The role of the editor in a start-up

The role of the editor in a start-up

Most editors dream of presiding over the birth of their own magazines. But in the real world of start-ups the chief obstetrician, more often than not, is an entrepreneurial marketer or special-interest buff--usually someone with scant professional qualifications as a journalist. Editors may find this observation dismaying. But when a new magazine is launched, fiscal and selling skills and burning desire are often in greater demand--initially, at least--than adeptness in shaping stories.

In the end, of course, both types of skills are needed. A brilliant idea to serve a new market of readers and advertisers can't get out of the delivery room without editorial/publishing know-how. The entrepreneur needs the editor, and the editor usually needs a job.

Just how much can go wrong in this relationship is well known to students of start-ups.

In large publishing companies, the attempt to "intrapreneur" new magazines is frequently frustrated. The editors and marketers of the new product may work at arm's length. or the people involved in the project may plan with all the immediacy of correspondence school students writing a final exam on magazine publishing. Often, the infant dies on a bed of committee work and confused communication.

The individual investor/entrepreneur, on the other hand, may have trouble translating the publishing idea into an editorial product. An attidue of "success or bust" and "there is no tomorrow" frequently dominates the project. The infant must be delivered fresh, clean and bawling lustily. Everything--and that means the editorial product--must be right from the outset. The trouble is, the entrepreneur may be unsure about his editorial perceptions. Can the editor successfully flesh out the central publishing idea? Does the editor truly understand it? Finally, is he right person for the job?

How to hire the editor

Change that to "when to hire the editor."

Established magazines, in searching for a new editor, work off a detailed and long-defined editorial base: Find the person who fits the magazine as we all know it.

But what of the start-up? Logic suggests that one first define the magazine's future editorial content, then search for an editor whose skills and interests best match the need. Remarkably, there have been start-ups that failed because an editor was hired in a rush--before a clear idea of the editorial was established. Others have succeeded because someone had the right visceral instinct: The right editor for the subject matter was there, even though a detailed outline wasn't.

Most investors/entrepreneurs want to proceed on more than hunch. If the capital is there for the launch, they will use part of it to retain an editorial consultant (retired or temporarily displaced editors with special knowledge of the field occasionally serve this role) and a designer to work up a plan for the magazine.

This approach has other advantages. Without a moral or contractual bond to a full-time editor (who may have had to give up another job), the entrepreneur is able to preview a variety of editorial plans. As with an architect-built house, there is (one hopes) a window of time to review, revise and recast ideas. In the end, there's a plan and, as a result, criteria for hiring the best editor to carry it out.

If the start-up needs investors or a direct mail test to establish the magazine's circulation viability, this approach is even more desirable.

There may also be value in convening a group of freelancers and subject-matter experts to explore the possible future dimensions of the magazine, paying each participant a per diem. The aggregate cost is small relative to the projected investment in the magazine.

Once this preliminary work is done and the entrepreneur is satisfied with the editorial plan, the search for the editor can begin. Classified advertising may sound too obvious, but it will occasionally bring some remarkable talent out of the woodwork. A candidate also may emerge from the brainstorming session recommended above.

An immediate temptation is to look at editorial talent on magazines that have related subject matter, but there's a risk in this. If the start-up needs a fresh approach, the editor from a competing magazine may come with ideas fixed according to his or her prior training and experience.

For best results, try several approaches.

Articulating the primordial idea

Case history: Marvin Smart (fictitious) is a cultured, intelligent investor who has made a killing in the stock market. He has three kids ranging in age from six to 13. Nowhere, it seems, can Marvin find good advice about raising his kids. They go to private schools and the family spends a private fortune each year on racing bikes, video machines and ski vacations to Colorado.

Upscale Young! The new magazine flashes like Edison's lamp in Marvin's brain. A list of private schools and the right Zip Codes generate a dynamite response. Advertisers seem interested.

Marvin has a few ideas of his own about raising kids. His ideas are actually very good. He also has retained a panel of experts to help--and an editor is brought on board.

As it happens, although Marvin has worked on the marketing side of magazines, he is uncertain about how to proceed next. At this point in our fictional publishing scenario, two approaches can cause things to go wrong.

1. The entrepreneur may assume that magazine editing is a science, one that has a perfected set of rules that always work. The entrepreneur has a professional editor to whom he has related the idea of the magazine. All that's needed is for the editor to apply the science of editing to his idea. Just leave the editor alone.

2. The entrepreneur is convinced that God supplied him with the genes of an editor. He knows exactly what he wants. He even knows the articles for the first issue, his favorite writers, the illustrations and the headline face. He proceeds ruthlessly to dictate his desires to the editor.

The solution, of course, is for the publisher/entrepreneur to avoid the excesses described above and to establish a dialogue with the editor. The aim is to define the style and content of the start-up, with the editor early on taking a leadership role.

A good starting point is for the editor to set down a wide-ranging shopping list of ideas for feature articles and departments. The list of ideas should reflect what he thinks is the publisher/entrepreneur's central concept, but the editor should not feel inhibited about supplying ideas of his own. Features should be described by story titles that would be used (to encompass both content and tone) and should be accompanied by descriptive decks and blurbs.

I have found it useful, at this point in the dialogue, to attach to the article shopping list a preference check-off. Three options can be marked.

1. Yes, great idea!

2. Might be interesting.

3. No, this doesn't belong.

Publisher/entrepreneur and editor rate the articles. The result gives both a clear idea of how close, or far apart, they are in their ideas of what form the magazine will take.

The list may then go back into revisions--perhaps two or three times. Each revision should bring editor and publisher/entrepreneur closer to agreement. Frequent clashes of opinion are useful at this point (better now than several hundred thousand dollars, or millions, later).

In addition, it's vital to examine other basic ideas about how the magazine will be edited: graphic emphasis, article focus, staffing. Some of these criteria are shown in the accompanying table.

Central to a successful start-up is the ability of the publisher/entrepreneur to articulate the central idea that will work in the marketplace of circulation and advertising. Equally important is the editor's role of interior decorator of the idea--his responsibility to flesh it out and transmute it with all the disciplines and varied formats of magazine editing.

No magazine start-up ever comes with a warranty of success. But by following the steps I've outlined here, you can eliminate several familiar causes of failure.

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