Scott, commenting on my post about Jeff Webster’s Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing magazine included a link showing a “Jeff†selling copies of the magazine on eBay. It’s a fair shot to try and find customers for what is a niche title.
It made me wonder, however, how the publisher could better engage with newsagents. Being a niche publisher does present difficulties.
One option would be to get together with related titles which consumers could be expected to purchase with your title. Either create a double pack (which newsagents and consumers don’t like that much) or invest some money into point of purchase packaging to enable two or three titles to be displayed in a high traffic area. This is what the big publishers do with regularity to find new readers. Most newsagents receiving a display pack put it out as requested – the first step to compliance is providing the materials necessary to achieve this.
I bet that putting Bay and Coastal Fishing into a display unit with, three or four related titles would generate a good sales kick. By providing this material, Jeff Webster and other smaller publishers would make it easier for newsagents to drive sales – plus there would be the benefit of a consistent in store display message.