K9 Magazine - Editor's Blog

As promised, I thought I'd use my blog to try and give an insight into life editing a small but popular magazine.

We (we being K9 Magazine) are delighted to have secured a world exclusive interview for our next edition with non other than the world's biggest selling female recording artist and ultra, ultra big time dog lover Mariah Carey. That's big news for a little magazine with a small but incredibly industrious team.

Our staff worked amazingly hard to secure this interview and the fact that Mariah agreed to grant us an exclusive tells me she must like our magazine - so we're doing something right!

Imagine my suprise then when I read an 'exclusive' Mariah Carey story appearing in a national daily tabloid yesterday. Suprising not because I didn't expect one of the world's most famous people to be talking to publications much bigger than us, but because the story is totally and utterly based around a quote she gave in her interview with K9 Magazine, a direct response to a question asked by us. Talk about stealing our thunder!!

We're a magazine not a newspaper so we always stand a chance of being beaten to the punch (certainly in our print edition) when it comes to news stories. As we're quarterly it's even tougher because there are very few news stories we can actually cover as they'd be out of date in three months time when our magazine is still on shelf.

Because of this we rely on our website to break stories and on getting big names to talk to us on an exclusive basis for our magazine so we can fill it with totally original content.

We don't buy in interviews or even borrow them, all the people we feature in K9 Magazine do so purely because they have a GENUINE passion for dogs and that's exactly why we like to talk to them.

Yesterday I had to choke back, how can I underplay this, let's say 'suprise', to see another publication breaking the 'exclusive' news that Mariah Carey's dog likes to share a bath with her (I'm sure many a man has a certain degree of envy toward that little dog now) -http://www.k9magazine.com/viewarticle.php?sid=15&&vid=0&npage=&aid=842

Don't get me wrong, I know full well that publishing is a fast paced, cut throat sort of a game and the newspaper that is being credited with this exclusive (which is actually ours, did I mention that at all?) was obviously given the quote, I don't doubt in very good faith. Would I have run it if I'd got hold of it first? Probably. Wouldn't have called it exclusive though on the basis that I'd have know as fact that it was not one of our writers or someone working for my publication who'd secured the quotes in question.

I rarely bleat about anything that happens in business but it doesn't mean I can't vent about it especially when it's something that K9 Magazine worked so hard for and now feels ever so slightly tainted - that's why I thought I'd have an outburst here rather than bang on about it to everyone in the office.

We've been beaten to the punch on one little element but I'm comforted in the knowledge that we still have a hefty upper cut in reserve as we've got the whole of the interview still to come in OUR magazine and I know our readers will love it - even if they have been given a fishy little taster by someone else, 'exclusively'. Bleating and moan-fest over with and a promise never to do it again. For future reference we'll have to ask the dog loving celebrities never to talk to any other publication once they've done an interview with K9 Magazine, surely that's fair? Whine, whine, whine. I know.

The first entry of K9 Magazine's editor's blog.

I thought I'd take the opportunity of my first blog entry to do the customary who I am, what I do stuff so, here it is.

I am Ryan O'Meara, editor-in-chief of K9 Magazine, a British lifestyle magazine for people who love dogs but would not describe themselves in terms such as 'dog nuts', 'crazy about dogs' or 'pet obsessed' - really it's a magazine for what I would refer to as ordinary folk who happen to share their lives with dogs and who the lifestyle benefits that owning dog brings.

I thought I'd set up an editor's blog to live alongside a new e-newsletter we're launching called The K9 Insider, which will offer a behind the scenes look at how our magazine gets put together as well as advanced notice of upcoming features and lots of other bits and pieces for dog lovers to enjoy which may or may not make the final print edition of K9 Magazine.

So there it is, entry number 1. I will add more for sure and hopefully I can use my blog to publish random thoughts, comments and opinion on various things which I can not put into K9 Magazine.

For example....Why, when you blow in a dog's face, do they get really frustrated and angry yet the minute they get the chance to stick their head out of a moving car they can't wait to feel an 70mph breeze up their nose and in their ears? (Actually, that's not one of my random thoughts at all, I stole it from a well known northern comedian but thought it was a legitimate question)

http://www.k9magazine.com - The Lifestyle Magazine for Dog Lovers