Nine Sources of Trade Magazine Lists
For those who don't realize it, trade magazines can be a great regular part of a freelancer's income. They always need copy and many pay reasonable amounts for articles. It is best to have knowledge of the industry in question, or at least to be able to show your fit for a particular topic pitch. Here are some resources for finding trade magazines in given industries -- all found in the space of minutes by doing some straightforward web searches:
- TradePub.com -- The site provides subscription services for business-to-business (b-to-b) publications. But it also gives you the name of publications and lists them by industry, so it's a great research tool.
- Free Trade Magazine Source -- This is another subscription stop.
- Yahoo's Media Directory -- Yahoo's directory, or categorization of links by topic, is one of the best. You can look by topic and see what publications are listed. It's not exhaustive, and you'll find consumer-targeted titles as well as b-to-b, but still useful. You can even go right to the trade magazine section of the directory.
- TechExpo Directory -- These are touted as science and technology trades, but there also seem to be more general industry titles as well.
- Amazon's Trade Magazine Listings -- Amazon sells magazine subscriptions and has an entire category of professional and trade titles. On the left you'll see links by topics. Not all the topics have associated titles, but many do.
- About.com -- The link in this case takes you to a Google search page that looks for the term "trade magazines" on About.com. It won't all be a fit, but many of the entries will be lists of trade magazines put together by people who cover various topics on About.
- HighBeam Research -- You may hate how they try to sell your articles when you're getting nada for it, so make them pay in a different way by turning their lists of trade journals into a marketing mine.
- Encyclopedia.com -- For some reason, the reference site, which republishes many trade magazine articles, has them listed in reverse alphabetical order.
- Magazines.com -- A site for ordering magazines, you can browse by title or by category.
Labels: magazines, marketing, prospects, trade publishing
posted by Erik Sherman | 12:45 PM
6 Comments:
Thanks for this list, Erik. Trades can be tough to find; we cover that topic in my Renegade Writer course on writing for trade magazines.
I'd add to your list the membership list of the Custom Publishing Council (www.custompublishingcouncil.com), the B to B (www.btobonline.com)Media Power 50 list, the membership database of American Business Media (www.americanbusinessmedia.com)(it sponsors the Jesse H. Neal Awards, the Pulitzer Prize of the trade press) and the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE)(www.asbpe.org). ASBPE won’t let you access its membership list unless you join, but you can get a taste of who’s a member from the list of officers. You can also find a host of award-winning trade magazines by perusing the list of the Azbee winners.
Regards,
Pat Curry
Thanks for posting Erik. This is a great help.
-Otesa Miles
Thank you! This is an excellent resource. Much appreciated.
Karen Childress
Personally, I found ASBPE membership to be less than useful. The information in the database often seemed dated. Thanks for adding the custom publishers - I was steering clear of them for this post because they are a bit different from traditional trade journalism and you can find yourself having to tailor coverage to make the client happy rather than doing straight out-and-out reporting. Not all the time, but often enough. I've certainly done a lot of custom pub work and the experience can be good. I just mentally put it into a different category, particularly as many of the publications are not trades, but consumer-oriented.
For the Media Power 50 list on btobonline.com, click the link for the list and then scroll down to the categories toward the bottom - there's one for trade magazines.
I think the ABM database is a little less useful because there are so many different types of businesses that are members of the group. For example, you've got publishers, custom publishers, broadcasters, marketing organizations, academic institutions, and so on. Looking for "US media organization" as the type in the list of members helps, but that designation also includes companies most writers would not classify as media companies. Also, I know of a number of trade publishers that focus more on the ASBPE awards, so I'm not sure that the Neals have that degree of stature.
Thanks for the useful information. Do you have good recommendations on free non-trade magazines, especially those related to hobby. Something similar but better than Free Magazines
>> Do you have good recommendations on free non-trade magazines, especially those related to hobby. <<
Not off hand, sorry.
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