Loyal Subscribers Keep Hobby Magazines Afloat

Mr. Prucnal’s wife dumped Family Circle, Taste of Home and Better Homes & Gardens because she no longer found enough interesting recipes. His daughter said goodbye to Glamour. And he didn’t renew Newsweek and The Dallas Morning News because the family was getting their general-interest news from television.

But Mr. Prucnal refuses to part with Model Railroader, Classic Trains and Classic Toy Trains. When it comes to the toy train magazines that fuel his passion, he has drawn the line.

“I would probably give up my train club before I would give up my train magazines,” said Mr. Prucnal, an employee at a Walmart outside of Dallas and a Navy reservist, who spends about $120 a year on these publications. “There’s a lot of ‘how to’ articles and a lot of product news.”

Readers like Mr. Prucnal have helped hobby magazines become the darlings of the struggling magazine industry. For decades, the nation’s top general-interest publications, like Time and Newsweek, attracted millions of readers who considered those magazines to be household staples. But as readers increasingly turn to the Internet for news and information, niche magazines continue to retain and attract loyal followings, making them a bright spot in an otherwise dim outlook for print periodicals.

“Titles like Trains aren’t easily replaced,” said Andrew Davis, author of the book “Brandscaping” and a media consultant. “It’s a really passionate community with high-quality content that speaks specifically to them.”

Some high-end hobby magazines like Wine Spectator and Cigar Aficionado have not only experienced steady circulation growth, but have also brought in big revenue by staging special events for subscribers. Wine Spectator’s total circulation in the last decade grew 11 percent and Cigar Aficionado’s total circulation grew 1 percent, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. And Marvin Shanken, who owns both publications, said that subscribers to another magazine in his portfolio, Whisky Advocate, sold out its 17th annual WhiskyFest within hours.

The event, which will be held in Chicago in April, is expected to attract about 1,800 whisky lovers and generate nearly $300,000 in ticket sales.

Other niche magazines like Cycle World and Hot Bike have achieved such strong subscription renewal rates that they have modestly expanded their editorial staff, even as many large publications are trimming their employee ranks. While circulation numbers at Cycle World and Hot Bike have declined slightly in the last decade, both have successfully raised subscription rates, offsetting the drop in circulation, said Andrew Leisner, a senior executive at Bonnier and publisher of both.

“All of the publishers I see on the niche side are making money,” said Mr. Davis, the consultant, who has advised both larger magazines and niche ones like Premier Guitar and Bird Watcher’s Digest. “They’re smaller operations for the most part. But some of them make a really healthy profit.”

While hobby magazines may never grab the attention that a Vogue cover or Time’s Person of the Year issue attracts, their publishers talk of their devoted readerships. Kevin P. Keefe, vice president for editorial and publisher at Kalmbach Publishing, which produces many of Mr. Prucnal’s favorite train magazines, said that his readers were so loyal that some subscribers paid for issues through the 2030s and bought $199.95 DVD sets that let them read all of the issues in the magazine’s then 75-year history. In the eight months since the company introduced a paid website for Model Railroader magazine, nearly 10,000 subscribers have agreed to pay $4.95 a month for access.

Food magazines also have die-hard fans. The Rev. Michael Tang of the Transfiguration Parish in Los Angeles, says that he cannot afford to spend much on travel or clothing. But he also cannot live without his subscriptions to the food magazines Saveur and Bon Appétit. He saves the issues and cooks meals from them both for himself and potential church donors, and also dreams of visiting some of the culinary hot spots featured in those publications.

“Taking a vow of poverty and being a priest, you live vicariously a bit,” said Father Tang. “The magazines are an affordable way to experience life. I will never go to some of those places. But I can have an idea of someone who has gone there.”

That kind of devotion shows up in the advertising numbers: Both magazines outperformed the industry in the third quarter for advertising pages, according to the Publisher’s Information Bureau. While niche publications depend heavily on circulation revenue, advertisers also value their readers’ loyalty. In the third quarter of 2013, Bon Appétit’s advertising dollars jumped by about 27 percent compared to the same time period the year before, while Saveur’s advertising increased by roughly 11 percent. Advertising for the entire industry grew by only 4 percent during that time.