R.I.P VIBE Vixen July 27, 2007

Again, I’m late in posting this, but… Here you go

It was announced on Tuesday, that the Vibe Vixen magazine will no longer be gracing the news stands with their covers.

The new CEO of Vibe Media Group, Steve Aaron, announced that they will be publishing the Aug/Sept issue and then the magazine will fold.

However, the CEO went on to say that Vibe Vixen will be featured as special issues about urban culture, sometime at the end of this year/ beginning next year. They are not sure how often the issues will be released.

On a brighter note, the magazine will keep their website, so you can still check them out.

As many of us women may feel that there is yet again, no outlet for us to feel ‘at home’. I would say that when there is another Vibe Vixen, Suede (I shed a tear when I think about that magazine), or Honey let’s open our mouths wide and speak very loudly and atell our homegirls to go out and pick up at least one issue.

If we can do this as a whole, we’ll see the female urban magazine last a lot longer than 1 yr (Suede) or 2 1/2 yrs (Vibe Vixen).

We can at least say that they were nice enough to bring Honey magazine back to the stands.

I personally, think that they put their hat where they can’t reach. The magazine/periodical game is tricky. The way you sell is weird, it’s like wholesale + consignment. There are 2 ways (that I can remember) to sell your magazine/newspaper. You either sell it to the retailer in bulk with a percentage off, sometimes as much as 60%. Or you sell it in bulk at full price, but what doesn’t sell by a certain time you have to refund the money for.

So if you have a high expense budget, you can loss money. I know for a fact that Suede had an etirely too high of a budget for their magazine. With all the rich colors and exclusive coutour fashion, you could tell that money was not an object for their magazine, and in turn they folded, before they could get the recognition that they truly deserved (let’s not forget the interview with Barack Obama).

I do not know if that is the case for Vibe Vixen, but with a newly hired CEO to the Company, and expected layoffs, maybe some people got raises and somethings just had to get… Cut

Overall, I hope that the next time we see a well crafted magazine out there catered to us, women, we support it.

A great & inexpensive gift is a magazine subscription. If you can’t use it, someone else will love it.

~f@ke