketing. Honestly, given the information requested, who would want to read that?

I’m highly suspect that Blitz is moving 40K issues. I can’t imagine that the Oz newsstand is doing that much better than North America.

It’s actually pretty easy to get published. Just write a decent article - something other people would want to read. We’ll even pay you. Here’s how.

9

[QUOTE=GeneChing;1176244]Pay-to-play coverage just isn’t viable over the long term. My life would be so much simpler if it was.[/QUOTE]

On the other hand, my job would basically not exist if pay-to-play coverage was viable, so I’m glad that media outlets keep looking for interesting stories.

10

[QUOTE=SPJ;1176199]If you want to promote your school

You may start a facebook page or google+ page.

You may brand yourself with a twitter account.

You may add #pinterest account with your school.

–

They are many fee free ways to promote your school.

In terms of promotion, it is like 360 degrees or all encompassing.

Paid ad, paid mention or paid promotion on search engine

–

Promotion, promotion, promotion

Yes start youtube account or podcast account.

Free or paid.

–

People would search your school via google or bing.

People then would look up your school on facebook.

People would look up your school on youtube

People would look up your blog.

–

:)[/QUOTE]

When I read your posts

I feel like I am reading

A haiku sometimes

For many keywords it quickly becomes very expensive to do good SEO for the search engines. There are tons of good websites from good companies that no one ever sees because they don’t rank well.

SEO sucks, but it’s a necessary evil. Google is taking measures to make it harder and harder for the spammers, but that kind of thing takes time. And sometimes they mess up and make it worse.

I work in SEO (legit, not the spammy kind) and I could rant about this for hours, but I will end my post now instead.

11

[QUOTE=GeneChing;1176244]It’s actually pretty easy to get published. Just write a decent article - something other people would want to read. We’ll even pay you. Here’s how.[/QUOTE]

Can I write an article about critical thinking and qi gong training? Please?

You’d have to let me publish it anonymously thought because it would get a lot of the KF community’s panties in a knot and they would try to qi blast me… not that their qi blasts would do anything, but I don’t want death threats from fat out of shape scammy “gurus” who are butt hurt because I’m making their students question the mystic nonsense they are “learning.”

That is how the “gurus” respond though, isn’t it? Instead of doing the logical thing and proving their qi gong powers are real which should not only be easy (if they are real) but would also settle the question forever, they instead try to attack the person because they feel threatened and exposed. Every single one of them fails to realize that the onus of proof is on the person claiming to have mystic powers.

Of course, if I was scamming people and someone accused me of scamming I’d be pretty mad, too!

I don’t think my ego could take the blow if people found out I didn’t really have mystic powers. Especially my paying students :eek:

12

We just got offered $20K to feature someone on the cover

Tempting, but we’re not taking it.

We get bids every once in a while, but usually those that would offer such a sum would cost us more in the long run, as a weak cover detracts from sales on the ever-dwindling newsstands. Our refusal is not so much about integrity. It’s more about the amount. $20K wouldn’t cover the overall loss.

In all honesty, if someone offered us $1 million, we’d take it. :wink:

13

It is way too hard to read a well reasoned and thoughtful post on qi.

Tripe is so much easier to understand.

14

In most small trade or specialty interest magazines you will get better placement or cover mention or even a cover if you are a regular advertiser. As these are not ‘hard news’ mags, I really don’t see this as ‘pay to play’ as much as the realities of that business. But as Gene points out - the benefit still needs to be there.

15

The truth will remain that it is not a feature, not an article on you as a martial artist and what you have to bring to others, it is and will remain simply a “Paid Advertisement”.

As such, a disclaimer or notice of this nature should be published with each “feature”.

And you yourself state that this is a ploy used by “smaller publications” … Hmmm so why does Blitz with it’s stated readership have to resort to such tactics?

Honestly, given the information requested, who would want to read that?

If it was noticed in big plain writing that each “Feature” on each “Master” was in truth and Advertorial, paid for like late night “Infotainment Television” I don’t think they would see nearly as many copies sold as they lay claim to.

Honestly mate, I would rather read something that stands on it’s own merits for what the guy had to say and what the style had to offer knowing that it was not simply “paid for”.

