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Local publisher plans lifestyle magazine for physicians

Slack Inc., the Gloucester County publisher of 40 or so health-related journals, thinks it's time doctors have a lifestyle magazine of their own - a "CliffsNotes" or "how-to" on shopping, wine selection, travel, and relationships.

Peter Slack, President and CEO of the Wyanoke Group, sits at his desk and shows off a prototype copy of his new magazine Physicians Life. ( ED HILLE / Staff Photographer )
Peter Slack, President and CEO of the Wyanoke Group, sits at his desk and shows off a prototype copy of his new magazine Physicians Life. ( ED HILLE / Staff Photographer )Read more

Slack Inc., the Gloucester County publisher of 40 or so health-related journals, thinks it's time doctors have a lifestyle magazine of their own - a "CliffsNotes" or "how-to" on shopping, wine selection, travel, and relationships.

There are about 800,000 doctors in the United States, and Slack, one of the nation's largest independent medical publishers, expects to reach 341,000 of them with the controlled circulation of Physicians' Life, the name of the new publication.

The magazine will be free to the doctors whom Slack targets from a database of physicians.

Doctors don't lack for printed material in their mailboxes: Just go to any waiting room.

But Slack executives, who work from the community of Thorofare, believe Physicians' Life will break through the clutter as a glossy that docs grab from the pile and carry home for personal reading and enjoyment.

Company president Peter N. Slack admitted to being both excited and nervous about his new baby. But, he added, "it's the good kind of nervous, like how you feel before you play a football game."

The once-every-two-months magazine will launch in the May/June cycle. "It's a lot of money," he said of the launch, which will cost the private company more than $1 million and be Slack's most expensive new project.

"Plus," said chief financial officer Darrell Blood, who came up with the idea after listening to his fiancée - she's a doctor - talk about work/life issues, "this was outside our comfort zone."

Slack Inc.'s publications are typically clinical, scientific, or peer-reviewed - not aimed at consumer tastes.

But Slack executives have methodically done their homework over the last two years. The company sent 64,000 e-mails to doctors with a 28-page survey asking them questions about the potential for the magazine. There were 2,900 responses, with 80 percent saying they liked the idea of Physicians' Life.

Slack also hired the research firm Kantar Media in New York to survey doctors independently. Kantar, Slack executives said, got a similar response.

Diversions, a now-defunct Hearst publication, targeted doctor lifestyles but relied heavily on drug companies for advertising, Slack executives said. When the drug giants shifted their media buys, the advertising dried up and Diversions folded. In focus groups, doctors said they liked and fondly remembered the magazine, Slack executives said.

Physicians' Life, meanwhile, will target makers of luxury goods and consumer product companies as advertisers. A pilot issue included advertisements by an airline, clothing maker, clothing retailer, financial institutions, and a watchmaker.

Samir Husni, director of the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi, who calls himself Mr. Magazine, said he believed Physicians' Life had potential and he consulted for it. The magazine will curate content for time-pressed doctors, he said.

Despite the oft-repeated phrase that "print is dead," the magazine industry launched 221 regularly published magazines in 2014 - 25 percent more than the launches in 2013, according to Husni. A regularly published magazine is one that comes out at least four times a year, Husni said. "It's the people who have lost faith in their own product who are saying that print is dead," Husni said.

Physicians' Life's initial goal is for a 96-page magazine, with a 60 percent/40 percent mix of editorial content to advertising. Slack expects 80 percent of the articles to be freelanced and 20 percent to be written internally by staffers.

The company hired Gregory A. Hood, a Kentucky doctor, as physician editor and liaison to the medical community. The company also hired Beth Weinhouse, a former senior editor at Ladies' Home Journal and contributing editor at Self, as editorial director. The content in Physicians' Life could be found in other magazines, but here, Weinhouse said, "we will give it a little bit of a doctor spin."

Slack Inc.'s sister companies publish medical books, plan medical events, and offer certified continuing education for doctors and nurses. The companies are organized under the privately held Wyanoke Group and employ 240 people. The midsize company has an estimated $50 million to $75 million in revenue a year.

The Wyanoke companies intend to add 20 to 30 people this year, said John Carter, chief operating officer. Two areas of growth, in addition to Physicians' Life, are the healio.com website and the certified education business.

While everyone seems to talk about the shift from print to digital, Slack said, his Gloucester County company hasn't killed any of its printed journals. "Print has got plenty of life," he said. "We believe in print."

BY THE NUMBERS

341,000

Doctors whom

the Physicians' Life publisher expects

to reach out

of the 800,000 doctors in the United States.

221

Regularly published magazines that came out for the first time in 2014. "Regularly published" means the magazine comes out

at least four times a year.

6

Number of times per year that Physicians' Life plans

to publish.

96

Initial page goal, with a 60/40 percent mix of editorial content to advertising. EndText