In case there was any doubt remaining that Vermont Life is in the middle of a reboot, don’t miss this ad in this week’s issue of Seven Days. It’s been no secret that the state-owned quarterly, now 67 years old, is trying to recruit new, younger, and in-state subscribers.
And apparently Seven Days readers fit the bill. The magazine is inviting you bold, hip, edgy lot to try the magazine for two years for the price of one.
Drumming up new subscribers is crucial for the magazine, as we reported in January. As of this winter, paid circulation was at its lowest point in the magazine’s history. Vermont Life has reported deficits for 17 of the last 28 years, putting the magazine in the hole for a cumulative $1.3 million. And while the magazine’s aggressive changes are an effort to dig out from that hole, only time will tell if the quarterly once most popular among out-of-state, silver-haired vacationers will win over a new demographic.
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Vermont Life lost its mojo when Tom Slayton left as editor. The first big no-no was covering its once gorgeous covers with stupid headlines (see above). Don’t try for the hip – try for the real. People want to see Vermont and Vermonters in the magazine, not some trendy hip lookalike magazine. I mourn the Vermont Life I got in my mailbox for twenty years… woulda’ kept going for another twenty if they hadn’t messed with it. Sad.
Indeed, only time will tell if Vermont Life can attract a younger, hipper readership. Long-term, it has to, if the magazine is to survive. But in order to do that, Vermont Life has to dramatically up its online profile — that means beefing up its Web site and launching a mobile app — for no print publication can long survive without a significant presence on the Internet. Just ask The New York Times, which now draws eight times more readers to its Web site than to its print edition.
They need to replace quaint stories about maple sugaring with quaint stories of growing weed in the woods. That’ll bring in the youngsters.
“Whose woods these are I think I know,
She runs a medical marijuana grow…”
They need to change the name as the magazine has nothing to do with what Vermont Life was. It now looks like a freebie the chamber would give away.
If circulation keeps dropping, perhaps the new editor’s vision doesn’t really fit Vermont Life. The editor treats really talented writers quite shabbily, from what I’ve heard. Boot her out. Hire the person who does Stowe Magazine.