Magazine stuff

[normski]

Last comment::

"Whilst I agree that it\'s bad there is no payment for getting a car in a mag I dont really see why there should be"

Pardon: sounds like contradiction to me! But hay I have my head up my ass!!!:Party

Your right: I am having no problem   with this and I have insulted no one!

I am saying no more on this one:

[probedb]

I think it sounds like you got a bad deal to be honest. Everyone I know who\'s had a feature got at least several copies of the magazine. Which one is it btw?

A friend who\'s car was featured also got a CD full of all the photographs that were taken, full 12 megapixel jobbies.

I\'d hassle the mag if I were you

Personally if anyone is so interested in getting paid for showing their car you really should ask about this before agreeing to the feature.

[Initial-D]

I know where your coming from Memski about the mags not paying to feature the car but... its not common place for a mag to pay the owner of the car - although you should always get a stash of mags for it. As said above the real benefit is to be recognised for your time and effort, like winiing a trophy at a show. If your a tuner its free publicity so its all good!

Steve at J-tuner gave me about 20 mags for my feature, if they had given me 70 pounds I\'d have gone out and bought about 20 copies which would have cost at least 70 pounds anyway!

[jinx]

Sorry Normski, but I think your basic premise is flawed. (Possibly on more than one level)

No publisher puts a title out for the love of the editorial content. In their view, a magazine only exists to sell advertising space - nothing else. Any publisher will also tell you that profits are balanced between titles that sell well and titles that don\'t. To cheer yourself up on this score, spend a happy evening working out what it cost Future Publishing to float J-Tuner for as long as it lasted. They could not make it pay (enough) and they are (were?) the largest publisher of consumer titles in Europe.

J-Tuner though did enthusiasts a major service in its short life, as it taught the other titles that just buying in agency articles from the US was not enough. They both still do it but are making a visible effort to include more UK material. If it makes you feel better, that effort will be coming off their bottom line - because it is far more trouble and expense to set up a shoot here, even with a free car, than it is to take the whole package off the wire.

I also think it is unlikely that anyone at the sharp end of producing a magazine, for a niche like Japanese enthusiasts, is living riotously well on the income they make from writing or shooting for it. I doubt many of them would have the wherewithall to commission anything on the same scale as the car they were writing about in this instance. The cult of celebrity may apply to Clarkson et al and those supermodels much-mentioned above but only once they have become household names do they have an asset value that would justify high fees to a publisher. How many people reading this (if any) can name a journalist writing for a Japanese title? (That’s ‘currently’ by the way for J-tuner fans and as he wasn’t actually christened ‘Scary Steve’ that won’t count either.)

There is the additional argument that an owner gains from the exposure as he/she is able to use "as seen in..." when the car goes up for sale. Yours may not be but Japanese, like most other car titles, are always able to fill pages with vehicles that are (or are about to be) up for sale. From a publisher’s perspective this means they are giving away free advertising. A particularly painful heresy, it would seem to them to represent ‘exchange’ rather than ‘exploitation’.

None of this will offset the cost of doing something really expensive, something that involves lots of bespoke problem solving by owner or builder. Still, if creating the car was about return on investment I think that was probably the first mistake.

Incidentally, I don’t mind whether you join anything or not. I would be mildly interested to see the car but not sufficiently motivated to buy a magazine and no, I was not paid by the word for this submission, I wrote it for pleasure and because the thread made me laugh.  Good luck with the car. Sprinkle some cocaine around the air intake, run into a supermodel coming out of an alcohol rehabilitation clinic and we could be talking ‘Hello’ magazine and some really big bucks… Call me â€" our people should do lunch. ?

[oldone]

Sorry Normski, but I think your basic premise is flawed. (Possibly on more than one level)

No publisher puts a title out for the love of the editorial content. In their view, a magazine only exists to sell advertising space - nothing else. Any publisher will also tell you that profits are balanced between titles that sell well and titles that don\'t. To cheer yourself up on this score, spend a happy evening working out what it cost Future Publishing to float J-Tuner for as long as it lasted. They could not make it pay (enough) and they are (were?) the largest publisher of consumer titles in Europe.

J-Tuner though did enthusiasts a major service in its short life, as it taught the other titles that just buying in agency articles from the US was not enough. They both still do it but are making a visible effort to include more UK material. If it makes you feel better, that effort will be coming off their bottom line - because it is far more trouble and expense to set up a shoot here, even with a free car, than it is to take the whole package off the wire.

