Magazine Distributor used Twitter Friday to promote newsagents again and shared images of four magazines. While I love the support from Gotch for newsagents, I’d prefer them to choose titles more newsagents are more likely to regularly carry. For example, I’ve never heard of Bomb magazine. I looks to be a niche title for a specialist market.

We are promoting Australia The Story of Us from Pacific Magazines in several locations in the newsagency to make the most of the opportunity, of the launch of the four-part title and the premiere of the TV show of the same name on the Seven Network last night.

We thought about the best place to promote the title and decide on placement with newspapers, in the middle of the main magazine aisle and at the counter. We will assess this space commitment late this week before deciding if we will change the space allocation.

Australia The Story of Us is a terrific looking title – excellent quality. I’m hoping the TV premiere last night gets people looking at it.

Check out how one newsagent labels magazines. While the photo is fro last year, it is from a CBD bed newsagents which considerable magazine sales. The label itself reminded me of what newsagents used to do twenty years ago and here it is being used today. While it does not have the useful of today’s label, it does at least allow shop floor management of when the return is due.

The Christmas special edition of The People’s Friend is one Christmas-themed magazine that sells well into the new year. While the Christmas editions of many other overseas titles struggle, this one performs as well as the main magazine itself – very well.

Mary berry is the queen of baking and right now she is featuring on The Great British Bake Off on Australian TV. This has been reason enough to make the most of her cover shot on My Weekly to drive impulse purchases.

I am grateful a newsagent drew my attention to an article on page of The Australian Financial Review yesterday. Baking giant’s profit crumble on page 27 is a timely read as what Goodman Fielder has experienced with Coles and Woolworths, Australian magazine publishers could also experience as bread and magazines share some common aspects.

Here is what the newsagent wrote to me about this:

The comments in the AFR today regarding Goodman Fielders result (page 27) and the steps this company is taking to recover from a huge drop in profit due to oversupply and massive returns of bread sound just like magazines. I wonder how much push came from the supermarkets or is the effect on Goodmans bottom line the driver. Maybe we can learn something.

We see supermarkets driving some activity with magazines around discounts and bundled deals – all pitching the titles at below their cover price.

I wonder if there is pressure for this to increase – offering discounts, bundles and other promotions. Supermarkets are more active in the magazine space than at any recent time.

The only way we newsagents can address this is to be a unified channel of value to magazine publishers. I suspect, however, that the behaviour of magazine distributors toward newsagents is s barrier to that happening.

We are promoting the Men’s Health Cover Model Muscle mini magazine with our news, property and money titles swell as with men’s health related titles elsewhere in our mag department. It’s the right time of the year for the title. We’ve suggested it as a Valentine’s Day gift to some.