Two dying industries keep Jim Kaplan alive in his publishing career. Not only does Kaplan, a Glendale resident, put out a print publication, but it’s about old-fashioned vinyl records. Published seven times a year, each issue of Record Collector News contains musician interviews, a calendar of record shows as well as stories and columns on collecting vinyl. Kaplan distributes about 15,000 copies of the paper, primarily on the West Coast but his readership reaches all the way to St. Louis, Chicago and cities on the East Coast. He publishes Record Collector News from a home office with assistance from freelancers. An L.A. native, Kaplan, 59, started his career as the head of classifieds at alternative newspaper L.A. Weekly. In 2002, he started the three-newspaper Sun chain covering Studio City, Encino and Sherman Oaks. After those papers folded in 2008, Kaplan took over Record Collector News at the suggestion of his friend, Bob Say, owner of Freakbeat Records in Sherman Oaks. Kaplan took time to talk with the Business Journal about the publishing business, record collecting and his most sought after musical artifact. Title: Founder & Publisher, Record Collector News Born: Los Angeles; 1956. Education: Taft High School. Career Turning Point: Getting fired from L.A. Weekly. Personal: Married with five children and three grandchildren. Hobbies: Drums, sailing, listening to records, cooking, Dodgers baseball. Question: Why has there been a resurgence in vinyl records the past four or five years? Answer: A couple of reasons. First of all, younger people who have been listening to MP3s on earbuds all these years, when they hear a complete sound signal, it touches them inside. I have teenage kids and when I am in the living room here playing music, even if it’s music they don’t appreciate, they’ll stop in their tracks just because they feel it. What’s another reason? A record is something you can hold on to, it’s something you own. You don’t really own a file. It’s not physical. You can’t sell it, you can’t trade it. It’s connected to the fact that Record Collector News is a physical magazine. People like to hold something. What’s the market like for record stores? When we started eight years ago, I didn’t know how many record stores there were. I was thrilled to learn there were still about 100 record stores in Southern California. What has happened over the course of those eight years is when the recession hit, commercial rents went down. That enabled record stores to open up. In 2010, 2011, 2012 in Southern California alone, there were at least two record stores a month opening up. More recently, the economy has gotten better, rents have gone up and growth has slowed. How has the resurgence impacted the magazine? We’ve grown from 40 advertisers to 100. We are stuck at 100 because it’s a hurdle I have to figure out how to get over. How do you handle 200 advertisers? It’s not like I have a big staff. What’s the biggest challenge? The hard part is growing into new markets because it’s expensive. Shipping these papers to different cities is expensive. I can invest a lot of money in opening up a market and getting advertising. It’s a slow process. I have experienced fast growth in other businesses and slow growth can be frustrating but it can also be super healthy. How do you enter a new market, say, like St. Louis? I actually got a call from a record store in St. Louis asking if they could distribute the paper. I did research and figured out what the stores are. I’ll ship papers to all the stores, contact them to make sure they like them and do my sales pitch on them. Are they receptive? It works, especially for advertisers in the middle of nowhere. I guess because they are off the beaten track they need something like this. I get feedback from advertisers five miles off highways that love the paper. What is your role as publisher? It’s a three-legged stool. There’s advertising, editorial and distribution. I handle all the advertising myself pretty much. I have graphic designers I have been working with for many years that are really good. The distribution, in Southern California I do as much as I can myself because I really like going to record stores. Do you drop off copies at the stores yourself? I drop off the papers, I dig through the bins. It’s like going to (Las) Vegas – I have to limit myself to how much I spend on these distribution trips because I see so many great records. When did you start collecting vinyl records? Almost 50 years ago. It seems like there are amazing records in the bins right now. Things I have been trying to collect all my life and they are there and available. They are not on the Internet, they are in the bins at these stores. I think a lot of that is because the baby boomers my age and older are downsizing, getting rid of their records. Has RCN turned out the way you expected? Much better than I expected, to be honest. I didn’t realize there would be this resurgence in vinyl. My timing was obviously pretty good. Do you enjoy working from home? Working out of the home is a challenge. My two favorite sins are sloth and gluttony. They go hand in hand. I carry a pedometer to do 10,000 steps a day. It’s 5,000 steps from my desk to the refrigerator and back (laughs). I wish that I was in an environment where I had people challenging me and the stimulus to make me think and grow. I miss that. What is your business model? It’s a typical free distribution newspaper model. Keep the distribution costs as low as possible and sell as much advertising as possible. My (advertising) rates are low, which makes it easier for the advertisers to get involved and it’s what the readers want anyway. They care as much for the advertising as they do for the editorial. I love selling small ads. My background is in classifieds anyway. How much time do you put toward the website? I don’t put that much time because it is not a revenue generator. It is a virtual copy of the paper. I have an idea that might make the website more relevant and generate some