Yeah! The Condé Nast party was pretty great, but I feel that I have to start from the beginning of the day to do it justice.

Journals of Opinion

big ideas for a little industry

What can I say about today’s first talk? I’m not very into politics. That sounds about right. For those who aren’t too savvy about The Nation, it’s a weekly political magazine described as “the flagship of the left”. In his early days at Yale, Navasky co-founded The Monocle, a political satire magazine whose catch phrase was, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” He later went on to become an editor and eventually the publisher of The Nation. Navasky didn’t just talk about politics in his talk though; actually, now that I think about it, it was more as if he added political connotations to the publishing of a magazine.

“Enter your career at the point of least resistance.” -Victor Navasky

I would normally argue against this, saying that it’s better to enter the industry where you can make a meaningful initial impact, but after having gone through this course, I find that difficult to do simply because 1) people in the industry don’t know who I am and 2) there are many better qualified people wanting the same job position I do. I guess it’s a matter of giving up your pride when it comes to breaking into publishing. The only thing I really have going for me at this point is the help of Lindy Hess, CPC’s lovely director, who has been working to find every student a job.

Aside from the breaking & entering speech, Navasky talked about some progressive ideas for newspapers and magazines. (…to be continued…)

Luckily, my team and I finished Jack‘s prospectus early Friday! (They were due 8am on Saturday.) That means I was able to have a longer bit of relaxation. Looking back, it isn’t hard to see that the magazine workshop was easier than the book workshop, though not by much. In both instances, I had to stay up late into the night, but the book workshop seemed to train my mind to think coherently during those wee hours. I started working on my prospectus material at around 9:30pm Thursday because I couldn’t begin until Eric (business manager), Greg (advertisement director), Emily (promotion director), Christina (production manager) and I got together and worked out the Profit & Loss business model. I wrote until around 5:30am, but that was the worst of it last week.

I think the Jack team did very well according to gossip I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that others had a rough time because of internal conflicts. Yet others simply didn’t work because they weren’t interested in the magazine aspect of the course, which I found disrespectful. But I judge the ethics, not the individuals – this course is incredibly difficult for people who aren’t used to such intense work with such uncertain goals. (It certainly was difficult for me!)

If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you don’t really know what you’re doing in these workshops unless you’ve actually worked for a magazine or publishing house; you just do what you feel is right and hope for the best. At the end of a day of asking a dozen questions and still knowing next to nothing, it comes down to your gut feeling and a firm decision. I re-quote Jonathan Burnham in saying you only need to be right 51% of the time to be successful. Luck seems to have been on my side for the most part.

-Ray

P.S. Man, keeping a blog through this course is hard!

While things may be fast and hectic in the magazine business, the talks sure aren’t reflecting it. Or maybe it’s just getting back to this 3-a-day lecture schedule that’s making time go by so slowly. If this were any day last week, I would be re-adjusting sub-rights numbers and writing more pitch letters to potential rights licensees. (Man, was I bad at the latter part.)

At the beginning of this course, I though that I didn’t have enough time to type my posts, but turns out (after having survived the workshop) that I was just lazy. Now that I’m not staying up all night trying to catch up on subsidiary rights stuff, I find myself with a whole lot of time on my hands. That will mean only one thing: CONSISTENT BLOGGING. (Unless I fall back into a rut of laziness, which might likely be the case.)

Magazine Keynote

an in-and-out biz

Alright, so when I mentioned that the talks didn’t reflect the hectic pace in magazines, I was somewhat lying. Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and our keynote speaker for the magazine portion of our course, was literally in, and then out. He did speak to us for a fair amount of time (maybe an hour or so), but it was mostly about his life and how he got to where he is today. **(en:book) After his speech was over, I believe he signed a few books and left in a rush, leaving his assistant, Julie, to give an impromptu talk about her own life and career.

Jen, a workshop partner of mine, felt bad for her, as did I after it was pointed out that Julie probably didn’t expect to speak.