how many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop? i despise the marketing that runs our magazine business. i so want to do magazines and be involved in magazines and i appreciate them down to the tiniest detail but the whole "make a cover that sells" really bothers me. i used to be ignorant. i thought that covers with seinfeld and "popular" issues were put there because they were the most interesting. lo and behold, after buying every cover of discovery or national geographic with "time travel" or "dinosaur" imprinted on it, i realized that it was all a marketing ploy. there is a reason fuzzy tigers make it onto the covers and not rabid wombats. to move units, to sell copies. in trying to attract a mass audience, the cover is so key. if you put a "top one hundred greatest songs" list on a magazine cover, it piques the curiosity, it makes people stop and want to glance through it. eveyone loves lists and rankings, don't deny it.



but now, i stop myself. i ask "do i really care about what the top fifty most influential love songs sung by people between the ages of 23-32 are?" the answer is usually, inevitably, "no." these lists are created arbitrarily by someone to make money. some things however, you can't miss out on. best dressed, most influential, most intriguing, greatest back issues. that kind of stuff just sucks me in. but now i don't rush to read every magazine with a favored star, musician or athlete on the cover. i will not be coerced into buying or reading an article just because it's massively attractive. this coming from the guy who has a collection of natalie portman, kristen kreuk, katie holmes, x-men magazines. i know this may seem like a small victory and a minor change in lifestyle and reading habits, but for me, i think this is an exercise in perspective and self restraint. i may not win many battles but the ones that i do i win i'm very proud of. so be aware, you are a target. but you're probably smart, you already know that.