Why 'Wooden Boat Restoration Quarterly' Doesn't Do Clickbait

by The Editors of Wooden Boat Restoration Quarterly

I will let you in on a little industry secret, one we’ve known for years. Clickbait doesn’t work in magazines. I know, I know. But hear me out. Magazines are printed on paper. There is simply no way to “click” on them! Readers would hate that, because it would be impossible. That’s why we stopped using clickbait in our magazine — in fact, we never started. Our goal is to do good work that people want to share — by physically lending their magazines to other people. And I’ll tell you a bad way to get that result: Misunderstanding the material nature of our product, and optimizing for behaviors that do not make and have never made sense in the context of printed quarterly magazines. Different people use the term “clickbait” differently, and it’s sometimes thrown our direction to characterize entertaining wooden boat restoration content that the author doesn’t like. That is something different, a matter of taste. But whatever your taste, nobody likes pretending to click, with a finger or a disconnected mouse, on paper. In conclusion, Jon Stewart is wrong.