The word on the street is that direct mail is dead, print is dead, magazines are dying and publishing in general is in decline. Nowadays, they tell us, everybody gets their information from Facebook and Twitter. Magazines and print are so last century.
It's a plausible story. No one can deny that the world is changing all around us. I've been riding a commuter train into Washington, D.C., for about 30 years, and I've seen the change in reading habits — from books, magazines and newspapers to kindles, smart phones and phablets. You still see print media, but not as much.
Despite this obvious change in the market, I'm tempted to think that publishers are using this as an excuse, and I ask you whether an alternative explanation is at least worth your consideration.
Pardon the French, but … maybe we all just suck.
How many times have you picked up a direct mail package and looked at it in wonder, asking yourself what kind of dolt would spend money on such a useless piece of mail? There's no benefit. There's no call to action. It's … nothing.
How many times a day do you get an incomprehensible email solicitation? How often are you asked to go to a website that doesn't work, or to call a phone number that doesn't answer, or go to such and so page and click on the blue button, … but there's no blue button?
There's an art to making a good magazine. There's a little art and a little science to making a good direct mail campaign. There's a discipline to good operations and accounting.
Maybe … just maybe … what we're seeing isn't some world-changing revolution, but something far simpler. A crisis of talent.
You may have heard of a thing called Hanlon's razor. One version of it goes like this.
Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity.
It's a good rule, particularly when you're on Facebook.
I'm thinking we might need a variation on Hanlon's razor for the publishing industry.
Never attribute to "fundamental transformations" what is adequately explained by incompetence.
My father was a NASA engineer in the heady days of the space race. He told interesting stories about being up on the gantry of a rocket in the middle of the night trying to fix some electrical system for the next day's launch. NASA was full of mavericks who got things done.
Late in his career he was very frustrated. NASA wasn't the hard-driving, serious organization it had been. It had become too political — more concerned about strange social and political goals than about conquering space.
It's as if the fire went out. There was no more excellence or drive.
Some people complained that things were just different now. NASA had lost its mission. We didn't need to go to moon anymore, so … who cares?
My dad didn't accept that. He saw lots of really interesting things that NASA could be doing — like finding other planetary systems, or going to Mars.
The problem wasn't only changing times. The problem was malaise.
Could it be that publishing execs are just tired. Could it be that what we're lacking in the publishing world is competence, art and business sense? Might it be that direct mail really does work — if you sent good direct mail? And could it be that people really do like magazines that catch their eye and inform them on an issue they care about?
I don't deny that the world is changing, but it seems too convenient and easy to blame our troubles on such things when it's very possible that we might just not be doing a good enough job.