I know what you’re thinking: Circulation? Why would you ever want to do that? Editorial is the glamorous gig. Editorial is sexy. You’ve seen enough prominent editors at prestigious parties surrounded by pretty young things to know that the wordsmith is the superstar of the magazine world. Editors get the awards, the praise, and the good dates. It’s their headshots that grace printed pages. It’s their words that are quoted. There has never been a “Letter from the Circulator” addressing magazine readers, or a circulation keynote address delivered to eager J-school students.

And besides, you’ve never even heard of circulation.

I know how it is. I’ve been to happy hours where people were thrilled to find I work at a magazine, hopeful that I can score them a writing gig, only to be disappointed to find that I have zero influence in that arena. Yes, it’s my fault those annoying cards fall out of the mag while you’re reading in the bathtub. Yes, it’s my fault you get so much damn mail from us. And yes, I did decide to put all those exclamation points in your renewal letter. I don’t have to justify my starbursts to you.

I’ll be the first to admit that circ can be a pretty lonely life, especially because a magazine’s “circulation department” usually consists of a lone wolf.

But bear with me for a moment⎯do you really want to be part of the editorial herd? You don’t really need that kind of constant attention and the endless accolades, now do you? Frankly, you’re not that needy. You’re the kind of person who likes to live in the quiet knowledge that you make it all happen, that the magazine world at large couldn’t live without you, even though they may not actually know it. You’re humble. You don’t mind surviving without the praise; knowing that no one would actually receive and read the mag without you is credit enough.

Now, I’ve interviewed quite a few sneaky intern candidates, the kind that smile and nod and say they love circ, when really all they want to do is get in the door and stealthily find their way onto the editorial masthead (fat chance). Hell, many moons ago I was that sneaky intern, thinking that magazine distribution would be my ticket to editorial glory. But you know what? Before I knew it, I was addicted to the strange blend of marketing savvy and supreme geekdom that is circulation.

The wonderful thing about circ is that you get to be surrounded the most interesting, passionate and intelligent people possible, while being completely severed from any qualitative conflict. The shades of grey that come along with editorial vision are far from the right/wrong, black/white cycle of circ. You get the best of magazine culture⎯you watch the beautiful, insane drama that is the creation of print media, while existing on a quiet, safe island of predictable systems.

I realize that it takes a very specific personality to fall in love with circ, to see the poetry in excel databases of names, to be passionate about the post, to obsess about return rates, but circulators I’ve met always love what they do. Who could ask for more than that?

The nice thing is that you don’t need any formal training. People are often baffled about how I became a circulator⎯I studied English Lit and Women’s Studies. I write fiction. I quite literally stumbled into the industry and as a result learned from colleagues and not in a classroom. Circulators just seem to “happen.” Which is why I need you to be my intern. In the face of the recession, the industry is in desperate need of fresh perspectives and new ideas, and while we have our fair share of consultants lighting the way, we seem to consistently fail on the mentoring end. So many magazines have fantastic editorial internship programs, but make no room for a new generation of circulators⎯and yet we wonder why the ideas seem so stale.

Maybe we’ve done a bad job of making circulation seem sexy (or even vaguely interesting for that matter) but I promise you that it is in it’s own geeky way. And now is no better time to court the craft; the bright side of the present economic uncertainty is that the industry is more open to new ideas and approaches.

You may be exactly what we need.

Stacey May

Stacey May Fowles is currently on the hunt for the perfect circulation intern. stacey.may[at]walrusmagazine[dot]com