An what does it say about those “Masters” and “Styles” featured??? They weren’t included in the issue because they are true exponents of their art or true “Masters” … No! … they were featured because they paid for it! Considered to be published as “Masters” (Good God! … Really!) because they paid for the privilege??? … False representation perhaps?

This makes Blitz by and large a “Advertorial” Magazine.

I have featured and written for a number of Martial Arts Magazines over the years such as:

•Australasian Fighting Arts Magazine
•World Organization of Wushu Kung Fu Masters Masters Edition 2012
•Combat Magazine (UK)
•Traditional Karate Magazine (UK)
•Australasia’s Bujutsu International Magazine
•Blitz Martial Arts Magazine (Australasia)
•Impact Magazine (Australia)
•Fight Times Magazine (Australia & New Zealand)
•Australasian Martial Arts Magazine
•Budo Arte Martiale Magazine (Romania)
•Judo Sport Magazine (Romania
•Aussie Post Magazine

And featured in the Blitz Publication “Kung Fu, The Styles & the Masters” Special Collector’s Edition 2005.

I never once PAID for privilege!

Australasian Fighting Arts Magazine (AFA) set high standards of professionalism and integrity in what they presented. You could not buy a ’feature’ or a ’cover shot’ you had to be worthy of it in terms of what you presented!

Just my two cents … And no, I did not pay for this post!!!

16

if i pay them 100 dolar, will they advertise wombat combat?

17

Most likely!!!:frowning:

18

Does it matter! Why? Because it means anyone can buy in to the magazine for a feature regardless of what they are teaching (it could be complete rubbish) and still get featured in a magazine with the wording “Masters Edition”.

What if that person/style/group has no accreditation, first aid? What if their practice methods are unsafe? Doesn’t matter, they have the money so they get the feature!

Master So-&-So is featured in the Magazine so he must be good and train safely, after all the magazine featured him and we all too often put pour faith and trust in the media and what it tells us is okay, good or cool!

Doesn’t matter, they have the money so they get the feature! This means anyone (I mean “ANYONE”) can buy in to the mag sprucing their wares (right or wrong, good or bad).

Okay, you pay for the feature, shouldn’t you then be entitled to write what you like? After all, you are actually paying for the space in the magazine! So you can then slag-off any other group or instructor … I mean you paid for the right didn’t you? So that should make it all okay shouldn’t it?

What sort of “Master” has to buy their way into a two page feature? If that’s the case I for one would not be walking but running away in the opposite direction.

Okay so their not “Journalists” … herein lies a great part of the problem. A standard of journalism should be applied. They should have semblance of objectivity instead of just publishing who ever pays or who the magazine aligns itself to which seems to be the current case.

Being the current chief purveyor of information and opinion about the Martial Arts in Oz should not Blitz be holding to a higher standard serving the entire martial arts community and not just a chosen few with no presumption of balance or objectivity as may or may not be the case?

SELF CENSORSHIP is a growing problem in journalism. As commercial pressure in the media marketplace grows, media organizations are loath to lose those who pay over those who don’t even if those who don’t have something of equal or even higher value to offer over that of the Advertorial types. Would you pay for a feature? If so, why? how do you justify it? If not … Why? Let’s hear your views.

19

A small part of the Australian Journalism Code:

AJA CODE OF ETHICS

Respect for truth and the public’s right to information are fundamental principles of journalism. Journalists describe society to itself. They convey information, ideas and opinions, a privileged role. They search, disclose, record, question, entertain, suggest and remember. They inform citizens and animate democracy. They give a practical form to freedom of expression. Many journalists work in private enterprise, but all have these public responsibilities. They scrutinise power, but also exercise it, and should be accountable. Accountability engenders trust. Without trust, journalists do not fulfil their public responsibilities. Those engaged in journalism commit themselves to

Honesty
Fairness
Independence
Respect for the rights of others

  1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply.

  2. Do not place unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family relationships, religious belief, or physical or intellectual disability.

  3. Aim to attribute information to its source. Where a source seeks anonymity, do not agree without first considering the source’s motives and any alternative attributable source. Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances.

4. Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.

5. Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism. Do not improperly use a journalistic position for personal gain.

6. Do not allow advertising or other commercial considerations to undermine accuracy, fairness or independence.

7. Do your utmost to ensure disclosure of any direct or indirect payment made for interviews, pictures, information or stories.

  1. Use fair, responsible and honest means to obtain material. Identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice.