Fitness Mag Cover are NOT about you!

(A part of the ongoing series, Rescuing Models from “Cover Crack” Addiction)

First and foremost, fitness magazine covers are tools to sell magazines.
 
Covers are not merit badges given to models (or photographers) for all of their hard work. They are not rewards, prizes to be won, or school grades that you earn through effort and presistence.  

Editorial staffs and their publishers really do not care if you have won a bunch of contests or if you have “gone pro” or if you look better the model who “got the cover” last time.  This may sound very harsh, but…chances are editors do not even care about you as a person. Their major, no, their ultimate concern, is to select and publish a photograph on the cover that will maintain or increase the sales of a given issue of their magazine. Covers are about making money for the publisher.

So please save yourself a ton of frustration, self-doubt, and even anger by keeping your desire to have your image appear on a cover (or multiple covers) in check.
 
If your image is selected for a cover, savor the moment and…then move on to the more strategic and profitable work that will effectively grow your physique modeling business way more than any cover appearance will.  And remember one simple, humbling fact:  while “your cover” graces newsstands and bookstores and grocery checkout lines, decisions are being made – at that very moment- about the next outstanding physique and handsome face that will replace you on the next issue.

If your image does not appear on a cover, I offer you the same advice, even more so.  MOVE ON and do the real work that will profitably grow your business, by orders of magnitude, beyond what a cover appearance will do.  And do not doubt your unique visual value FOR ONE SECOND because an image of you was not selected for a cover. Instead, rededicate your efforts to identify areas in the marketplace within the fitness industry and, more so, beyond it that have a business need what you have to offer as a physique model.
 
Honestly, covers are not about you.  It is really about sales and a publishing company’s bottom line.  This is not a bad thing, just a business thing.

Your turn.  Share your feedback about this post.

[The above is based on my experience of having over 30 published fitness magazine covers and having spent hundreds of hours of listening to the aspirations of so many male models and encouraging them to build successful businesses.]

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