Rolling Stone is changing shape

Rolling Stone Magazine is cutting down from it's approximately 10" by 12" to a more standard 8.5" by 11". In a refreshing twist, it's not a cost-cutting measure. They are going to heavier paper with a glossy finish, adding 16 to 20 pages and changing from a saddle-stitched binding to a glued perfect bound format.

Why?

The New York Times reports that magazines are becoming increasingly standardized and Rolling Stone's shape doesn't fit in standard racks. It gets pushed up, down or off to the side of displays -- away from eye level. Also, advertisers have to revise ads to fit the format, and insert ads, with scent samples for example, are especially troublesome.

Word is, the new shape with come with a redesign.

Long live print ... ?

Small circ magazines No Depression and Resonance are have announced they will fold under financial pressures.

It seems newspapers aren't the only ones feeling the pinch in the day of the Internet.

Ed Ward, Berlin Bites blogger, and magazine writer wrote last week about the two small magazines and, in part blames a restructuing of the second-class postage system approved last year:

"The new rates, though, were bizarre: the more magazines you shipped, the less each unit cost, and smaller-circulation magazines were burdened with unreasonably higher per-unit costs, instead of everyone paying the same rate. But that's what happens when you allow big business to write the laws."

Although I've never heard of these publications, I subscribe to a couple hardly known periodicals myself. And it doesn't look good for my seldom-discussed hope to one day start up a magazine of my own ...