Have you wondered where your favorite titles are going? So far this year, Cottage Living, Men’s Vogue, Smartphone, Home, and Cooking for Two, and Country Home are just some of the magazines that have or will soon stop publishing.  Others are available only on the news stand (you can’t subscribe), like Country Weekly and Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion, and some, like PC Magazine, are going online only.

Seeing them disappear is like losing old friends. What is more pleasurable than sinking into a new world, with each new issue, whether it’s gadgets, gardening, home decor, jewelry, or weight lifting? The advantage that print magazines have  over newspapers or their online counterparts is  that people devote more time to them and view them as entertainment – even the ads – which is good for the bottom line.

For the time-pressed, magazine articles can supply streamlined summaries of big issues, (often in a more readable style than bloated books).

Let’s hope that magazine guru Samir Husni is right and that new magazines will continue to be launched – so as  to replace those that have died. He says  those that are “service oriented – whether it’s about health, home or cooking” will be most viable.

It takes an optimistic and courageous soul to  keep swinging in the volatile game of magazine publishing.