Dead-Tree Editions Are Dying, But Dead Tree Edition Lives

The pandemic has been death for dead-tree-edition periodicals, but other types of print are doing just fine. 

Direct mail, for example, is as relevant as ever, as I explained in an article published last week by Printing Impressions. (Yes, it really is based on a true story.) Marketing mail can do things that other media, whether old or new, simply cannot match. 

The “hoax” that will disappear as soon as warm weather arrives has kept things busy at plants that print books, boxes, and floor graphics as well. Likewise, Dead Tree Edition is undergoing a transformation. Turning over a new leaf, you might say. The seed dies, but from it springs new life. 

My six-year stint writing the monthly View from the Tree column for Publishing Executive has come to an end. Almost simultaneously, PubExec and its rival, Folio:, went silent at the end of June, both victims of their heavy reliance on live events. 

When the two publications went all digital a few years ago, we mourned that there was no longer a magazine that covered the U.S. magazine industry. Now there’s no longer even a web publisher that focuses solely on the U.S. magazine-media industry. 

But Mr. Tree is just fine. I’ll now be writing regularly for Printing Impressions, the leading trade publication for the U.S. printing industry. I’m no stranger to its audience because it has often republished my articles that first appeared in it sibling, PubExec. 

In fact, four years of my PubExec columns have now been re-posted at Printing Impressions. The last one was about the U.S. Postal Service; I have a feeling I'll be writing a few more of those.

Those who are gluttons for punishment can still find the full collection, stretching back to 2011 before the column became a regular gig, at PubExec.