I also think it is unlikely that anyone at the sharp end of producing a magazine, for a niche like Japanese enthusiasts, is living riotously well on the income they make from writing or shooting for it. I doubt many of them would have the wherewithall to commission anything on the same scale as the car they were writing about in this instance. The cult of celebrity may apply to Clarkson et al and those supermodels much-mentioned above but only once they have become household names do they have an asset value that would justify high fees to a publisher. How many people reading this (if any) can name a journalist writing for a Japanese title? (That’s ‘currently’ by the way for J-tuner fans and as he wasn’t actually christened ‘Scary Steve’ that won’t count either.)

There is the additional argument that an owner gains from the exposure as he/she is able to use "as seen in..." when the car goes up for sale. Yours may not be but Japanese, like most other car titles, are always able to fill pages with vehicles that are (or are about to be) up for sale. From a publisher’s perspective this means they are giving away free advertising. A particularly painful heresy, it would seem to them to represent ‘exchange’ rather than ‘exploitation’.

None of this will offset the cost of doing something really expensive, something that involves lots of bespoke problem solving by owner or builder. Still, if creating the car was about return on investment I think that was probably the first mistake.

Incidentally, I don’t mind whether you join anything or not. I would be mildly interested to see the car but not sufficiently motivated to buy a magazine and no, I was not paid by the word for this submission, I wrote it for pleasure and because the thread made me laugh.  Good luck with the car. Sprinkle some cocaine around the air intake, run into a supermodel coming out of an alcohol rehabilitation clinic and we could be talking ‘Hello’ magazine and some really big bucks… Call me â€" our people should do lunch. ?

Well put sir ! A very entertaining thread I agree.......Almost :guinness  time I say.........:cheers

[clive]

In answer to the question as to why our member Muppet\'s let magazines feature their cars,

Many many members have approached me about assisting them to have their cars featured in various magazines over the years and I am very happy to have assisted quite a few of them in their quest.

I personally view this quest as a way of people enhancing the ownership of their car just the way as I have always hoped that becoming a Full club Member also enhances ownership of an enthusiasts vehicle.
__________________

[D1 WTF]

the funny thing that no one has mentioned is that my friend recently got his car featured, (mag soon to be out).  the decent clever specialists were the ones that gave him money.  shockingly when approached the ones that did his rebuild eg £6k+ were not willing to give him anything/ discount him anything such as a cheaper intercooler as they said that all their money was being spent on their own car.  
when on the cover of a mag and with stickers (that he had put (my friend)) all over his engine bay promoting their company, you might think they might want to make sure those stickers stay there, for the photo shoot.  my friend even turned round to them and said ok then why should i not just change the stickers to one of your rivals and say they did the rebuild then,........there answer was.....ow well  errrr......
and then some of other specialists which had done some stuff in the past to the car etc, but nothing as big as the rebuild where happy to give him a credit on his account of £250, without even asking.  he just let them know it was going into the mag and going to be on the cover and he was going to put some of their stickers on the car and they said.  thankyou very much, we would like to show are appresiation.  (this is the sort of company that are clever as they see the benifit and are greatful to their customer).  

in the same way normski your engine bay is awsome, and a real credit to (WGT) pip, and now that you are mainly going to use it as a show car it is going to be giving him tones of advertising.  therfore if you want some money  for a feature i would be going to WGT as you are going to be aiding them significantly.  obviously they arent going to hand you cash but they might like to slightly subsidise your build etc.

that is one hold up i have, some specialist do great work but in my opinion there after sale and customer care is cr4p.  obviously, this is talking from limited knowledge/experience so please dont every vendor take this as an offence.  
however the clever company above (dont want to mention any names even though i think the diserve it), once when i was not happy with the service they provided, (a couple of things were not done that i had specificly asked them to do, so as i was collecting that car and paying a largish bill, i said that i wasnt happy bla bla etc).  due to a mess up between the person answering the phone and the workshop.  
i had a phone call the next day saying they had looked into it and realise it was a miss comuniction on there part and there fault and that they do not like people going away unhappy with there service etc and they would like to sort out the probs free of charge next time i went, as well as crediting me with £50 to cover my travel costs.  That is customer service/care as it should be.

