34 Tips for Cutting Costs Without Laying Off Staff

With the economy officially in recession and sharp ad-revenue declines affecting magazines of all sizes and scopes, few magazine publishers have failed to address cost-cutting strategies and ways to do more with less. Here are 34 tips from a cross-section of the publishing world for reining in costs without sacrificing too much in the way of staff or quality.

Tips From …
Elinor Fish, managing editor, Big Stone Publishing
Carbondale, Col.-based Big Stone Publishing produces Rock and Ice and Trail Runner magazines. The small, independent publisher has become expert at being efficient with staff resources.

1. Make use of skilled interns.
“One cost-cutting measure we’ve taken is making good use of all the eager interns knocking at our door,” Fish says. “Unlike some big magazines that only use interns to make coffee and copy edit, we select interns with enough proven writing experience that they are able to (with close oversight) write articles for the magazine.”

The magazines realize big savings in their freelance budget, and the interns gain valuable experience. Don’t miss the chance to pick and choose specific skills when you have a large pool of applicants, she adds; the company has, for instance, had success with photography interns.

2. Work with book publishers to obtain free content.
Big Stone has had success sourcing free editorial content in the form of book excerpts. “Especially when a book is new to market, a publisher will often not charge us for the reprint because of the great publicity it provides for the book,” Fish says.

Tips From …
Frank Anton, CEO, Hanley Wood
Hanley Wood is a business-to-business media company with more than 30 titles serving primarily the building and construction trades. “The big costs in publishing are people, printing, paper and postage,” Anton says. “That’s where you have to look for big savings, and, alas, people are the biggest expense by far.” Anton recommends addressing staffing as a primary way to realize savings, but offers other cost-saving measures as well.

3. Cut back on travel and marketing.

4. Close office locations to cut real estate expense.

5. Renegotiate vendor contracts.

Tips From …
Andrew Berman, executive vice president, The Mortgage Press
The Mortgage Press publishes 37 products aimed at mortgage brokers and other mortgage bankers.

6. Use tools to streamline ad tracking.
The Mortgage Press went from a “Rube Goldberg” spreadsheet-management process to a more efficient ad-tracking and workflow-management system (using Magazine Manager). “We went from entering an ad seven times to only once,” Berman says. The new system has also eliminated the problem of late ads, with attendant time and labor wasted.

7. Automate where practical.
Automatic e-mail reminders and features that allow clients to upload ads on a regular basis avoid building time-wasting procedures into the ad-procurement process.

Tips From …
Todd Matherne, CEO, Renaissance Publishing
Renaissance Publishing produces several regional magazines in Louisiana, including New Orleans Magazine, Louisiana Life, New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles and New Orleans Bride. True to its name, Renaissance has experienced a revenue upswing in a down market, adding five staffers and planning a new title in 2009.

8. Cut paper weights.
Renaissance recently changed from 45# to 40# (interior pages) on all titles, Matherne reports. “The cost of the paper is less and the tonnage is less, both in cost of paper and cost of mailing,” he notes. 

9. Cut trim sizes.
“We have also [converted] our glossy tabloid magazine, St. Charles Avenue, from full-size to magazine-size as of the January 2009 issue,” Matherne says.

10. Do less promotional mailing.
The company has cut significantly the number of full-issue promotional copies it mails and is experimenting with cheaper ways to attract customers. “We are doing a lot more [promotion] on the Web,” he says, including a planned revamp of all magazine Web sites to make them better promotional tools.