Magazines have page numbers on some pages, but not all pages.
Do magazines want you to guess at the page number in hopes you’ll stumble upon ads as you find the beginning or continuation of an article? Is there some production-related reason why they omit the page numbers? I can’t really figure out the pattern of what pages they put the page numbers on and which they don’t. Does anyone have any insight?
My guess on this is that it has to do with if the story was planned or not.
I’ve noticed a couple of times in my Sports Illustrated that the magazine will be stapled together, but news about a recent event will have the pages glued in in the middle.
In Business Week I’ve noticed that thier index is not always accurate. It might say that there is news about GE on page nine, but there’s really an ad on page seven and the news about GE is really on page nine.
If a story wasn’t originally planned, then I think they just stick it in the middle without page numbers. That way they don’t end up with two of the same page number.
Of course, this is just a guess, and someone else will be along shortly to point out where I’m wrong.
The cynical part of me thinks that it is so you have to look at every page (and its ads) w/o just flipping to the page the story is on. I’ve noticed the no page number phenomenon is more prevalent in ad-intensive magazines.
Don’t know if this is the real reason, but I’d bet it’s at least some of it.
I think jk1245 hit the nail right on the head. For the same reason, magazines also like to split their stories so you have to go to the back, passing many ads on the way, to finish what you’re reading. I subscribe to a couple of political magazines that carry virtually no ads, and their stories always read straight through without skipping pages.
It’s very hard for magazines and newspapers to always get the pagination correct. Some magazines try harder than others.
Many magazines have regional editions with inserts and that really messes stuff up. “Sunset” is always a pain and the magazines of the Time family can be a pain as well.
My WAG is that advertisers who buy full-page ads don’t want a page number in their advertisement. They’re buying the full page, so they dictate what appears on it–and if a page number doesn’t aid them in getting their message across, then it isn’t included.
Not sure how this would work for advertisers who buy half-pages or less, but if the ad bleeds (that is, goes right to the edge of the page), I would imagine that the advertiser would insist on the page number’s exclusion.
Just a WAG though, based on experience: a past employer often bought full-page advertising in trade magazines, and they most definitely did not want page numbers appearing in their ads. I’m sure many others feel the same way.
I’m as cynical as the next guy, But after you’ve bought the magazine why would they care that you look at every page?
Ads are not produced by the magazines; rather, the ads are prepared by ad agencies to the specifications of the magazine; i.e., line screen for the halftones, maximum density of the four-color inks, size of the full- half- or quarter-page, etc. The magazines then recive four pieces of film (or an electronic file). When they recieved film, it was impossible for the magazine to put a page number on it, and the page number could not be put there by the agency (they wouldn’t know what page it was going on).
As for recieving the ad as a file, well, I’m not sure if the page number could be added. I would think the files would be a read-only, cause who would want to give anybody the opportunity to alter their copy?
(I’m out of the trade a few years now, but I once worked for a color pre-press shop that did considerable amounts of agency work.)
Well, on an individual basis they probably don’t care too much. But they need to keep selling space in their magazine every week, every month or whatever, so they need to demonstrate to advertisers that they are using every possible technique to get people to actually see the advertising.
Regarding postcards post, it seems unlikely to me that, even if the advertising files were “read only”, the magazines couldn’t put put page numbers in at the printing stage anyway, although i could be wrong. Also, magazines do not only neglect to put numbers on pages with ads - there are often pages that are mostly editorial content which also don’t have page numbers.
Magazine guy here…
There are a number of factors that can affect pagination and page numbers. For starters, no page number would ever appear on an advertiser page as it is not an edit page and only edit has page numbers. In fact, some magazines will include inserts in the overall page count… a four page insert between pages 12 and 13 might be numbered 12 and 17. Often times stories will be reordered at the last moment…this too can affect whether or not it has page numbers in it. Ad materials can arrive at the printer at the very last minute, throwing a wrench into best laid(out) plans. Personally, any magazine that just plain doesn’t include page numbers on a regular basis annoys the hell out of me.
As for stories “jumping” to the back of the book, there are two schools of thought. First is to run the whole story together, a nice uniterrupted read. But if the story isn’t appealing to you, the reader, your attention might be lost. By jumping it to the back, if you’re not interested, well that’s ok, because here’s a brand new story that may interest you up front. Far from wanting to bring readers to the back of the magazine with an edit jump to draw attention to advertisers, the greater risk is not having that reader flip back to the front of the magazine. IMHO, edit jumps for the most part are bothersome and likely to be avoided whenever possible, but are particularly beneficial when a story runs long by a column or two.
And contrary to some posts, any editor worth his salt cares that the magazine is read after it’s bought. Magazines want you to be regular readers…that’s how advertising is sold…and the only way to do that is to put out a consistently high quality editorial product that is read cover to cover. And yes, magazines do pay very close attention to reader mail and adjust the editorial as necessary.