We're making money but not changing the world

Well the Reptile Salary Survey turned out to be a bust. I guess we'll all have to wait to see what Masthead comes up with.

A few more entries came in bringing the sample to a lucky seven. Final results:

• Last Year's Range: $68,000-215,000
• Last Year's Average: $112,300
  
  
• Best Year's Range: $70,000-215,000
• Best Year's Average: $123,000

I'd like to snuggle up with the rep that earned 215,000. Damn that's fine money. The only way to make that much is to work for a magazine that sells itself. Isn't that ironic. The reps hustling on the margins make diddly-squat and the order-takers get rich. Imagine how hard it is to sell an ad in say Canadian Dimension, the little lefty magazine from Winnipeg (For People Who Want To Change The World)? Sure the ads go for only $1,075. But apparently there are only 3,000 people in Canada who want to change the world badly enough to subscribe and that makes for a sky-high CPM of $358. And which advertiser is targeting people who want to change the world anyways? Somehow they have managed to publish since 1963 however I don't suspect it is their ad sales that is keeping them alive. But then I've never seen an issue and for all I know, it's full of home decorating ads (maybe people who want to change the world start small, perhaps by first changing their mattress or paint colour).

Now I don't mean to pick on Canadian Dimension, it was randomly selected from the hundreds of small magazines that populate CARD. But really, it must be a bitch to sell -- no natural ad category, no audit, no PMB, no size, no sexiness... The poor rep trying to sell ads into a magazine like this will never cut through the clutter, and why should she - would you find the time for her if you were a media planner?. Then again, I don't suspect that Canadian Dimension is in it for the lucre. But many small magazines are. And it is tough!

Then there are the Chatelaines and Canadian House & Homes and Flares of this world and the fish are literally jumping into the boat making the fishermen rich paper pushers. How hard could it be answering the phone all day and printing out insertion orders? The biggest challenge is where to place all the damn ads since they all want to be up front, on a right hand page, opposite 100% editorial with six pages of separation between their competitors. Where is the justice?

Show me more money

Hardly scientific but gathering steam is the Unofficial Reptile Salary Survey. Yes there have been four fabulous responses (see them here). A quick tabulation reveals the following:

Last Year's Range: $90,000-179,000
Last Year's Average: $117,000

Seems last year was a relatively good year for the reptiles of the world because:

Best Year's Range: $98,000-179,000
Best Year's Average: $125,250

Not bad. But is this representative? Keep them coming by clicking the comment button at the bottom of (click here) and answering the following two little questions:

1. Last year, including commissions and bonus, I earned $______
2. In my best year as a rep I pulled in $_______