I started lifting in 1972, before the internet, personal trainers, and strength coaches. My coaches were print magazines: Iron Man, Strength and Health, and Muscle Builder/Power. By 1984, I was an editor at a major fitness publication company, and I spent the next four decades as a writer, editor, and ghostwriter. This insider experience qualifies me to dispel common misconceptions about how these magazines operate.

To be clear, there are no academic prerequisites for writing for fitness and bodybuilding magazines. I was paid to write for these magazines six years before I earned any academic degrees or certifications. That said, pursuing a college degree offers opportunities that are difficult to obtain otherwise, particularly internships. Runner’s World frequently recruited interns, providing these students with valuable work experience that could lead to a paid staff position or a job at another publication.

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I never took an internship in college. Instead, many years earlier, I began freelancing articles for newsletters and newspapers. In 1978, our local weightlifting federation hosted the Junior National Weightlifting Championships. I contacted the editor of Strength and Health, shared my background covering weightlifting competitions, and he assigned me the story. That was my first byline in a major newsstand magazine. I continued freelancing to build my resume, getting published in several magazines, including Powerlifting USA and Natural Bodybuilding. My master plan worked, and the week after I received my undergraduate degree in mass communication, I got a job offer from Runner’s World. There, I worked on four of their sister magazines: Strength Training for Beauty, Get Fit, Swimwear Illustrated, and New Mother.

Over a career spanning nearly five decades, my articles have appeared in more than 50 print and online magazines, and I served as editor-in-chief of the athletic fitness magazine Bigger Faster Stronger for 11 years. As with Starting Strength, BFS emphasized basic barbell training. Given that background, let’s begin by examining how fitness and bodybuilding magazines generate revenue.

Show Me the Money

Those who sell print magazines often have little interest in carrying many of the titles they display. They carry them because they are often required to subscribe to a “bundle” of magazines from a major distributor that includes the titles they prefer. This requirement makes it challenging for start-up magazines to be displayed in major outlets, such as booksellers, because these businesses have limited display space. To get on board with a distributor, one of their magazines usually has to fold. Also, and I know this because one of my editors was a longtime colleague of someone who worked for one of these distributors, significant start-up fees to join are often required.

This may surprise you, but the price of a newsstand magazine doesn’t cover the cost of running a publication, because it’s rare for more than a third of newsstand copies to sell. Unsold copies are destroyed, and the dealer receives credit for them, paying the distributor only for the copies sold. Yes, magazine subscriptions may cover the baseline costs of printing and mailing individual magazines, but a newsstand publication would quickly go out of business if it relied solely on subscription revenue. Instead, newsstand magazines make most of their money from advertising.

Advertising revenue can generate substantial amounts of money. About 15 years ago, I ghostwrote for a golf magazine where a full-page ad cost $40,000, and the back cover and the inside front and back covers cost even more. I understand that the largest print magazines have charged as much as six figures for a single-page ad, but deals are often available. For example, major magazines may offer discounts by offering ads published only in regional editions.

Let’s say you own a company that sells air conditioners. Your target markets would be in the regional magazine covering, perhaps, Texas and Nevada, rather than Minnesota and Maine. To appeal to different demographics, the covers of annual college football preview magazines will feature photos of the best athletes in each region the magazine represents. Likewise, Runner’s World featured two covers per issue. The newsstand version for the general population usually had a celebrity on the cover, while the version sent to subscribers featured a competitive runner. I understand we were among the first magazines to use this approach.

Supplements have long been the primary advertising category for bodybuilding magazines, and I understand that the worldwide supplement market is now estimated at $228 billion annually. Athletic clothing is also a major advertising category for fitness magazines, especially those targeting women.

For many years, I wondered why a magazine like MuscleMag would attract so many supplement companies, given its large size (with some issues over 300 pages!) and the many supplement companies represented. The reason is that having a large number of advertisers, particularly repeat advertisers, suggests the publication delivers good results for its sponsors. This also explains why startup magazines have trouble attracting advertisers and often offer ads at no charge for their first issue to attract potential sponsors.

It’s common for advertisers to offer editorial content about companies that purchase advertising space. Their pitch is that publishing a positive news feature about your products or services will generate interest, and that advertising will sustain that interest to drive more sales. The downside is that a magazine’s relationship with its advertisers can undermine the publication’s credibility because the editorial content cannot be objective. For example, if one of your advertisers sells aspirin, you will not publish an article about aspirin causing gastrointestinal ulcers. Let’s look at some examples.

A salesperson for a major bodybuilding magazine approached the CEO of a company I worked for in the 90s, offering to write a feature about his business in exchange for buying three small ads in their magazine for $20,000. He didn’t have that much cash on hand, but I met a bodybuilder who told me he made $40,000 the first month after an article promoting his training course appeared in a major bodybuilding magazine. Later, he got into the supplement business.

