Popular Mechanics is dying. I suspect that monthly sales are under 10,000. We usually get two copies and we’re lucky if we sell one. Cover price is $10.50 so even if I sell both copies I am barely cash-flow positive for the month. Based on my numbers and what I suspect others do, Popular Mechanics should be killed off – in Australia at least. Imagine my shock, therefore, when this month, instead of the usual 2 I received 10 copies. It’s part of a promotion in pursuit of sales. Okay they were paying for me to display the extra stock but the fee is less than the real-estate costs. This title is dead and no amount of promotional CPR is going to bring it back. Someone needs to turn off the life support. In the meantime, the promotion this month costs me $78.75 in cash and I won’t realise on the unsold copies for another eight weeks.
Popular Mechanics is not alone. I could list another fifty titles just as lifeless.
And while we are drowning in these titles we continue to struggle to get enough stock of the popular weekly titles. I feel like an anorectic glutton.