Customer Reviews

The Magazines Handbook (Media Practice)

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This is an excellent introduction to the world of magazines. It felt good shortly after reading this book to land my first job on a mag and actually know what a flatpan/repro/ad-ed ratio etc all were. Interesting and engaging so it never feels like a textbook, but packed with enough terminology, history and personal examples from different people in the industry to convince any reader of the worth of this guide.
However, I did skip a few of the later chapters which deal the internet, and I did get a little bored with the legal chapter, and the art and design parts - but that is largely personal and I do recognize it is all useful to know.
A definite read for anyone thinking of entering the industry, even if you are thinking of doing work experience on a magazine, this book will definately help you not feel like an idiot through your first weeks. Also, it provides a good and interesting overview of the ways magazines have grown and developed over the years.
I also appreciated the opinions and voice of the author throughout, who tells you exactly what she thinks, especially when it comes to the amount of sex/fix your life/celebrity stuff that pervades most 'womens' magazines today.
Altogether - a must read.

This book is crammed full of useful information and definitely worth it if you need to know anything about magazines. I made the mistake of reading it from cover to cover whereas I should have picked the bits I was interested in and then used it as a reference book - the physical design got to me in the end - using a slightly smaller font and being faced with a sea of words, to be honest I was relieved when I finally got to the end! As a reference book it has a very good glossary and index. One other problem is its age. It really needs to be revised and updated, it was published in 2006 and some of the quotes and sources are sounding a bit stale but in spite of that this is a book I would rather have.