One current health-related magazine that uses this PR-to-advertising marketing approach extensively and effectively is Life Extension, published by a Florida-based company that is an industry leader in selling health-related supplements. The magazine features about a dozen well-researched articles, and within a few pages of each article, you’ll find an ad for the supplements mentioned. At BFS, I would avoid placing any ads on the same pages as feature stories about athletes or coaches, as I did not want to give the impression that these individuals were endorsing a product. Such a policy made school administrators more comfortable working with us.

A great book on this marketing approach is The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR by Al Ries and Laura Ries. Twenty-four years ago, I interviewed a business consultant who should have read it. He appeared on Oprah but didn’t write a book about his methods until after his appearance. He later realized he had squandered a major opportunity for book sales. I understand that the marketing impact of being selected for Oprah’s Book Club is known as the “Oprah Effect.”

A word about scientific sports journals, which are primarily subscription-based and usually included with your membership in a professional organization. These publications can be especially attractive to advertisers because they reach specific target markets, such as strength coaches or athletic trainers. The publications may never be read, of course, but they are not discarded like newsstand publications.

When I was a member of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the American Council on Exercise (ACE), I regularly received their journals. If you’re interested in building a business as a personal trainer or strength coach, the ACE magazine was especially valuable because much of its content focused on marketing and business matters. By the way, some journals require writers, or the institutions they represent, to pay them to publish their articles. As they say in academia, “Publish or Perish!”

This brings us to the next area of misunderstanding in magazine publishing: How magazine articles are selected.

Start the Presses!

The editorial process of a magazine begins with a content meeting that includes the editorial staff and often a representative of the sales staff. Major magazines outline the types of features to be published in each issue a year in advance because some articles take months to prepare, particularly those involving photo shoots. Knowing the content schedule so far in advance also enables the sales staff to get ahead of the competition by targeting potential advertisers. Here's an example.

I worked for several women’s fitness magazines. When articles on tanning methods were scheduled for print, the sales staff targeted companies that sold suntan lotion and tanning beds. They often offered incentives to advertisers who purchased ads early, such as discounts and the ability to secure the best page placement, including being on the same page as the article. By the way, one clue that an advertising sales rep is about to lose their job is seeing public service announcements in magazines, which suggests that advertising space wasn’t sold.

Major magazines prefer staff writers to freelancers. Staff writers know which products to promote in their articles, whereas freelancers often do not. It’s also easier for an editor to work with a staff writer because they are in-house, whereas an editor will have to go back and forth by phone and email to make corrections.

Another issue with freelance writers is that their writing style may not match the publication they are trying to freelance for, which can require considerable editing. As an editor, I’ve often faced challenges working with writers who had backgrounds in English. Compared with journalists, English teachers tended to write too formally for our readers and to use foot-long paragraphs. (FYI: I try to write at the ninth-grade reading level, and I’ve never had someone tell me, “Kim, I liked your article, but it was just too easy to understand!”)

Staff writers often use pen names to suggest that the magazine has a variety of writers. We had fun with this. Once, my colleague used the name Alphie Bird for a series of fitness and nutrition articles. One day, a young woman came into our office and told me how much Alphie had changed her life for the better. She had driven an hour to our office to meet Alphie. I escorted her into my boss’s office, where my boss turned to the birdcage and said, “Alphie, you have a visitor!”

The traditional, professional way to get published in a magazine is to first write a query letter to the editor, which serves as a sales pitch for your article. A query letter explains what your article is about, why the magazine’s readers will be interested in what you have to say about the topic, and why you are the best person to write it. If the editor likes your proposal, they will get back to you with instructions on how to proceed. Sending a completed manuscript wastes the editor’s time, and editors at large magazines often won’t bother reading it because it’s a tip-off that the writer is an amateur.

If you’re interested in freelancing, the classic guide to writing magazine query letters is Writer’s Market. First published in 1926, it’s now in its 100th edition. The book is available in most public libraries. Before sending a query, check whether the magazine you want to write for offers a media kit, which is provided to potential advertisers and includes details about the company, such as readership demographics (age, education, income, etc.). This background will help you tailor your article more effectively to the magazine’s primary target markets. Another timeless classic on writing for specific audiences is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. Zinsser articulates the basic principle of writing I was taught from day one in my journalism classes: “There’s no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting!”

For advertisers, obtaining a magazine’s marketing kit is critical because it includes subscription numbers and the actual number of newsstand copies sold. One trick magazines often use is to inflate readership by citing a “pass-around rate” on the cover that exceeds the number of copies sold. For example, a magazine may have sold 5,000 copies but claim that for every copy sold, the purchaser will loan it to five of their friends—thus, a readership of 25,000! For one athletic fitness publication I worked for, the publisher used an 8-to-1 pass-around rate.

