26: Mother Earth News
Interview with publisher and editorial director Bryan Welch, October, 2008
Play audio (approximately 30 minutes)
My guest today is Bryan Welch, publisher and editorial director of Mother Earth News, “the original guide to living wisely.” This bi-monthly glossy magazine has been in publication since 1970, predating by a few decades today’s trendy interest in green living. Topics in the magazine focus on do-it-yourself ways to live in self-sufficient and ecologically conscious ways.
Ownership of Mother Earth News has changed several times in the last few decades. Its parent is now Ogden Publications of Topeka, Kansas, which produces 13 magazines including Utne Reader, Grit, and Herb Companion. In addition to guiding Mother Earth News and the other magazines, publisher Bryan Welch owns and operates a 50-acre farm of free range cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens.
Steve: Bryan, welcome to Periodical Radio.
Bryan: Thank you.
Steve: Issues of Mother Earth News carry a logo of a tree and the motto “More than a magazine . . . a way of life.” What is that way of life?
Bryan: It’s a way of life that holds as one of its central beliefs that our quality of life is contingent upon conscience, on a sense of responsibility, and that we can’t live as fulfilling a life if we don’t feel good about our impact on the environment and on the people around us. Mother Earth News has always had in its background this often unspoken theme that it’s absolutely imperative to a high quality life that we are working towards good outcomes and behaving in a responsible way vis-à-vis society and the planet.
Steve: The first issue of Mother Earth News was published by John and Jane Shuttleworth in January, 1970, three months before the first Earth Day. Do you think that timing was just a coincidence?
Bryan: Well not just a coincidence. They I don’t think were trying to hang any sort of marketing mission on Earth Day, but the movement, as it were, back then we talked about “the movement” all the time. The movement was gaining a ton of momentum at that time. We as young people in 1970 felt that humanity was finally waking up to its responsibilities, and that within a few years everyone would have formed a consensus about living in an environmentally responsible way. That’s not how it turned out in 1970, but that was the feeling. It allowed both Earth Day and Mother Earth News to get a lot of attention and expand very rapidly through the first few years of their existence.
Steve: Magazines have to change over time to attract readers, but sometimes loyal readers can become upset if a magazine goes through a redesign or might shift its focus. How has Mother Earth News changed over the years, and how has it stayed the same?
Bryan: Well, when it was started, I would say that Mother Earth News was a more subversive publication than it is today. In the early years, it was explicitly about overturning a lot of social norms. It’s not really about that any more, and there’s not a particularly large audience interested in that these days. The ethics, the morality, and the moray of Mother Earth News today are much more implicit. It’s less about overturning anything than it is about inspiring change from within society. I think that simply reflects the tactics and attitudes of our readers and how they’ve changed over the years.
Steve: In the current issue (Oct./Nov. 2008), the magazine includes a letter to the editor that’s kind of an angry letter that complained about the magazine being run by women who don’t farm and are pushing a “liberal/enviro agenda.” Why did you publish that letter?
Bryan: Well, (chuckles), you know, we debated that, whether to publish that letter or not. I think we published it to illustrate the different attitudes that come to the table. We speak to people often who to subscribe to Mother Earth News because they are interested in living a self-reliant life, principally, and a conscientious life, secondarily. This is an extreme case of someone like that. But we always find it illuminating to realize the different kinds of value people find in the magazine. We thought the letter gave one person’s perspective on what we do, and we thought it would be interesting to see how that perspective illuminated the perspectives of others. In other words, we assumed that we will get reactions to that letter, and we have from people who felt very differently about who we are and what we do.
Steve: So the next issue will give some rebuttal letters.
Bryan: It will, yeah. The guy’s assumptions were wrong. I’m obviously not a woman, and I do farm. The editor-in-chief is a woman, but she also lives on a farm and raises most of her own food. We’re quite diverse, and we are still personally very involved in this sort of self-reliant lifestyle that’s always epitomized Mother Earth News’ audience. His assumptions were wrong, but we thought it was interesting that he would jump to those conclusions, and interesting find out what other people thought.
