I have come to the conclusion that the most annoying problem a magazine can have is not having a page number on each page. It seems that the more expensive the mag, the more likely it is to have this problem. What does anyone else think about this?
Not only are the more expensive mags not likely to have page numbers, but they seem more likely to have articles that are “continued on pg. XXX” which leads me to hunt for the nearest numbered page, then thumb through, counting pages, until I can find the rest of the article. This often doesn’t work, though, because what I’m counting as a ‘page’ is actually part of an ‘advertising section’ that the magazine itself doesn’t count. . .
Ugh.
And don’t get me started on those fucking stiff cardboard ‘response’ cards they put in there that are attached to the freakin’ binding of the magazine, so that even if you tear them out, the binding part is still in there, making the magazine automatically open to that page. . .
I told you not to get me started!
Thank goodness for magazines on my Nook!
Or something like Martha Stewart Living where, the last time I actually picked one up, had the table of contents round about page 62…
Or cosmo, upper left corner:
50 things that’ll make your man crazy!
212 things he doesn’t think you’ll do in bed
15 ways to have the bestest sex evar!!1!!1!
716 ways to curl his toes
To date, there have been 7,345,212 things Cosmo has published that women can do to make a man happy…you’d think it would have more positive impact on society
Your problem is you expect the magazine to be useful to the reader. Nay, nay, it is first meant to be conducive to presenting advertising. Beyond that, it is art – high enough art that it would be a sin to despoil a layout with anything so crass as a page number. Now, there are a few pages that are plain enough to bear it, and so a bone is tossed to the reader in the form of occasional page numbers. The essence of it, though, is not that they want you to read the rag, but that they want you to buy it.
UB, it’s the same 30 tips. They just change the adjectives every once in a while.
I also hate those cardboard inserts. I subscribe to “Smithsonian Magazine”. That rag has typically nine (9) (IX) of those inserts that I have to rip out before the thing is readable.
My issue today advised that it was the last one before I had to renew. I’ll betcha they send me at least six more copies before they end.
Rolling Stone did this to me. They started the “OMG! LAST ISSUE!” thing less than 4 months into a year subscription. They then continued to send me issues for almost a year past when it should have expired.
My hate is perfume ads. I know you can subscribe to some magazines perfume-less, which is fine if I want to subscribe. Sometime I just want a magazine to flip through, and that’s not always possible. TheKid has become my perfume page puller outer.
Yes. Most annoying. Why all the subscription cards if I am already a subscriber? Why all the blow-in cards and postcards and ads stitched into the binding so you can’t fold the magazine back to read it?
I used to subscribe to several magazines. It’s now down to two, and both of them seem to have run amok with the ad inserts. I’ll probably let the subscriptions run out like the others, and read more online issues. It saves trees, anyway.
A hard to find table of contents. I subscribe to Vanity Fair, and they typically have it hidden among 50 pages of luxury goods ads.
I have become a huge fan of the Xinio application on the Ipad. Not only do I skip the inserts, th perfume and the subscription reminders but the price is usually hard to beat.
Last month there was a delay of almost a week in a couple of the magazines I subscribe to. Xinio extended my subscriptions for all affected magazines by a month and sent me a gift certificate. All this for a problem that I barely noticed.
There is one issue with them - the update flag sometimes doesn’t clear after you’ve downloaded the new magazine but it’s a minor issue that I’m sure they’ll have corrected eventually.
You can sign up for it to autorenew but I have that turned off. I get one email reminder the month before they’re due and one the month they expire.
All the ads in The New Yorker used to drive me absolutely insane. I had to flip through ad after ad just to get to the damn content. And for some reason my sister loves Lucky magazine, which is a huge magazine that amounts to a book full of ads. Why??
I also agree with the comment upthread about the same 30 “tips.” Plus, parenting magazines make me want to scream. Be sure to get at least eight hours a day, especially when you have a newborn! If you’re working, don’t forget to take some “me” time! Relax with a bubble bath! Cook all your meals from scratch! Organize your entire damn house so it’s a showplace! Save money and make your kids’ toys! And don’t forget to work out at least a half an hour every day - preferably an hour! It’s all so easy, and to make it sound better, we end everything with exclamation points because that makes us upbeat! Whee!
See, Lucky is a magazine specifically about fashion and beauty shopping (I think the tagline on the cover is “the magazine about shopping and style” - note the word order) so it literally is all about the ads. The articles are advertising as much as the obvious ads are.
Real Simple has a ton of ads in it, to the point that when I subscribed to it, they got in the way of the articles I was trying to find. So - probably much to the chagrin of the magazine’s editors - when I received a new issue, I sat down and tore out each page that had an ad on both sides, and threw each ad page right into the garbage. I wouldn’t really even look at the pages themselves, just if it was mostly photo, it would almost certainly be gone. If it looked like instructions with photos, I’d pause long enough to see if this went with the accompanying article or not. By the time I was done, the magazine was at least half as thick as it had been when I started.
What is it with magazines that print half the mag one way, and then reverse up-and-down for the next half?
Does it garner more attention for their advertisers?
I find it annoying.:eek:
Has anyone ever compiled statistics on the ratio of advertising:content in various magazines?
Oh, I get that. I just don’t understand buying a magazine that is a huge series of advertisements. My sister keeps trying to get a subscription, but every time she mentions it, I run screaming into the sunset.
I personally no longer subscribe to a single magazine other than one free one I get that is related to my industry and a professional society to which I belong. Yet somehow, I get several magazines a week. All are 100% crap and go straight into the garbage can. Even things like AAA and the San Diego Zoo feel compelled to send my a damn magazine, which also goes straight into the garbage, and all I can think is: “How about they offer to lower the cost of their service/membership a few dollars and let people opt out of their magazine”. Yeah, that’s not an option.
What really drives me up the wall is that my Homeowner’s Association feels the need to make a magazine as well, which they throw on my driveway. I usually only notice it after I have run it over a few times at which point it is just litter anyway. So now I have garbage being tossed on my driveway and I get the privilege of paying to have that garbage printed up. Seriously, if it’s important, I’ll hear about it on the news or read about it online…
I, too, have a subscription to Vanity Fair, and the first thing I do when I get it is shake out the subscription cards and then sit down and cut or rip out all the stiff, full-page ads and any full-size pages that are stiffer than normal. Then, starting about midway into the mag I flip toward the front until I find the two table of contents pages and dog ear them. All this takes two or three minutes and then I have the rest of the month to enjoy the magazine without irritation.
Typically, those are special issues that cover two topics. The magazine is laid out that way so the retailer has the option of showing whichever of the covers he wants to. It’s not that annoying, only because it’s not that common.
I used to work in a publishing place that produced a few magazines for various organizations companies. When I first started, (This was WAAAY before destop/digital publishing) I was assigned to manually put page numbers into one of the magazines. The production manager saw the great job I was doing and told me… “Take out the page numbers, on the full page ads, and on any page that had a half page on the bottom.” I asked why, and he said that they wanted people to have to search through the magazine, so as to be exposed to more ads.
By the way, anyone who is familiar with my post will quickly realise that I didn’t do much proof reading, even then.
Ya wanna know how old I am? Well, I’m old enough that I can remember when “Reader’s Digest” had NO ADS AT ALL!
Now the thing is two thirds ads, and I won’t even read it if it’s free.