One thing that has always amused me is the practice of selling magazines based on flashy, attractive cover photos. We’ve all fallen victim to this practice: the monster brown trout (that you’ll never catch) in a beautiful Montana river, or the acrobatic Tarpon against the backdrop of turquoise waters (that you’ll never see). All too often the best thing about the magazine is the cover, and that’s fine if that’s your cup of tea. Now I’m no magazine publisher, but if I were I would certainly probably never stoop to such low levels just to sell magazines, or attract readers.
The magazine industry is evolving or at least expanding to the world of the internet, and I’ve been reading some of the online fly fishing magazines that have grown in popularity recently. What separates the online magazines to their print cousins is that they’re free. Being free, one would think that everyone would read them, right? Well, just as print magazines must stand out amongst their competition on the magazine rack, online magazines must also offer something unique that convinces the reader that this issue is worth your time. Blood Knot is one of these relatively new online periodicals of the fly fishing world, and they just launched their Holiday issue which features a cover photo of April Vokey of Flygal Ventures. Savvy move on the part of the folks at Blood Knot, because just as covers sell print magazines, an enticing cover photo increases the likelihood of folks clicking on an online magazine. And let’s face it, April Vokey is cover material. But before you judge the folks at Blood Knot harshly for using a pretty girl just to “sell” their magazine, read the interview. You’ll see that there’s more to April than just a pretty face: there is a real, bonafied fly angler that takes her job seriously and does a good job at promoting her business. Kudos to April.
Let the record reflect, however, that the Unaccomplished Angler featured April Vokey well before the folks at Blood Knot. While it may have been simply an April Fools Day lark, Ms. Vokey did end up leaving a comment on my blog, so I consider that quite a journalistic accomplishment that makes me feel almost pretty cool. Almost.
So check out the latest edition of Blood Knot. There’s lots of great content, including gift ideas for the upcoming Holiday season, an entertaining article about an ill-fated encounter with John Gierach and much more. And of course a great cover shot.
Nice post Kirk. Ape is the real deal. If you haven’t already, you should listen to Itinerant Angler’s podcast interview w/ her:
http://www.itinerantangler.com/podcasts/podcast56.mp3
Very worthwhile.
Brett, thanks for the comment and the link to the podcast. I just listened and is a great interview. April sounds like an awesome person and great ambassador of our sport- it would be fun to go north and fish with her some day.