Steve: How important is it in general for the mission and the purpose of the magazine is reader feedback?
Bryan: Magazines today, the core of a magazine’s business mission today is in most cases community building. Our real job is to create communities of interest around the content. A big part of that community interest, or that community formation, is a two-way communication channel in which they’re communicating with us and we’re communicating back to them. Today it’s far more important than ever before, because we’re able to communicate instantaneously with many, many more people than we ever could before. So on our web sites, in our newsletters, on our forums, every day there are thousands of exchanges of information. Mother Earth News has almost a million unique visitors at its web site every month. We also survey several times a week some of our readers, asking them questions about what we should put on the cover, which sections of the magazine they liked and didn’t like, and a variety of other things, trying to hone the magazine’s mission. So interaction is right at the core of our tactics, it’s one of our most important techniques for making the magazine successful in every way we can.
Steve: So the web really supports the magazine, and I’m sure it’s a two-way street. Do you see the print magazine continuing into the foreseeable future? Do you ever see the web site replacing the print?
Bryan: That’s impossible--I wouldn’t even begin to speculate as to whether the web site or a digital product will ever replace the print product. But we know today that people want the print product. I often say to people that there’s a Wired magazine, and it’s very successful. It’s made out of paper and it’s extremely thick with both stories and advertising. Wired will be the first magazine to cease existence in print, because its readers are the most digitally friendly readers in the world. We will not be the first magazine to stop printing on paper. It seems at least this year that we are very far from ever having a paperless magazine industry. Mother Earth News’ print circulation is growing steadily. I think when we acquired the magazine the print circulation was right around 300,000, and I believe the current issue will sell 440,000 copies, in addition to the million or so people, or two million people who will visit the web site during the two month circulation period. They’re additive so far, and the web does support the print product in a very important way. The print product of course does drive people to the web site, as well, but it’s really one community of interest served through various media, and the internet has been very beneficial to us so far.
Steve: I want to ask an internet related question that’s sort of a librarian question. Mother Earth News is available in full text databases like those offered by EBSCO and ProQuest. What’s your motivation for licensing the content so that students at universities and students in high schools and whatever can go in look at articles from Mother Earth News from one of these databases without having to buy the magazine?
Bryan: You know, nobody ever bought a magazine like Mother Earth News because they had to have it for a research project, or almost no one ever did. They buy the magazine for some kind of pleasurable experience that they acquire by sitting down with the magazine and spending time with it. Our web site as well has all of our archives going back to 1970, all available completely for free, searchable in a number of different ways. So we’re quite happy to provide this important information to anyone who wants it in as user-friendly a manner as we can. We do so because we think the information is important, but also because it builds our brand as a credible and trusted source of this kind of information. It’s that reputation, it’s that relationship, that our business is based on, not the existence of one story or another somewhere in the archive available to people who have to go in there and pay for it. That’s just not how the business works. So anything that puts our name out there and this important information out there is in the end probably beneficial to us.
Steve: And clearly from what you were saying before, you’ve not seen any negative impact on subscriptions.
Bryan: Certainly not.
Steve: My understanding of those license agreements is that it brings a very modest amount of income to your company. Is that correct?
Bryan: Yes.
Steve: Okay. Publishers are generally unwilling to talk about that, so I’m certainly not going to ask you a dollar figure, but I wanted to confirm it’s not a major source of revenue relative to the other parts of your business, it’s pretty insignificant.
Bryan: It’s very insignificant, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Steve: I want to go back to the editing part of Mother Earth News. I’ve heard it argued that good editing is a craft that’s pretty independent of what the topic area is. So going back to that letter to the editor criticizing the point of view of members of the editorial staff not being farmers, if the editing craft is separate from the topic area, it really wouldn’t matter whether your editors farm or not, it really just matters whether they edit well. What’s your take on that?
