New Worlds of Body, Mind & Spirit Since 1901
| FATE magazine for October 1951. Llewellyn did not own Fate Magazine back in 1951, and – as most readers probably know – does not own it now. We did publish it for several years, and then sold it into the able hands of Phyllis Galde and David Godwin who had been its editors. I loved FATE, but the magazine business underwent enormous stress and change after the "Dot.Com" boom and bust of the 1990's, and we felt it necessary to "put all our eggs into one basket" – the all important publishing of New Age/Mind, Body, Spirit books.
There's a vast different between book and magazine publishing. Magazines are mostly dependent on the sale of advertising space, and advertisers are both fickle and dependent on economies of reaching targeted audiences most responsive to their product. It requires a careful program of planning editorial content and finding advertisers selling products appropriate to the content. Take a look at the cover. The lead article is on the Riddle of the Sphinx. Maybe in October 1951 you could have found one book publisher with a new book on the Sphinx, and perhaps a travel agency sponsoring tours in Egypt, and it does seem to my aging memory that there may have been an exotic perfume named Sphinx, but I think I've said enough to show the challenges. Of course there was more than the mysterious Sphinx – whose mysteries seem only to increase with passing years – in this issue and lots of regular features to challenge the interests of intelligent readers and provide opportunities for advertisers, but it's a tough business. Of course, the market today for Paranormal interests is very strong – but most people will find their content on cable television and the Internet. There are a good many books in the subject area as well, and Galde Press is managing Fate Magazine expertly. It remains the premier publication for "True Stories of the Strange, the Unusual, the Unknown." This commentary was written by: Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, Chairman, Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. |
