Wen 丨 Qianli Review 丨 vegetable bag
Typesetting丨Deer Nine
preface
Two days ago, the news on the Internet that the veteran national comic magazine "Zhiyin Manke" was suspended from May to October this year attracted a lot of embarrassment. Such a small event has caused such a discussion of Pang Fu, which shows that everyone's attention to two-dimensional print media is quite vigorous. With the rapid expansion of online media, the living space of traditional paper media has become narrower and narrower - especially the related paper media in the two-dimensional small circle is walking on thin ice. What is their current situation and what should they do in the future?
Today, we have found the editor-in-charge of the two-dimensional magazine "Two-dimensional Mania" and Quan Zai, who are still struggling to live, to peek at the survival status of two-dimensional print media.
Compared with 10 years ago, today's "Two-dimensional Mania" is much smaller. More than a dozen members of the editorial board have a clear division of labor, responsible editors, art editors, and teachers responsible for printing, CDs and peripheral gifts together to form the entire two-dimensional fanatical production lineup. Although the newsroom is small, this is not a bad thing for everyone. Everyone knows each other, and whenever they encounter something new in the second dimension, they only need to shout in the office, which can immediately cause a lively discussion.
"Everyone is basically busy with their own business, and when they encounter something that needs to be discussed, they also directly speak, and if someone starts to raise a topic, everyone often chats together and forgets the work at hand."
Of course, even if the scale has become smaller, everyone still maintains the offline office mode, except during the epidemic, sitting in the office is the norm for everyone in the editorial department for ten years. Just like the "Space Exploration Editorial Office", even if there are not enough people, even if there is a lack of funds, there should be no less desks and bookshelves. Perhaps, the form of "offline editorial office" is the insistence of orthodox print media.
If you want to ask them if they have any ideas for enrollment, they must still be. However, after the streamlining of personnel, the division of labor has been completely finalized, there are no too frequent personnel changes, and the efficiency of publication is the same. In this context, the expansion of enrollment is not particularly urgent. In addition to the articles of this journal, special members are also responsible for peripheral areas such as disc paper film, and dubbing and partial packaging can also be solved by contract and outsourcing.
There is no office politics, no deception, some are only unreserved communication among the households, and when problems are encountered, everyone solves them together, and the atmosphere of the editorial office of "Two-dimensional Mania" makes people feel incredible, really like in the animation. Years of unity have also made the newsroom stable like a diamond.
As a monthly print media, "Two-dimensional Mania" and today's new media, there is a certain difference in the tendency of timeliness, sometimes the film or game is out, over, can cover the conclusion, in order to see the relevant articles in the magazine. This is a difference caused by the nature of the platform, and there is no way to balance it. But they still tried their best to keep up with the hot spots. Not only the articles, the peripherals, paper films and other gifts, but also the relevant teachers in charge will listen to the opinions of the editorial department as a whole.
"For example, in the casting of paper models, the popularity of the characters themselves is high, but everyone's desire to make paper models must be high. In the near future, the role of "Horse Racing Girl" will be generally more interested. ”
For today's "Two-dimensional Mania", the stable sales of more than 5,000 copies after monthly release can only be said to be basically in a barely alive state, and there is no spare energy to engage in new magazines or open other new businesses.
As teacher Yiwen Qiuli once said on Zhihu a long time ago: "Every issue of the magazine can be bought as the last issue." ”
For example, there are many readers who directly wait for 12 issues a year and then start together. "In addition, there are many readers who have raised the issue of printing, and we have actually considered printing individual issues, supplements, and yearbooks in the past, but in terms of our magnitude, it is really a very difficult thing to print." For now, the number of periods that are basically sold out may be really sold out, and it is only possible that two packages may be turned out from a corner when sorting out the warehouse someday in the future.
