The team at one of my newsagencies have created a terrific display for the new partwork: Quilting Made Easy. This is at the front of the business, facing into the mall.

Why give over such premium space?  Easy. This partwork is on TV. People will recall the TV ad when they walk past, step inside, purchase the partwork and most likely purchase something else. How do I know? The data tells me so. Partworks are excellent for attracting shoppers and the ,majority of these shoppers purchase other items.

Win.

We have been promoting the latest issue of Home Beautiful magazine with this aisle end display. This is a title which floats under the radar somewhat yet continues to deliver valuable sales, especially when we give it a shot in the spotlight like with this display.

After a week, the aisle-end display is down and the title is a featured title in with home and living titles. Home and living is a serious growth category for us – double digit growth over the Apr-Jun quarter last year. We track this data obsessively as it guide display decisions.

Check out A Blog About Magazines and the discussion on magazine covers. They mention the competition for attention in a newsagency and that publishers could be better off creating simpler covers like frankie. frankie stands out because it is simple against a sea of intensive covers.

I like fertility magazine, the new mini mag from Pacific Magazines. I like that it’s small and easily placed on the counter as an impulse line. This is where we have it in-store. We also have copies placed above pregnancy magazines in a small acrylic unit.

The $1.95 price point is good, playing into it being an impulse item at the counter. Above $2.00 would be a challenge.

I like the idea of single topic mini mags as a way of driving incremental business on impulse at the counter … as long as a bunch of publishers don’t do this and we become cluttered.

We have placed Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness and The Ultimate 2012 Olympic Guide with newspapers from this week to tap into the growing interest in the Olympics and the promotion around the two men’s titles.

We will run this for a week, maybe into next week depending on activity.

I am surprised by the quantity I received of the state of origin title, DYNASTY, from ACP. I’ll be lucky to sell one copy as sales of rugby related titles in my store show.  Since ACP has sales based replenishment I should have been sent two, maybe three, copies and then topped up as I sold them. This would be been much fairer than getting eleven sand probably returning two thirds.

We are promoting the title but the reality is that state of origin interest in our part of Melbourne is low and interest in the Broncos QLD state team even lower. No offence – just the facts.

We are promoting the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine with this display in our men’s magazine area as well as prime placement with our sports and fitness titles. The Olympic themed issue issue is sure to sell well, especially as we get closer to the games in London.

In addition to this display and good placement, we will give the title a week with newspapers.

We are also contemplating an Olympics themed display. Men’s Health would certainly be part of this – it’s a terrific magazine … sells well for us and we’ll jump at any opportunity for further promotion.

We engaged with Diabetes Awareness Week – which ended yesterday – by promoting Diabetes related titles in store. We try and stay on top of all opportunities like this as engaging with them reinforces our relevance to special events, and community awareness campaigns. Competing magazine retailers don’t do this so it’s a commercially rewarding point of difference for us.

I was sent several back issues of ManSpace magazine, a title I had not heard of until the publisher contacted me. It’s a look inside the world’s best garages, sheds and man caves. I have it out on the table at the office and the guys love it – they like that it treats them seriously, especially about the topic of their own space in the home.

ManSpace is distributed by Gordon & Gotch. I’d encourage newsagents to hunt it down it you want to have a magazine for guys which is not soft porn, about gardening, music, geek stuff or sports.

ManSpace really is in a niche almost all on its own. It feels a bit like Smith Journal but for an older guy … longer format articles. Intelligent. Something you’d be proud to be seen reading. I like it a lot and I’m not a man cave guy.

I am sure there are other special interest magazines out there like this which we should carry to become more the magazine destination store.

Connection Media is the publisher. They’re Melbourne based.

Pacific Magazines has launched a new iPad App for Men’s Health magazine.  It’s pitched as offering enhanced content for magazine readers.  It’s priced at $6.49 per issue for 12 issues. This is good – they are not favouring the digital platform price wise.

mediaweek yesterday published details of the App including…

In addition to the editorial content of the August print issue, the Men’s Health app also features behind-the-scenes footage of cover star James Magnussen’s shoot, video clips – and exploding pizzas.

Karen Deveson, Publisher, Pacific Magazines Healthy Lifestyle Group, said the launch of the app offered a new way for Men’s Health readers to engage with the brand.

“The Men’s Health iPad edition is an incredibly dynamic extension of the brand, and one which allows us to bring our core pillars – fitness, style and expert advice – to life in a way that can be consumed on-the-go,” Deveson said.

“The app is one of the finest in its class, and we look forward to bringing our readers continued innovation and exclusive content with each month’s issue.”