Bryan: My take is that whoever said that editing is a craft unrelated to the subject matter was wrong. The editor’s job is to understand intuitively as well as trusting the data, of course. They have an intuitive understanding of what matters to our community of readers. That intuitive understanding I suppose can be acquired over years and years of listening to the readers, even if you’re not personally interested in the subject matter. It’s far more quickly acquired if you’re the sort of person who would be a reader of the magazine, anyway, even if you weren’t an editor at the magazine. I think it’s very important that editors know about and care about the subject matter of the magazine. I don’t think the editing craft is independent of the subject matter, by any means.
Steve: So when you look for editors for the Ogden Publications journals, that’s definitely something you’re looking for—some personal background.
Bryan: Yes, no question, they need to get it. They need to understand what motivates the reader, what excites the reader, what inspires the reader. All that needs to be, to some extent or another, intuitive.
Steve: Themes of sustainability and green living are all the rage now. I can’t pick up a magazine without seeing the word “green” on the cover. Does the current trend help or hurt your position in the magazine market?
Bryan: I think it helps us. In the early stages of interest in any subject matter like this, for a little while the public tends to think this is a simple little puzzle we’re going to solve quickly. As the reality of the situation sets in, they develop a keener and keener appetite for credible and highly expert sources of information, people they can trust to give them reliable information. That places a higher and higher premium on magazines like ours that have a long history of looking at these issues and are steeped in a deep understanding of the subject matter. So far it has added to our value significantly. I think it will continue to do so. I expect that our trusted voices will be more and more valuable to the audience as times goes by.
Steve: Bryan, who are your writers? I’ll be a little more specific. What’s the mix of content written by your editorial staff or work for hire that you recruit writers for, and articles and article ideas that just come in over the transom?
Bryan: Well, first of all, 80-90% of the articles are written by freelancers who are not our employees. I would say two thirds of those originate as a concept within our organization among the editors and are assigned to freelancers. About a third of them come in as ideas generated by writers or readers who just stumbled across something they wanted to communicate.
Steve: I see, okay. Bryan, what are the greatest pleasures of being editorial director of Mother Earth News, for you personally. What do you like best about it?
Bryan: I’ve had the very great privilege of living a life in which I don’t have to weigh out my professional commitment against my personal commitments. The best thing about it is that what I’m passionate about is my career, and my business is focused on the same concerns and issues that I would focus on if I were a plumber or if I did something entirely different for a living. But it allows me to . . .you know, I just never have to think “Oh, this job is preventing me from doing what I want to do,” because this job requires me to do exactly what I want to do (laughs). That’s a really lucky thing, to have a job like that.
Steve: So there’s a real synergy—you have a farm of your own, correct?
Bryan: I do.
Steve: So you see a strong synergy between editorially directing Mother Earth News and running your farm.
Bryan: Yeah, well, I’m a farmer, I’m an environmentalist. I care very deeply about storytelling. I think first and foremost I was a storyteller. I loved the act of communicating through the written word. The magazines we’ve built this business around reflect my own value system. It’s a really privileged position for me to fill, and I feel deeply fortunate.
Steve: You know, it’s wonderful to feel that positively towards one’s work, it’s really great. But in that context, there must be some challenges. What are the greatest challenges of running the magazine?
Bryan: Um, well, any competitive business is challenging. It’s challenging to communicate first of all strategically; to utilize our resources in the most efficient way possible is a very interesting and challenging puzzle every day. To motivate my colleagues to devote their energies and apply them in the right ways is challenging. I don’t know, it’s challenging every way running any business is challenging, I suppose. I suppose one of the other challenges in doing what I do, is when is enough enough? Balancing reflection and rest and enjoyment against the urgency of our mission is on a personal level interesting and challenging. One could wear oneself thin if we let ourself. That would be a big mistake, of course, because it would undermine our ability to do our jobs very effectively.
Steve: Of all of the magazine and journal editors with whom we’ve addressed the topic of keeping on schedule, there have been differing opinions. Some feel a great deal of pressure of having to keep the magazine on schedule. I had an interview with an editor yesterday who said oh, no, it’s not that much of a problem, we’re in a groove, it just kind of happens. So I think what I’m hearing you say is there’s a balance there. You do have a magazine that needs to go out on time, but you try not to beat yourselves up over that.
