VolksAmerica began life as a 96 page magazine in 2016. It came off the back of two other magazines we’d already published: Aircooled Classics – VW & Porsche and Kombi Life. These appeared on Apple and Google Newsstands, but the ‘print is dead’ framework hyped up by Apple appeared to be gaining little traction worldwide, and it wasn’t long before most magazine publishers felt print was still the world’s favorite choice. That said, anything that could be turned into a digital format usually appeared in a digital form anyway. The final edition of Aircooled Classics – VW & Porsche was printed, out of interest, and suddenly we were moving in a new direction!
We’re not going to include the two magazines Aircooled Classics – VW & Porsche and Kombi Life here as it’ll be exhausting and outside the scope of what is primarily a website dedicated to VolksAmerica. So instead, we’ll begin with VolksAmerica marking the moment we truly transitioned from digital to print with a single title, and then continue with VolksMania which ran beside it for a while before becoming a truly remarkable and well loved standalone product.
VolksAmerica was quarterly (8.5″ x 11″) with a page count varying from 96 pages at start-up through to 112 pages not long after. when the editions became perfect bound.
VolksAmerica became an annual with the 2021 edition (issue 17 measuring 8.5″ x 11″). However, the page count grew to a very large 164 pages to announce its annual status.
When the 2022 edition arrived its dimensions grew to a larger than life 9″ x 12″ giving it true bookazine status. The page count remained at 164 pages, but the overall size when opened fully… OMG. To the best of our knowledge it was and still is the largest VW & Porsche bookazine of its kind with minimal advertising that tends to over-inflate magazine proportions considerably. The minimal advertising route we chose to pursue was applauded. We literally capped advertising space to a minimum and elevated the cover price to make up for the shortfall. Worked for us.
Sometimes it takes a while to find your feet. No one is perfect, and we certainly were not. We did get better. LOL. At first the covers were way too complicated and tried too hard to convey what was in the magazine. We felt we needed to shout after dropping the digital footprint to concentrate on a new title and in print. Eventually, having gained a following it was time to take our foot of the ‘look at us’ pedal. The covers became simpler and more classy. By the time the annuals arrived in 2021, well, maybe less was really more. LOL.
Then, came VolksMania. This was a quarterly with a twist. It was VolksAmerica‘s anarchic little sister magazine.
While VolksAmerica was the high profile, highest quality bookazine we could ever hope to produce that would eventually turn into an annual of epic proportions, VolksMania set out to be the cheap and cheerful counter to the grandeur of VolksAmerica, and it filled a void the annual could not. It was meant to be just a bit of fun…
Well, VolksMania began to gain traction. However, Covid struck not long after and ruined the party. We’d literally set the cover price at zero and set about gaining sponsors (something VolksAmerica was at pains not to do!) to make it pay for itself. Launch costs were high with limited advertising to help pay for it. It seemed we were on to a loser. Still, we gave away issue 1, 2, and 3 at shows, the only way we could do with ease. A small subscription program had commenced whereby we mailed the magazine the world over, but it wasn’t growing fast enough to return on investment. And then… Covid struck, and the shows shrunk, and giving the magazine away became very difficult. It was back to the drawing board, again. We even tried a digital-only edition, issue 4. Well received, but not what everyone was expecting.
Ultimately, the Covid shutdown led to VolksMania transitioning into a paid magazine, commencing with issue 5. It was the only way forward since we’d not received the advertising onslaught we’d originally hoped for to keep a free and flimsy magazine for all alive.
Since then the magazine has grown and grown, even to the extent that it overtook VolksAmerica. Reluctantly, we decided to pull the plug on VolkAmerica as an annual now seemed rather pointless given VolksMania had kind of become a lesser tribute to VolksAmerica. We could have reverted back to quarterly status, but VolksMania was keeping us busy. Not prepared to work treble overtime and maintain two magazines, we reverted back to one: VolksMania.
The rest, as they say, is history.
VolksMania…
Learn More at https://www.volksmania.com/