Student Periodicals Cope With Downturn

As the “journal of sex and sexuality” at Harvard College, H-Bomb has never wanted for visibility. But this year, its leaders found that even the subject matter’s inherent appeal has offered scant shelter from the financial crisis.

In October, short over half the money required to go to press due to a nationwide crunch in advertising, the recently-revived publication faced the possibility of being unable to print its magazine.

Instead, H-Bomb’s leaders turned to fundraising in a last-ditch effort in March to save the print publication, appealing to undergraduates over House e-mail lists to support the magazine’s mission, which had been “severely compromised” by the downturn.

“[A]dvertising rates have plummeted, publishing costs have increased, and Harvard’s reserve for funding student projects has contracted,” the fundraising e-mail read. “While we’ve almost reached our fundraising goal, we still need $1,700 to be able to publish.”

With the aid of $700 in student donations, H-Bomb made it to press, albeit in dramatically reduced fashion—printing only 1,000 copies compared to the 6,000 to 8,000 they used to publish, according to Colette S. Perold ’11, H-Bomb’s business manager. Still feeling the pinch even with the donations, H-Bomb also decided to switch—at least for this issue—from a free and door-dropped magazine to a publication sold in dining halls for $5 a copy.

Other College student-run newspapers, magazines, and literary journals are similarly feeling the effects of the financial crisis and are adopting new business models to offset the burden of the recession.

Publications built on advertising revenue have launched fundraising campaigns, cut back on circulation, traded ads for food or gifts to use in promotional events, and even gone online only—all in an effort to stay solvent in the worst economic climate in decades. And though its been trying, nearly all of Harvard’s student publications have managed to stay afloat.

“We’ve been trying so hard and it’s paid off,” said Millicent M. Younger ’10, publisher of the Advocate—the oldest published college literary magazine in the United States. “What it comes down to is doing a lot more work to get the same results.”

BACK TO BARTERING

Faced with advertisers’ reluctance to open their pocketbooks, Harvard student publications have sought payment of a different kind.

The Advocate has liberally relied on ad-trade deals for food from local restaurants like Boloco or store credit elsewhere in the Square to make up for revenue lost from local advertisers.

Anticipating the effects of the declining economy, Younger says the Advocate braced themselves by being more proactive about contacting advertisers and clientele. Their hard work paid off, since the upcoming issue will contain more ads than any other issue in recent years, says Younger.
“We’re doing well probably because our rates are very low,” she says. “We’re not pushing [businesses] into buying the biggest size ad either.”

Though the online Freeze Magazine—a fashion and lifestyle publication for college women—does not face the Advocate’s printing costs, they have still struggled to support promotional events and “minimags”—print previews of the online magazine.

Freeze Executive Director Windsor G. Hanger ’10 says that since they do not want to charge student groups for advertising online, because their “primary responsibility is to serve the students,” the magazine has had to think outside the box—trading advertisers space for providing food at Freeze events.

The publication has also suffered from the recent termination of the Women’s Center’s Ann Radcliffe Trust Grant, which had previously supported Freeze.
To continue publication, the publication has reduced the size of their minimags, and Hanger says she does not foresee more problems.

Freeze still receives Undergraduate Council funding, and in case that is cut as well, Hanger says the magazine will cut back on promotional events.

The Harvard Crimson has also seen a significant decline in advertising revenue, according to President Maxwell L. Child '10, though he adds that this has been offset somewhat by substantial growth in their business printing other publications—both from Harvard and from elsewhere in the area.

The paper will replace door-dropping to undergraduate rooms with a distribution system that places the papers in newsracks located at House entrances, dining halls, and other high-traffic locations on campus. Child says the measure, which is being rolled out on a trial basis, is a better distribution model regardless of the economy.

Some unable to fully fund their publication through advertising have stayed alive through donations.

The biannual Tuesday Magazine spends around $4,000 for each issue, and given the recent decline in advertising, generating the figure has become a daunting task.

“It has been very difficult to get advertisements from local businesses and major corporations,” said Denise Xu ’11, business director of Tuesday Magazine. “We’re trying to get donations from people that we know who support our magazine as a cause.”

Established in 2003, Tuesday Magazine has had to endure the growing pains of being a new publication, relying upon advertisements, subscriptions, donations from alumni and parents of current members as sources to generate income.

The effects of the recession have not only affected Tuesday Magazine’s ability to gather advertisement sales, but also their ability to create an on-campus presence. The magazine has struggled to get sponsorships for their promotional events, such as Outwit—an annual freestyle competition, says Xu, who is also an active member of The Crimson’s Arts board.

Despite the setbacks, the support from donations has been enough to keep Tuesday Magazine free of charge and consistent, Xu says.

And as the financial future of print publications continues to look dire, other student magazines are following Freeze’s lead into cyberspace.

THE FINAL FRONTIER

For publications seeking to keep their content free, the Internet has provided the perfect medium.

Younger says The Advocate is working on getting a Web site up and running as a possible revenue stream.

H-Bomb also plans to provide readers with the magazine’s content free of charge online.

And both publications are reaching beyond campus for sources of subscription revenue—the Advocate to high schools, and H-Bomb to The Harvard Coop and potentially the Trident Booksellers and Café.

“H-Bomb isn’t going anywhere,” says Perold, the magazine’s business manager. “We are intent on seeing that.”

—Staff writer Brian Mejia can be reached at bmejia@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Beverly E. Pozuelos can be reached at pozuelos@fas.harvard.edu.