Bryan: I don’t know, I think when we have eight magazines, they all have to be out on time.
Steve: Right.
Bryan: But that’s a little bit like riding a motorcycle staying upright. Hitting the deadlines is Publishing 101. I would have to say that anybody who considers that their biggest challenge is still kind of an amateur.
Steve: Um-hm.
Bryan: That’s a pretty fundamental part of doing what we do. That doesn’t really come up.
Steve: Well one of the things that comes up, particularly with scholarly journals, not the leading ones but--you said amateur--there’s a certain tier of publications where they struggle a little bit. They don’t have a really have a solid market position like your magazines do, and one of their problems is lack of content. They have to scurry around to gather content. I gather that’s not an issue for you at all.
Bryan: Well that’s another part of the machine that has to run smoothly. I was in the newspaper business for 20 years. You take hitting the deadlines more or less for granted. You know you have to be set up to do that, first. There are other industries where if a project becomes complex and things don’t go exactly as planned, you just move the deadline. In fact, that’s how most human endeavors work. But publishing is an endeavor that doesn’t work that way. I think any experienced person in this industry becomes accustomed to cutting whatever corners need to be cut so that you make the deadline. It’s just like breathing in and breathing out for us.
Steve: And the cows have to milked on time, right?
Bryan: Absolutely.
Steve: Kind of the same concept.
Bryan: Right.
Steve: I’ve read some pretty dire predictions of the magazine industry in general. It sounds to me like you’re doing well, and that you’ve got a formula that works. Do you have any thoughts or feelings about the magazine industry as a whole, as a healthy business?
Bryan: Well there’s more than one magazine industry. The magazine industry that was about mass market magazines supported by big consumer advertisers is in a lot of trouble. Over time it had come to rely on some distorted versions of reality in which there were many not entirely credible ways of building circulation. There were very questionable manners of measuring audience, and now those are being called into question as new competition arises on the internet. In special interest magazines like ours, we’ve always been reliant on profits generated by circulation. The big consumer magazines are not. They lose a lot of money in circulation and make it back by selling advertising. On our side of the industry, the special interest magazine side of the industry, the internet has given us a lot of great new tools for building audience, and we make money from our audience. In the industry that’s dependent on advertising and loses money in circulation, well, much of the supporting structure of that industry is suffering from some degree of rot. It’s going to need a pretty significant reorganization if it’s going to survive.
Steve: So would it be a reasonable generalization that those magazines that build and sustain a community will survive, and those that will not may not survive?
Bryan: Well they all have to be run well, but as a generalization I think that those who have successfully built a community with a high degree of affinity for the magazine and its voice will do well if they’re able to utilize the new technology and the new media effectively.
Steve: Would you recommend a career in magazines to today’s college students?
Bryan: It depends on the student. If you love community building and you love storytelling, I’d absolutely recommend it. Nothing’s more fun. If want to get really rich really fast, no, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s not a good way to do that.
Steve: That’s fair enough.
Bryan: (laughs)
Steve: Bryan, in conclusion, what would you like our listeners to know about Mother Earth News that we haven’t discussed yet?
Bryan: Mother Earth News is all about the joy of living a conscientious life. It’s a very practical guide to living that life, with lots of hands-on instruction and very practical and sometimes vaguely humorous basic skills, you know, milking goats and mucking out the stalls and whatnot. But at the heart of it all it’s more about spirituality than anything, and about the ways that conscientiousness and doing the right thing can ennoble a human life, and make it more fulfilling.
Steve: Well Bryan Welch, thank you very much for speaking with me and being my guest on Periodical Radio. I really appreciate it.
Bryan: It was my pleasure.
Steve: Subscriptions to Mother Earth News are $12.95. Their web site at www.MotherEarthNews.com includes Bryan Welch’s blog and a wide variety of information that supplements the magazine. Thank you for listening to Periodical Radio. I’m your host, Steve Black.