Of course, even so, the editorial office did not say anything about the content of "Two-dimensional Mania". In the face of the constantly changing quadratic and new situation, the editorial department has been facing a relatively "luxurious" problem, that is, how to allocate the proportion of each content of the magazine.
The fields involved in "Two-Dimensional Mania" are actually quite broad, and the core interests of each reader are different. For example, some people are keen to watch the historical evidence of mobile game characters, and some people feel that the content of mobile games is too much, hoping that there will be more articles on voice actors, and some friends not only want to read Galgame's articles, but also hope to add explanations related to home console games. "Of course, from our point of view, we will try our best to meet the needs of people who want to read all kinds of articles."
On the other hand, as a media that started with Galgame content, "Two-Dimensional Mania" still retains Galgame-related sections. This piece of content is something they can't put down, but it has gradually become a more difficult content.
(Two-dimensional mania's GAL yearbook series,
It is a very sought-after good book in the circle)
"In fact, it was also mentioned a long time ago by teacher Ruyue Qianhua in the editorial department, and the Galgame industry itself is shrinking. Although there are also popular works on sale, the actual situation in the industry is not as good as before. And the content of the industry is so much in total, whether it is script writers or artists, the number of newcomers is not as good as the number of old people who leave, and there will always be a shortage of writeable content. ”
But even so, every issue of "Two-Dimensional Mania" is doing domestic and Japanese Galgame-related content, which is probably the real "fanatic" of "Two-Dimensional Mania".
Many marketing numbers understand it as suspension after forwarding the red-headed document of the suspension of "Zhiyin Manke", but in fact, there is still a certain difference between suspension and suspension. The suspension of publication naturally means that it will not continue to be issued, and the suspension is different, for the print media to suspend the publication is a more common event, and it can also be resumed later, although I don't know whether "Soulmates" will return after October, but the event itself is not too pessimistic.
The suspension and suspension of the journal can basically be summarized by the clichéd reasons such as "poor business conditions" and "difficulties in production", and the suspension can be added with "change the structure of the magazine". If we talk a little farther, on the one hand, it is actually the change of the readership, the old readers of the year gradually leave with age while there is a lack of enough new readers to join, on the other hand, the sales of offline bookstores.
Nowadays, quite a few magazines have electronic versions, but offline sales still account for a large proportion. The impact of the epidemic in the past two years has been great, like "Two-dimensional Mania" in early 2020 and 2021 also experienced a serious decline in sales. Although the market environment is different, a similar situation has occurred in Japan, and some Galgame and animation-related magazines have also announced their closure under the impact of the epidemic.
"In terms of industry experience, I can only be regarded as a barely beginner, and I am far from qualified to discuss magazines and the publishing industry, here is a selfish, friends who are interested in magazines and publishing, I suggest that you can find the book "The Great Collapse of Publishing" to read, now it is also an old book, although it records the situation of the Japanese publishing industry in Japan since the end of the last century, but many of its contents are still used in the publishing industry today."
For "Two-Dimensional Mania", although it has not been closed before, there has been a slight delay in publication before. Perhaps some old readers still have the impression that during about 2018, when another teacher was in charge, it was basically 1.5~2 months, and it was only in the first half of 2019 that the monthly magazine was really restored.
Regarding the future of two-dimensional paper media, to quote a quote from Izumi: "It is difficult to say what the future will eventually develop, but it is certain that paper media will not disappear completely." In addition, there may be a somewhat counterintuitive thing, that is, in fact, the importance of offline bookstores is far higher than everyone thinks. For some friends who have become social animals, they may rarely go to bookstores, but for junior and senior high school students, and even college students, friends of these ages often choose to buy from physical stores when they ingest text knowledge. ”
Finally, for new media, print media, as a predecessor, also has something to learn. We have also had a deep relationship with "Two-Dimensional Mania", and I only admire them here for those who are still willing to take this path, although the print media is outdated in some aspects, but the temperament they show will never go out of style. I'd also like to believe that "print media is not going to disappear completely." ”