On the subject of ghostwriting, readers of bodybuilding magazines might be disappointed to learn that the bodybuilder whose name appears as the author often has little to do with the articles. Just because you have big muscles and the strength to lift major household appliances doesn’t necessarily mean you can write. At one seminar, a Mr. Olympia competitor joked with the audience that he was curious about which articles he had written that month for a major bodybuilding magazine he was associated with. In fact, I know of one popular bodybuilding champion who had a 14-year-old girl ghostwrite his articles on how to build 20-inch arms and a 50-inch chest.

If a series of articles becomes especially popular, the editor may compile a book from that content. As such, the articles serve as a sales pitch for the book. This was the case with a series of articles I edited for strength coach Charles Poliquin that appeared in Muscle Media 2000 magazine. In 1997, the articles formed much of the content of a popular bodybuilding book distributed by the company, titled The Poliquin Principles. I should add that online books avoid printing costs, but because they are so easy to publish there is considerably more competition.

Before-and-after physique photos are a proven way to sell products and services in both fitness and bodybuilding magazines. Today, we have AI, but in the past, we relied on Photoshop and physical “tricks” to enhance physique photos. One simple trick is to take the “after” photos first, then have the model drink as much water as they can and take the “before” photos—that’s good for 10 pounds! Sometimes, the “before” photos are taken several weeks after the “after” photos, during which the model goes off their diet. Special lighting and camera angles (low to high, high to low) can also change an individual’s appearance (which is why many celebrity bodybuilders ensure they are in front of a fan when taking a flexed-arm photo). For female models, we often used duct tape to pull in their waists and increase their thigh gap.

In the fitness magazines I edited and wrote for, I often had to work with the agents of celebrities. If we wanted to put a celebrity on our cover, we might also have to cover the projects of a minor celebrity their agents represented. I must add that many of these agents do everything they can to make my job easier. For one celebrity aerobics instructor we put on the cover of our women’s fitness magazine, their agent sent me videos, books, articles, quotes, and even said they would write the article for us – I got to go home early that week! 

One more point on this topic. In one of my journalism classes, we had a guest speaker who was a writer for a major supermarket tabloid. One student asked her why they don’t get sued more often for publishing obvious falsehoods about celebrities. Beyond the fact that celebrities are considered public figures, she said they are seldom involved in litigation because most of the negative gossip they print about celebrities comes from the celebrities’ agents. For many celebrities, the only thing worse than bad publicity is no publicity. One common arrangement is that if you promote one celebrity who is coming out with a new project, they will allow you to say something negative or false about another celebrity who is between projects.

Today, one major issue in covering college sports is the monetization of an athlete’s name, image, and likeness (NIL). Whereas colleges used to provide BFS with complimentary photos for our annual Heisman Watch issue, they now have photographers (and athletes) who want money…too much money. As a result, we canceled this long-standing, popular feature. This issue has even trickled down to high schools. One high school football team I contacted captured national attention for defeating a perennial powerhouse. I told them I was interested in doing a major feature on their team and putting them on the cover. They said I needed to promote all their sponsors and include a statement that they do not use the BFS program or have any of the equipment we sell. I never ran the story, which is a shame for the athletes I would have featured.

The Rise and Fall of Print

It would be nice to think that over the past half-century, strength coaches focused on reading journals and sports science textbooks. However, I can’t recall a time when a colleague asked me, “Hey Kim, did you read the latest article on cluster training in the Journal of Biometric Resistance Training?” Furthermore, I doubt many strength coaches would subscribe to these sports science journals if they weren’t included with their professional memberships. Just my opinion.

Certainly, some strength coaches often refer to the newsstand bodybuilding magazines as “Muscle and Fiction.” But the truth is, in the early days of the profession, many strength coaches relied on these magazines, particularly Iron Man, for the latest trends to give their athletes an edge. One reason is that journals are often difficult to read and end with a statement that “more research is needed.” As Coach Poliquin used to joke about these papers, “Can you be a little more vague?” This approach contrasts with bodybuilding magazines, which feature confident headlines such as “The 3 Best Exercises to Build Massive Shoulders.”

Sad to say, print magazines have become increasingly rare, as they must compete with the countless internet influencers on Instagram, TikTok, Starting Strength, and other social media platforms. Online magazines have had some success, but as with online books, who wants to read a magazine on a computer screen or smartphone? BFS switched to a digital platform after 34 years of print, but it wasn’t the same. After four years, we ceased publishing.

Perhaps the days of magazine coaches are gone, but it was a fun ride!

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References

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