Paper Crafts

Now that we’ve taken a look at magazine circulation of the news stand scrapbook publications, it is time to look at the second piece of the puzzle of their health: advertising. [Note that for reasons of comparison, the analysis in part one and part two of this series only includes the publications that have historically been widely available on news stands at places like grocery stores. The reason for this will be made clear in part three of the series when other scrapbook publications will be added in and discussed.]

Advertising content is an important part of the business model of the news stand magazines. A typical news stand magazine in any market needs to contain about 40% advertising to be profitable. Three or four years ago, scrapbook magazines were reaching this mark easily, and at longer issue lengths than they are now producing. Here’s how they’ve been stacking up recently:

	Scrapbooks Etc. (Nov/Dec 2008)	Creating Keepsakes (Dec 2008)	Paper Crafts (Mar/Apr 2009)
Length	144	130	98 pgs
Percent Advertising	36%	37%	18.57%

	Scrapbooks Etc (Nov/Dec 2009)	Creating Keepsakes (Dec 2009)	Paper Crafts (Dec 2009)
Length	128	122	90
Percentage Advertising Content	27.48%	21%	19.35%

So, what do all of these numbers mean?

All of the magazines are shorter today than they were in the earlier set of data. None of the three except Paper Crafts has been able to maintain their advertising content percentage over the past year, even by shortening their relative length.
Creating Keepsakes, in particular, has lost the most advertising in the past year. It is now in the very low 20′s where a year ago it was managing almost healthy stats in the high 30′s.
Scrapbooks Etc. has cut the most length (11%) in the past year. Paper Crafts and Creating Keepsakes have cut 8% and 6%, respectively.
Advertising percentages under 20% in a news stand publication indicate a title is likely in serious jeopardy. Simple Scrapbooks was at 15% when it was shut down. Memory Makers ranged between 15-19% in its last few issues. Digital Scrapbooking was at 11% by its next-to-last issue, and 5% in its last one.

While it is tempting to look at the above statistics and declare it to be a sign that the entire scrapbook industry is on life support, there is a bigger picture that needs to be considered here. That picture is the health of various business models in the publishing industry as a whole…and how that relates to scrapbook publishing.

To read about that, stay tuned for part three of the series.

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The end of the year is a good time to examine the health of the publishing segment of the scrapbook industry for several reasons. First, the end of the year is a natural time to look back on things – especially things that have seen major change in that year. Second, the scrapbook magazines publish their annual ownership & circulation statements that are required by the USPS in their last issue of the year.

2009 saw huge changes in the publishing segment of the scrapbook industry. F+W announced it was shutting down Memory Makers Magazine in May. CK Media shut down Simple Scrapbooks in January (only a short time after shuttering Digital Scrapbooking), ended its major contests, and called in a bankruptcy/turnaround firm to settle its debts for pennies on the dollar before the magazines were sold in July to New Track Media. Over the course of the year, CK lost most of its headline talent as well: Cathy Zielske, Becky Higgins, Ali Edwards, Jessica Sprague, and Lisa Bearnson, to name a few.

Not all the scrapbook publishing changes were that drastic, or even negative, though. In April, Melissa Inman departed Scrapbooks Etc and was not replaced; instead, an organizational shuffle removed her title from the company. That same month, Scrapbook Trends began offering digital subscriptions to its publications. In October, Scrapbooks Etc. unveiled a redesign targeted at attracting news stand customers (among other things).

So, after that year of seismic change, where has that left us? Here’s where the three remaining news stand magazines are positioned in total circulation:

Magazine	October 2008	October 2009	Change
Scrapbooks Etc.	266,784	212,683	-20.3%
Creating Keepsakes	203,967	177,218	-13.1%
Paper Crafts	161,000	121,220	-24.7%

The three magazines are ranked in the same order for total circulation numbers as in 2008.
Everyone was down significantly in total circulation.
In 2008, Creating Keepsakes had managed a 5% increase in circulation while everyone else’s numbers declined. This year, they fell into the trend of declining numbers with the other publications.
The gap is closing between Creating Keepsakes and Scrapbooks Etc. In 2008, Creating Keepsakes had 76% of the circulation of Scrapbooks Etc. In 2009, Creating Keepsakes had 83% of the circulation of Scrapbooks Etc.

These circulation numbers seem to reflect pretty much the status quo from the past few years – a segment in decline and dominated by Scrapbooks Etc – until you break them down into subscription and news stand sales.

The largest percentage of the magazines’ circulation comes from subscriptions:

	Scrapbooks Etc.	Creating Keepsakes	Paper Crafts
October 2009 Subscribers	147,344	152,799	95,550
October 2008 Subscribers	201,994	171,475	120,000
% Change	-26.5%	-11.1%	-20.37%

Creating Keepsakes actually has more subscribers than Scrapbooks Etc. The difference in total circulation that gives Scrapbooks Etc. its lead comes from news stand sales.
Creating Keepsakes got this lead by being the best at retaining its subscribers. It had by far the lowest decrease in subscription circulation over 2008 of the three magazines.

The news stand sales numbers also have a lot of information to offer about where the magazines stand:

	Scrapbooks Etc	Creating Keepsakes	Paper Crafts
October 2009 Actual Sales	65,339	24,419	25,270
October 2008 Actual Sales	64,790	32,492	41,000
% Change in News Stand Sales From 2008-2009	+1.6%	-25%	-38.36%
% of sales from News Stand in October 2009	31%	13.5%	20.84%
% of sales from News Stands in 2008	24%	15.7%	25.46%

Scrapbooks Etc maintained its sales news stand sales numbers while the other two publications experienced massive losses in that area. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is quite likely due to a smaller number of outlets carrying Creating Keepsakes & Paper Crafts, while Scrapbooks Etc. has maintained its distribution points due to the clout of its parent company Meredith.
A much larger percentage of Scrapbook Etc’s circulation comes from the news stand than is the case with the circulation of the other two publications. This would either explain the new cover design, or was perhaps the result of it.

Overall, these numbers aren’t good for the scrapbook magazine industry. They show a continued decline that so far the various efforts have been unable to arrest. This is in line with the experience of other publishing market segments, where publications are rapidly shuttering. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that we’ve seen the last of the lights going out at publications in the scrapbook market.

For more on why and more talk about the future of scrapbook magazines, watch for the 2009 State of the Scrapbook Magazine, Part 2: Advertising (coming soon)

[Note: All of the above statistics are based on the single issue published closest to Oct. 1st for the magazines. Due to their different business model, publications from Northridge and Stampington were excluded from this analysis - but you will be able to read about them in part three of the series.]

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