Maggie Rants [and Raves]

Show Me the Nails

by Maggie Franklin | January 9, 2009 | Bookmark +

So I’m looking through the magazine racks at Borders awhile back. Man, do they have a lot of magazines! Magazines I’ve never heard of. Magazines that are solely dedicated to subjects so obscure that I can’t imagine any publishing company would deem it profitable to continue to produce some of them. Nevertheless, there they are — magazines for just about anyone who’s into just about anything.

 

Except nails.

 

I don’t mind not seeing the major nail trade publications for sale on the racks at the local bookstore or newsstand. But there aren’t any magazines about nails that are published for the consumer. At least, not any American magazines. Really? There are five or more different consumer publications for sale that are filled with nothing but pictures of hairstyles. Celebrity hairstyles, short hairstyles, long hairstyles, hairstyles for special occasions. Where are the nails?

 

I think there are enough different types of nail styles to nicely fill out a monthly publication, and enough consumers interested in looking at pictures of nails to keep that magazine in the black.

 

At the recent tradeshow in Sacramento I picked up a copy of the new Inspire book of nails. I’ve been anxiously awaiting its release and am excited that they plan on continuing the series, but was surprised and disappointed to learn that they had trouble getting enough entries for the first issue.

 

Just the photos that get posted on the message boards would fill two or three volumes! How could it be that they didn’t get enough entries?

 

Well, they want fancy, professional photos. Look. I can send you photos that don’t totally suck. I can send you high resolution digital images that will give you no trouble if you need to crop and ’shop ’em, but I can’t hire a professional photographer to come down to the salon and take pictures for me all day. I can’t hire professional hand models just for the sake of a fancy photo shoot. I take pictures of the nails I do, on the clients who pay me to do their nails. Some of those photos turn out really nice, some of those photos come out lousy. The photos I post on my website at least show off the nails even if the lighting isn’t perfect and the hands don’t belong to a professional model.

 

I think that’s all that should be required for publication. Especially if we’re talking about a monthly or bi-monthly magazine. Just photos that were submitted by real people of real nails. There could be some really nice, professional photos to accompany articles on featured artists, but mostly we could just fill it up with the same photos we take every day.

 

Mostly, I think there’s a market for this type of magazine. I just have to figure out where to get the venture capital and I’ll be on my way to my first million!

 

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