[pete sparrow]

So whats your cunning plan Normski??? Unite everyone with a car worthy of a future feature,and tell them not to let there pride and joy be featured unless they get paid!?!?!?!?!
 If your lucky enough to be offered or have had a feature then that should be enough surely??? Your car gets lusted after by loads of people,it gets nationwide exposure and you want money as well???
 Having read this thread completely and noticed your attitude,maybe thats why you personally got a bum deal with your feature.
 Getting your car into a mag is a cool thing,but the dilusions of graduer your suffering from aren\'t cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[normski]

Sorry Normski, but I think your basic premise is flawed. (Possibly on more than one level)

No publisher puts a title out for the love of the editorial content. In their view, a magazine only exists to sell advertising space - nothing else. Any publisher will also tell you that profits are balanced between titles that sell well and titles that don\'t. To cheer yourself up on this score, spend a happy evening working out what it cost Future Publishing to float J-Tuner for as long as it lasted. They could not make it pay (enough) and they are (were?) the largest publisher of consumer titles in Europe.

J-Tuner though did enthusiasts a major service in its short life, as it taught the other titles that just buying in agency articles from the US was not enough. They both still do it but are making a visible effort to include more UK material. If it makes you feel better, that effort will be coming off their bottom line - because it is far more trouble and expense to set up a shoot here, even with a free car, than it is to take the whole package off the wire.

I also think it is unlikely that anyone at the sharp end of producing a magazine, for a niche like Japanese enthusiasts, is living riotously well on the income they make from writing or shooting for it. I doubt many of them would have the wherewithall to commission anything on the same scale as the car they were writing about in this instance. The cult of celebrity may apply to Clarkson et al and those supermodels much-mentioned above but only once they have become household names do they have an asset value that would justify high fees to a publisher. How many people reading this (if any) can name a journalist writing for a Japanese title? (That’s ‘currently’ by the way for J-tuner fans and as he wasn’t actually christened ‘Scary Steve’ that won’t count either.)

There is the additional argument that an owner gains from the exposure as he/she is able to use "as seen in..." when the car goes up for sale. Yours may not be but Japanese, like most other car titles, are always able to fill pages with vehicles that are (or are about to be) up for sale. From a publisher’s perspective this means they are giving away free advertising. A particularly painful heresy, it would seem to them to represent ‘exchange’ rather than ‘exploitation’.

None of this will offset the cost of doing something really expensive, something that involves lots of bespoke problem solving by owner or builder. Still, if creating the car was about return on investment I think that was probably the first mistake.

Incidentally, I don’t mind whether you join anything or not. I would be mildly interested to see the car but not sufficiently motivated to buy a magazine and no, I was not paid by the word for this submission, I wrote it for pleasure and because the thread made me laugh.  Good luck with the car. Sprinkle some cocaine around the air intake, run into a supermodel coming out of an alcohol rehabilitation clinic and we could be talking ‘Hello’ magazine and some really big bucks… Call me â€" our people should do lunch. ?

Ok I think you have a Slight error in your assessment of the sole purpose of a magazines existence, To sell advertising space! I don’t think so. Advertising space is just part of the economic equation. The other aspects of a magazine is to make it attractive to potential buyers of the mag, Very few people will purchase a magazine solely for the purpose of obtaining a 110 pages of adverts from varying companies. Features are what make it predominantly attractive to the high street purchasers. 95% people get a car mag to read and check out futures and special cars shown and wrote about inside. Profits come ONLY from two sides in magazine sales. (1) As you say, advertising space generates a good percent of the income. The second is the individuals who purchase it from the shops. And why do they purchase it. As mentioned above. That’s why! You mentioned super models and alike. Even less know models get paid. If your car, is used in a pop video, you get paid. The fact is, special cars help and do sell magazines to the public, which correlates directly to it’s profit margin. To me it’s a quite simple analogy, to a company who uses labour. If the company can get itâ,¬\'s work force for nothing, well, why pay for it. Look at some the monster companies out there who have shipped their help desks to India and alike. Done purely on  an increasing profit margin principle. To me it’s the same logic, To say it’s all about the pride of having your car shown to the readers out there, is little short of a very poor booby prize. An opium for us who do it. It’s pure exploitation. Why don’t TV personalities, film stars, do it for nothing ? Cos they can get paid, why don’t they use your logic and say, it’s good enough that everyone knows my famous face or something.

