BoSacks Speaks Out: This Hybrid Publisher’s Path to the Niche Leadership Conference

I have never fit neatly into one publishing mold. I am, unapologetically, a hybrid: equal parts corporate shirt and scrappy local entrepreneur. That duality has defined my career and given me a perspective unlike most of my peers. That duality isn’t a quirk, it’s a survival strategy. It gave me a panoramic view of an industry that often prefers blinders and buzzwords.

The story starts with The Express, my own local newspaper. It was small, scrappy, and gloriously unforgiving. Deadlines didn’t care if your car broke down. Advertisers needed charm and grit. Readers wanted relevance, not recycled wire copy. That paper taught me how to bleed for a story and smile while doing it. Then came Arizona, where I helped launch the Arizona Mountain News Real. Another bootstrapped venture, another lesson in duct-tape publishing.

Then came High Times. Six years of counterculture, controversy, and circulation spikes that made accountants nervous. That wasn’t just publishing, it was movement-making. We weren’t selling magazines, we were selling rebellion in glossy form. Editorial wasn’t just content, it was a contemporary identity.

After that, I put on the corporate tie and stepped into the polished corridors of Time Inc., McCall’s, CMP, Ziff Davis, and Bill Communications. Each stop was a different proving ground. At Time Inc., scale and polish were gospel. McCall’s at 6.5 million circ taught me how household brands shape culture and dinner conversations. International Paper gave me a supplier’s view, where paper wasn’t just a medium, it was the business model. CMP and Ziff Davis dropped me into the tech trenches, where change wasn’t feared, it was caffeinated. Bill Communications rounded out the tour with B2B insights that showed how niche content could anchor entire industries and occasionally bore them to sleep. Did Modern Tire Dealer contain addictive content? Maybe to some.

For the past twenty-five years, this newsletter has been my lab, my loudspeaker, and my occasional soapbox. It’s the sum of everything I’ve learned in newsrooms, boardrooms, and pressrooms. It’s where I track the tectonic shifts in publishing and call out the industry when it hides behind glossy covers and empty metrics. It’s also where I get to say what I actually think, which is both liberating and occasionally angers some of the reading public.

What Sets My Perspective Apart

Most publishing pros stick to one lane. Editorial. Ad sales. Circulation. Their worldview is shaped by the silo they live in. Mine zigzagged across entrepreneurship, consumer titles, trade pubs, and supplier strategy. That mix lets me see both the romance of print and the cold math of margins. I’ve gambled on scrappy startups and watched corporate machinery grind creativity into quarterly reports. I’ve seen editors treated like royalty and like replaceable widgets, sometimes in the same meeting.

This vantage point lets me spot nonsense when it’s dressed up as innovation. It also helps me recognize resilience in unexpected places. A tiny indie title in Grenada that proves print isn’t dead. A luxury catalog that treats paper like silk. A digital workflow that respects editors instead of replacing them with code. These aren’t anomalies, they’re reminders that publishing still has a pulse, if you know where to check.

The Throughline

If there’s a constant in my career, it’s this: publishing is about people as much as it is about paper. I was mentored by press operators, sales reps, suppliers, and journeymen who kept the machines running long after the suits went home. I’ve tried to carry that ethos forward, respect for craft, for labor, for the human touch.

Now, as we face AI, shifting ad dollars, and a troubling decline in literacy, I still believe the core of publishing hasn’t changed. It’s about creating something worth someone’s time. That was true at The Express, at High Times, at Time Inc., and it’s true every time I hit “send” on this newsletter. If you’re not making something that matters, you’re just adding noise to the landfill.

Upcoming Speaking Engagement

I’ll be speaking at the Niche Leadership Summit in Dallas, Texas, September 3–5, 2025. It’s a gathering of media leaders who understand that niche doesn’t mean small, it means focused, intentional, and often ahead of the curve. I’m looking forward to sharing my hybrid perspective and engaging with peers who, like me, are navigating the tension between tradition and transformation.

If you’re attending, bring your questions, your skepticism, and your best war stories. I’ll bring mine. And maybe a few jokes that only make sense if you’ve survived a redesign, a rate base collapse, and a printer who swears the job was “in the queue.”