Finding A Niche

SMALL MAGAZINES CAN HELP IN SIZING UP A CAREER

As Beth Walloch combed the classified ads for her first job in the months before and after her graduation from the University of Iowa, one truth became apparent. She wanted a creative media career.

With a college internship under her belt at a local television station, she knew how to write, research and deliver the news on camera.

But Walloch doesn't work for a television station. She's news editor at meatnews.com, the online version of Watt Publishing Company's Meat Processing: North American Edition, based in Mount Morris, Ill. To be sure, writing for a b-to-b magazine devoted to the meat and poultry industry sounds more gritty than glamorous.

"She never thought she'd be in this industry. She was on television, and the fact that she came to us amazed and delighted us," says Brent Langman, editor of Watt's meat processing magazine group.

Walloch, whose new job entailed helping launch the company's first Web site, said signing on at the small publisher was a chance to put her stamp on a project from the get-go.

"I came in at the ground floor. The entire site, everything content-wise, is written by me. I've been given a lot of leeway to create my own vision of what our magazine should look like online."

Though major magazine publishers have long lured new talent on the strength of their brands, small publishers can boast their own set of perks - from creative freedom to the possibility of working elbow-to-elbow with the CEO. Employees of small publishers and their bosses say that life outside the mega-media companies offers newcomers more job flexibility, a louder voice in how things are done, and faster advancement. The smaller the company, they say, the bigger the difference each individual can make.

There is, of course a downside: primarily, that most small magazines can't offer salaries in the same league as the big players. According to a recent survey of editorial salaries by Folio:, the difference can be as much as $18,000 for the same job title.

But that doesn't mean small companies can't compete.

"Magazines have always been a good place to work. In the last couple of years, the industry - particularly among small presses, has upped its salaries considerably," says Elvira Perez of the Magazine Publishers of America. "Part of the reason is because they are competing with the Internet for this pool of talent as well as the bigger magazines," Perez says. "My sense is that while there is a gap between what the smaller magazines and the larger ones pay, it is not as big as it once was." The differential for some positions, Perez says, may be as narrow as $5,000.

In Walloch's case, an attractive salary on par with Chicago pay scales also helped sweeten the deal. Other incentives were the company's liberal personal time-off policy -- a bank of days that employees use for vacation and personal time -- flextime hours and a compressed summer work schedule.

"It was a very, very attractive offer, especially coming from the [TV] station where I interned. I talked to a few people who had been at the station for several years. And what I'm earning here surpasses them. I always suspected that magazines might be a good place for me. With a TV station or newspaper, you have to pay your dues at the bottom."

At some of the niche and smaller publications, where revenue is measured in the single millions, staffers may enjoy more responsibility, broader skill requirements, and a greater say in the decision-making process.

It's a scenario that Buzzy Sklar, publisher of Ego Trip magazine, an entertainment publication, knows well.

"Everyone wears a lot of hats around here. If my advertising people come across an idea for an [editorial] spread, they'll bring it up at our weekly staff meeting, or to an editor," Skiar says of his 17-member staff. The monthly magazine in South Beach, Fla., with a regional office in Boston, has plans to expand into New York City, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

"We are definitely a young company. The average age of people at our publication is about 25 or 26," Sklar says. "We want people with fresh new ideas who aren't stagnant or, for lack of a better opportunity, tainted in their views."

At Running Times magazine, publisher Carol Lasseter Rice observes that her company prefers to recruit from its college-intern pool.

"I had an intern in our classified advertising department. Initially, she worked on account maintenance," Rice says. It was a clerical position that involved tracking ads, ensuring each had a signed contract, and preparing contract renewal forms.

Rice was so impressed with the intern's organizational and administrative skills, she decided to train her to sell advertising space.

"I let her prospect, taught her our [sales] pitch, showed her how to present the magazine," Rice says. "It worked out great. Certainly, we have opportunities. How far someone goes here is a very individual thing. It depends on the person and what arises."

At Our State North Carolina, a monthly magazine geared to the Tar Heel State, growth has been exponential in the last few years.

When publisher Bernard Mann bought the 68-year-old magazine in 1996, it had a four-person staff, a paid circulation of 23,000 and ran 48 pages a month. Flash forward to today: Our State has 17 staffers, a circulation of 68,000 and offers readers a thick, 172-page glossy four-color feast.

"We're producing a product -- not widgets -- that our readers absolutely love. We bring joy and happiness to thousands and thousands of people," Mann says. "Everybody here loves what they do. We look for people who share that kind of mindset."

To quadruple its staff over the last four years, the magazine has relied on referrals from its employees. Mann says there has been no turnover. In fact, many staffers have a vote in whether the magazine offers a position to a prospective applicant.

"Everybody is always in the loop. There is nobody who works in circulation who doesn't know what's going on with advertising or editorial," Mann says. "There are no walls."

A collegial atmosphere happens to be one of the perks of working at Our State North Carolina. The magazine fosters camaraderie by rewarding its staff every couple of months with out-of-town trips and getaways.

"We've flown people down to Disney World for a day. Another time, we all went whitewater rafting," Mann says. In May, when the magazine logged its biggest month ever for advertising, Mann took the entire sales department to see "The Music Man" on Broadway.

"We wandered around the city after that," Mann says. "Everybody had a great time, not just because we weren't working, but because we were sharing an experience together."

Company-sponsored field trips also are common at The Artist's Magazine, a division of F & W Publications, Inc., in Cincinnati. So are weekly massages. A masseuse has a standing appointment to ease the tired muscles of any of the company's 350 employees each Thursday and Friday. Other benefits include flexible schedules, a company gym and profit-sharing plans.

"Someone may come in as an editorial assistant right out of school, where they'll be proof reading and copy editing," says Jeffrey Lapin, senior vice president and general manager of the magazine division. "Along the way, we may throw some projects at them to see how they do. People come here and then six months later, you could take their job descriptions and toss them out the window. So much of what people do here is what they make of the situations that present themselves," Lapin says. "Our attitude is if you see an opportunity to get a job done, or do your job in a novel way, run with it. That's the environment we work in. That's the culture we like to inspire."

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