I Find it strange that people appear to get insulting and personal when I say these things, It’s got nothing to do with me wanting to have my head up my ass or some other odd psychological reason for saying these things. It’s fair, it’s they way the World works, Not talking friends here, it’s business things, Ever heard there’s no friends in business, it’s true.              
:Thumbsup!

[strange_days_uk]

I Find it strange that people appear to get insulting and personal when I say these things, It’s got nothing to do with me wanting to have my head up my ass or some other odd psychological reason for saying these things. It’s fair, it’s they way the World works, Not talking friends here, it’s business things, Ever heard there’s no friends in business, it’s true.              
:Thumbsup!

more wise words :cheers

[Prof]

I would have been well happy to get my car in the Rotostock DVD - managed the web site
 
Still, I do feature in it at least twice in the background - so as a part time model perhaps I should approach Glenn and Clive and ask for some discount - LOL
 
...perhaps not - as Oldone said - some of us are just enthusiasts - driving a car for me is what makes me smile - not seeing it in print.
 
Still - respect for putting a 20B in an FD.
 
Prof

[DLN]

Not talking friends here, it’s business things, Ever heard there’s no friends in business, it’s true.              
:Thumbsup!

What the hell are you on about!?!??

What is it that your promoting (business wise), what the hell is it your marketing (business wise).........absolutly nothing!!!.....other than your own ego!

You are not selling anything here, a car enthusiast magazine feature is a car enthusiast magazine feature, not some sort of business to business adventure.

:2Confused :2Confused :2Confused

[oldone]

Incidentally, I don’t mind whether you join anything or not. I would be mildly interested to see the car but not sufficiently motivated to buy a magazine and no, I was not paid by the word for this submission, I wrote it for pleasure and because the thread made me laugh.  Good luck with the car. Sprinkle some cocaine around the air intake, run into a supermodel coming out of an alcohol rehabilitation clinic and we could be talking ‘Hello’ magazine and some really big bucks… Call me â€" our people should do lunch. ?

WIIIIIIIIIINNNNEREERERRE

[normski]

It’s got nothing to do with me or my B****y ego! It’s all about the car. Or a car, any B****y car, It’s all to do with that that’s all. I am not promoting my own Ass! As some seem to obsessed with indicating. My face is far tooo ugly for a magazine, ( unless, it’s a freak show thing). Come on,  you know out there in the big wide nasty little World we all inhabit, No one does you any favours, Unless it’s some mate up the road. 99% of these magazines would not publish the fact that some nasty little Sheeeeet! Had done your nice machine over, and offered to publish it’s details and picture in a attempt help you find it after it got nicked. Na they would not want to know! Unless you paid of course for an add to go in. I wrote to this nice magazine and asked politely if would be so kind as to send the unused photos of  the car via E-mail. Just a bit of time in return, Nothing, did not even reply, to  the request. It cost me my time and money for the last magazine I was in, £20.00 petrol for starters. They would not even reply to my Mails. Thats really fair, Got our article, you can F***** off now. SO it’s easy to see where I get this attitude from isn’t it! By the way, not being as rude as they are I won’t mention who they are, but some may know the magazine the car was  in last time.   :Grrr

[Adriansturgess]

Have read this thread and imo it is a bit of a storm in a teacup; I don\'t think there is that much difference between the two opinions being stated. Normski, you say  you feel that folks should be paid to feature their cars in a mag and in an ideal world this may well be the way it should work; but matters of this sort tend to find their own equilibrium. Because most people are very happy to have their cars featured for nothing, there is no incentive for the mags to pay and so they don\'t -It is just the way it is and it is a kind of win-win situation for car owner and mag alike. If mags had to start paying, then market forces would prevail and inevitably some folks would be happy to do it for less and some for even less and before you knew it, it would be back to how it is - meaning it is probably the natural point of equilibrium for this particular activity (owners are after all not running a business and it therefore cannot be viewed as a business operation with overheads and profit margins).


I run a business in the electronics sector and if I wish to get my Company featured in one of the electronics journals, the best I will manage is a free entry (provided the magazine judge it an interesting enough article), but many journals will look for payment and I have to take the view that it is a good marketing exercise for the Company to appear in the magazine and therefore worth  doing - once again, this is just the way it is - market forces at equilibrium.