Debbee and Steve Pezman came up with a radical idea in surf magazine publishing 20 years ago when they left Surfer Magazine and started The Surfer’s Journal.
They created a publication for surfers that was more literary journal than magazine. That targeted an older, more sophisticated surfer who had a deep, personal passion for the sport rather than chasing teenagers and young men. That was not filled with advertising and the commerce of surfing, but instead used its pages to expansively explore the history, art and the culture of surfing. That charged an unheard cover price of $12.95 and relied on readers to become the main revenue source rather than advertisers.
At the time, the industry was in its first slump and advertising budgets were being cut. But Steve and Debbee knew there was one constant that did not ebb and flow: “The stoke and commitment of a hardcore surfer to his passion for surfing,” Steve said.
The very different idea of creating a magazine that relied more heavily on readers than advertisers grew out of Steve and Debbee’s years of experience in surf publishing. Steve was the long-time publisher at Surfer and Debbee the ad director.
When they decided to strike out on their own, they made a list of everything they loved about publishing and all the things they didn’t. And from that, they created their business model.
They left behind advertising sales, subscriber collections, shop collections – “basically anything that had to do with collecting money,” Debbee said. If you wanted the magazine, you needed to pay for it up front. Likewise, if shops wanted to sell it, they had to pay the wholesale price, and if the magazines didn’t sell, Surfer’s Journal did not take the extras back and give a refund like other magazine companies.
Instead of having dozens and dozens and dozens of advertisers, Debbee and Steve offered six advertising spots, but called advertisers sponsors and treated them as such. And sponsors committed to a year at a time, eliminating the need to hire a sales person.
They arrived at the then cover price of $12.95 not by using focus groups and industry norms, but by creating the quality of publication they wanted, then determining how much it would need to cost.
The used all their savings – $250,000 – and borrowed from Steve’s father to launch. Steve said they knew in their bones that it would work, that there was an important niche of surfers that was not being served.
“We never looked back,” Steve said. “There was never a nervous moment.”
They created a mini magazine and presented it as if it was already a living, breathing publication rather than a startup, and mailed it to a list of about 40,000.
After the mailing, they went to the post office everyday, to see if anyone had subscribed. For days, there was nothing. Then one day, they received many, many envelopes – too many to fit in the post office box and Debbee had to go to the front counter to pick up the big container.
A recent edition of The Surfer’s Journal featured a 12-page story on artist and surfer Julian Schnabel, pictured with Herbie Fletcher.“Bingo!” she said, knowing that each envelope contained a year subscription payment.
That first mailing garnered an 8% cash response, which Debbee said was “incredible” in magazine publishing.
Lo and behold we were right,” Steve said. “There was a portion of the market that would pay that much. They were flattered that someone thought enough of them to cater to their level of intelligence and sophistication.
“People would tell us that if they ever needed to explain to someone why they were so dedicated to surfing, they would just give them a copy of The Surfer’s Journal to help them understand. It gives me chills to think about.”
The Surfer’s Journal grew by about 1,500 subscribers a year by word of mouth, and the cash from subscribers helped them grow the business and pay bills.
“Our subscribers ended up being our major investors,” Steve said. “And we loved the purity of it and taking the high road after all those years schlepping in the trenches.”
Readers responded to their expansive stories about surfing art, culture, history, adventure and travel and abundant photographs, stories and photo essays that were not broken up by loads of ads.
“We had a 100-page well in every issue so we could dally,” Steve said. “We could take an idea and inflate it instead of contracting it which was the usual magazine process.
“We were probably too generous with some ideas. I ran a 50,000-word article on Nat Young once. It was like a book! Took a week to read the damn thing,” Steve said.
See Page 2 for some challenges with the model, the future
Some bumps in the model
Steve and Debbee said that in nearly 20 years of business, they haven’t had a lot of bumps in their business. But they did find some bumps in their business model.
One is that the only way to raise revenue is to raise your cover price or sell more copies. Since they aren’t chasing higher circulation to get more ad rates, each new level of paid circulation gets more expensive because you have to search harder for it.
And with so few sponsors, you can’t get steady revenue increases by raising ad rates. While they have raised sponsorship rates some over the years, it is not something they do regularly, Debbee said.
A photo of an outrigger canoe race in Bora Bora from an 18-page photo essay on the islands of Tahiti, the Tuamotus and the Marquesas.
For a while, they got around this by increasing frequency. When The Surfer’s Journal started, it published quarterly, then five times a year, and today it’s six.
Every once in awhile, Steve will float the idea to Debbee of adding another sponsor.
“I’ll say, ‘We’re trying to sell 5,000 more copies. If we only get another sponsor that would be the smart money.’ And she says, ‘No, no, no.’
“I’m the whore,” Steve said.
“We said we were going to have six (sponsors), and we have six,” Debbee said.
Granted, they could make a lot more money if they added more advertising to mix.
“If you are looking at the two models (advertising-based and subscriber-based), it really depends on what your goal is,” Debbee said. “For us, our goal is lifestyle. Steve still drives his 1997 truck. We’ve lived in the same house for 26 years. Our lifestyle is not about money, it’s about time.”
“We’ve made a lot of decisions about the business that turn away from money…” Steve said.
“… And honor our life…” Debbee said.
“And honor the philosophy of the magazine,” Steve said.
In other words, there’s a reason why more magazines don’t use the subscriber-driven model.
“It’s an untapped model because it’s not a super rich one,” Steve said. “It’s not a publisher’s idea of how to make money, it’s an editor’s idea of how to make money – it’s all about the content.”
The Pezmans have also run a tight ship. Debbee describes their expense philosophy as “not being cheap, but we are not wasteful.”
For example, they just replaced a 12-year-old printer that was way behind the time technologically, but worked just fine until its recent demise.
They also recently joined 1% for the Planet, and now give 1% of their sales to the organization, which works to preserve and restore the natural environment.
See Page 3 for what’s next for The Surfer’s Journal
The next chapter
As The Surfer’s Journal celebrates its 20th anniversary, it has 20,000 subscribers and sells 10,000 single copies, Steve said. The cover price is $15.95 and annual subscriptions are $63 a year.
Five of the six sponsors they started with remain the same. Current sponsors are Billabong, Hurley, Quiksilver, Rusty Surfboards, Patagonia and Rainbow Sandals.
Steve and Debbee plan to spend the next six months brainstorming the next phase of their lives, and the magazine’s.
They also plan to study the idea of bringing in new money and creating a group of like-minded publications to get economies of scale by sharing backend functions while keeping the creative, editorial sides separate.
“We have a machine here that’s pretty efficient and that could be shared and its easy to duplicate actually,” Debbee said.
They know they want to work less, and be able to travel for a month at a time without worry.
Ross Garrett, the former publisher of Surfing Magazine, has worked with them for two years developing new business, taking on some of the operational duties, and helping them evolve the model and become more contemporary, the Pezmans said.
Many employees have been with them for years and are like family, and Steve and Debbee have asked them to think of about what’s next as well.
“We need succession planning across the board,” Debbee said.
“The idea is to leave our philosophy and style of operating in place, but have the methods and strategies begin to be developed by new management,” Steve said. Steve and Debbee would remain the owners.
But will it be hard to see the publication that has been their vision and their voice for 20 years change?
“Yes, it will be hard,” Steve said. “But I think it will have our values but the voice will be different. I know that will come. We need to allow it to become something else.”
“Change can be good,” Debbee said.
