One of the most difficult aspects of the job of Editor of a web site such as AutoSpeed is in picking content direction. As with the editing of a traditional modified car paper magazine (which I've done as well), deciding which stories to include and how they should be approached is a critical part of my job.
But surely it must be easy?
After all, all that I need do is to monitor reader feedback, check on our referrers' list the stories that are attracting people from web discussion groups, and see which stories are being most accessed?
Well, no, it's not actually like that at all.
And why not? Because in many cases what people want, and what they say they want, are two different things.
I'll give you an example. A fair few years ago a popular Australian modified car magazine listened to their readers' expressed desires. "More radical cars!" said the readership. "Real wild stuff - more of it!" So, with those sorts of pressures - and of course also other requests from advertisers and management - the magazine started to cover more and more extreme cars. Soon, there were plenty of cars which, in the fashion of the times, had huge rear wheels, tiny front wheels - and cabins full of aluminium panelling. Some of these cars were occasionally driven on the street, while many did fast quarter mile runs. "Orgasmic!" screamed the audible parts of the readership. "Just what we want!" So the staff found more and more of these machines, which also got more and more weird (sorry, extreme), until one day the magazine consisted primarily of cars that no-one could or would ever happily drive on roads.
And the readership then turned around and wondered why 'their' mag was full of irrelevant cars.
The opposite scenario is also the case - what people say they dislike, often in fact they like. No matter how hard you search, you will find it very difficult to locate people who will say that either of the two Australian modified four cylinder magazines is any good. In fact, it's the opposite that's the case, with literally dozens of people happy to have their say in web discussion groups and in workshops around the country about how bad both mags are. A common refrain is that a few years ago they were much better publications. Trouble is, both are selling up a storm. As someone recently said to me, "There's 40,000 closet riceburners who love seeing half naked women draped over huge spoilers...."
So the magazines everyone apparently loves to hate actually are doing pretty well.
It would be easy to fall into the same sort of traps with AutoSpeed. The issue that we run a drag-only Skyline GT-R will attract more discussion than the one in which we run the sensibly tweaked Impreza WRX than can do mid-12s all day long. The issue in which we detail a mega engine build on the dyno gets more feedback than the story on how to fit a particular gauge to your car. A feature detailing how to get 10 per cent more power from your turbo car for $5 will have people loudly exclaiming, "So what?!" - and in fact often those same people will write in telling us how the testing of a $2500 modification should have been done instead.
But, even more confusingly, sometimes just exactly the opposite is the case. The week we run a feature car that we consider exceptional - as in, one of the five best we've ever seen - the issue is greeted with total silence. The week that we have a story that exclusively details a new and effective product that we've tested with good results, there's nary a peep from the readers. And it gets worse. A Buyers' Guide to performance parts available for a specific car can be greeted by a sneered "just a catalog list" from someone in Australia - and at just the same time our Referrers' List shows 1000 people a week coming from a discussion group in the US to read and admire it.
Yes, it all makes an Editor's job very difficult.
I've spoken to a number of magazine editors over the years, and these sort of topics always come up. Almost universally, the response that editors make to questions about magazine direction is the same. "I do what I think will work best," they say. "I don't always listen to what readers want - I try to lead them rather than follow their direction." And you can see why'd they say that!
In my role as Editor of AutoSpeed, I try to provide a range of articles each week - but the overall direction reflects a few underlying themes.
Some of these (like the fact that we tend to cover later model cars with engine management) are obvious, so I won't detail them. However, others include:
- Running a range of feature cars, from those that are high-dollar, high-performance machines almost inevitably of little relevance to real-life street use, to those which are mildly modified, often by DIY'ers. The former could be called the 'aspirational' cars (and we all need some heroes) and the latter cars 'achievable'. Cover just the 'achievables' and AutoSpeed would be boring, cover just the 'aspirationals' and AutoSpeed's relevance would inevitably head way downwards.
- Running a range of tech, from simple immediately-can-be-done DIY, all the way through to a pure background theory piece on a complex subject. Because we pride ourselves on a strong tech coverage, the range encompassed by tech articles is extremely wide. Some of our background tech pieces (as has been critically pointed out in the past) are more like essays than articles, while some of our simpler DIY jobs could be done by someone with absolutely zero technical knowledge - and skills not much higher than that as well!
- Having a wide range of special features, from those which background the history of a car or look at the pros and cons of purchasing a particular model secondhand, to quite 'different' features such as the one we ran on the fire engine. I deliberately try to make some special features of only peripheral interest to the majority of readers, simply so that those who are eyeing AutoSpeed - but haven't ever been absolutely grabbed - may then be enthused.
Yes, the common theme to the above is 'wide range' - our weekly publication status gives us far more flexibility than a traditional monthly or 6-weekly print magazine. Simply, if you don't like a particular issue of AutoSpeed, it's only seven days to the next one.
So where does this leave us?
We value your feedback. But it is only human that people are stirred to email me (or post in the Feedback Forum) when there's something that they don't like, or a question that they'd like answered which they believe that an article didn't cover adequately.
But instead, I'd like you to write to me when there are articles that you do like, and to tell me why you liked it. Was it a particular feature car of which you're a fan? Was it a tech article where you liked the technique being covered? Was it the writing style? The photography? Or something else? Did the story cover content that you've not seen anywhere else? Is it an article that you'll file away for future reference?
Because while I'd like to lead in the direction that we take, I'd also like all of you to have an input into that path.
Julian Edgar
editor@autospeed.com
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