revenue and not compete with my customers. I don’t want to start selling records at the website because my customers do that. Then what are your growth plans? Next year I am going to start doing more record shows. I did record shows the first few years. I would rent a hall, sell tables to vendors and charge a small admission. Why did you stop? Honestly, I did not like selling my own records. It was not a business decision. It fits like a glove and the vendors love it. We are going to do more shows, maybe in conjunction with other people. Who are the collectors? There are two types. There are collectors who buy them to listen to them and there are collectors who buy them to have them. I listen to records every day. I try to encourage my readers to listen to their music. What about selling your records? I have a hard time selling my records. I once took about 200 records to a show and I sat there the whole time pulling records out going, “I don’t want to sell that. I don’t want to sell that.” I think I sold about 10 records and replaced them all. What was the first vinyl record you purchased? It wasn’t a purchase. I was living in the Los Feliz-Silver Lake area. My best friend who lived upstairs, his mother was a school teacher. She had the summer off so she took a job for two weeks as a secretary working for Frank Zappa. She came home with a copy of “Absolutely Free,” Frank’s second record. They didn’t own a record player. We had a record player and de facto that became my first record. Did that album influence you? Listening to it tweaked my ear. I listened to that Zappa record over and over. I was 11. It had an impact on me. It made my ear a little strange. What is the rarest record you have? I don’t have any $1,000 records. I do have a Beatles (“Yesterday and Today”) butcher cover. It’s framed on the wall, it’s really beat up. I have a classical record that’s worth about $300 from 1959. How much can records sell for? I know a guy here in the (San Fernando) Valley who was at a thrift store this year who found a (blues artist) Robert Johnson 78. It was sold through a broker for $10,000. He found it right here in the Valley. Stuff is out there. What is at the top of your wish list? My No. 1 thing I want to own is not even a record. It was a map that was available to send away for called the Freak Out Map. It was available on Frank Zappa’s first record. It was a map of Hollywood with freak-out hot spots like Canter’s Deli and (music club) Pandora’s Box. As a kid I owned it. It was up on my wall. When I left home it got thrown away. I once found it in a store for $100 and bought it. In a moment of weakness, I sold it for $500. I said to myself even if I have to spend $700, I am going to own it again. Well, I haven’t seen it for less than $2,000. Do you have a favorite record shop? That is a dangerous question considering that I distribute to so many record stores, but I go to Amoeba Records (in Hollywood) on Sundays because it’s like going to church. There are so many great record stores in Southern California. We’re really lucky here. What was the turning point in your career? Twice I got fired from the L.A. Weekly and both times it was a turning point in my career. I started there when I was 25 years old. They turned the classified department over to me. I built it up into this great revenue-generating machine. Then came the office politics and there was a palace coup and I was let go. I wasn’t ready for it. What was your reaction? It was life-changing for me. I thought I was going to be there forever. How did the Sun papers start? I started my first community newspaper, the Studio City Sun, back in 2002 right after Sept. 11. I had a theory that before Sept. 11 we were expanding in our relationships with people all over the world. After Sept. 11, we felt like we needed something that we could control. I felt a community newspaper was something that people would latch on to. And they did. Wasn’t the market well served by the Los Angeles Times and Daily News? No, they cannot get as deep as a community newspaper can. The Daily News or the L.A. Times is not going to write about what’s going on at the elementary school or what are they going to build on that corner that is only of interest to 700 people living in the area. It’s impossible for a daily to reach into a community. The Sun newspapers were successful? People loved it and it was a lot of fun. So what happened? In August 2007, we had our biggest month ever. In September, the (Writers Guild of America) strike and the recession started. All the retailers on Ventura Boulevard were affected by the strike. All of our advertisers were heavily impacted. We weren’t able to shift gears and downsize fast enough. You play the drums. Did you ever dream of a career as a musician? I did and I still do. It’s a fantasy. I have some friends and three, four times a year we email each other a bunch of songs, practice them and get together at a rehearsal studio and pretend we’re rock stars. But we can only play about 20 minutes at a time because we get tired. You list yourself as a Dodgers fan. Do you get to many games? Not as many as I wish. I used to have season tickets but I go to two, three games, sometimes more. I’ve been going there all my life. I saw Sandy Koufax pitch, Don Drysdale (and) the ’80s Dodgers. Do you have an all-time favorite player? Sandy Koufax. As a kid I had an older cousin and I really wanted her to marry him. He was my guy. Finally, how did you get a photo of Keith Richards reading your publication? (Music journalist) Harvey Kubernik did the cover story on the “Sticky Fingers” re-issue and is friends with (Rolling Stones drummer) Charlie Watts. This was around the time the Stones were in L.A. doing the Fonda Theater show. Harvey sent some copies to Charlie’s assistant who got them inside the Rolling Stones’ bubble. From there, I guess someone took the shot of Keith reading the paper and posted it on their social media. Email started blowing up that night. Pretty cool, huh?
Moving Needle
