Every month, I pick up a few new magazines from the newsstand to see what kind of stories they’re doing, what unique approaches they’re taking, and what I can learn from them. But when I picked up a copy of REI’s Uncommon Path magazine — a beautiful and engaging magazine in almost every respect — I was astonished to see its back cover. Take a look at the front and back:

What kind of ridiculousness is this?

Why is that back cover basically blank?!?

Outside of your front cover, the back cover is the single most valuable piece of real estate in your print publication. Don’t believe me? Check out these ad rates for People Magazine. If you want to put an ad on the back cover — that’s “Cover 4” in ad lingo — it’ll cost you more than half a million dollars.

Your back cover might not be worth a cool half mil, but you *should* be spending almost as much time on your magazine’s back cover as you do on its front. Tease a feature, show off some cool bookstore merch, highlight a beautiful seasonal campus photo. Whatever you do, don’t leave that space empty.

Breathe new life into your roundup stories.

Roundups are one of the most common feature story formats in alumni magazines.

You can see some of my early thoughts about this topic here — and even implement some of the ideas today if you’ve got one on your story list.

Understand what “success” is for your magazine.

One of my favorite podcasts is the Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin, which she co-hosts with her sister. Sometimes the two talk about writing, and in a recent episode, Rubin shared how she talks to authors with a new books who are eager for it to succeed. As you read the quote, think about how this larger principle might apply to your print magazine.

“There are many ways for a book to succeed. It might sell a lot of copies. It might win a lot of critical praise. It might provide invaluable information to a small group of people who will benefit enormously. It could help you get a teaching job or speaking gigs. It might lead you to another project that you can’t foresee now. It might connect you to someone who will be important to your future. It might be a super fun intellectual adventure or something that’s crossed off your bucket list.

“And I remind myself and other writers that we can only do our best and then wait to see what the future holds. It doesn’t help to get overly focused on a single measurement of success because in the end we don’t have much control over what will happen. T

“There are many ways for a book to succeed. There are many ways for a college student to succeed. There are many ways for a vacation to succeed. Very often, there are many ways for a situation to be successful. And this is comforting because it’s true.”

 Here’s a link to the episode.

Navigate the perilous linguistic waters of online communication.

Your magazine has one voice and your school’s social media presence likely — hopefully! — has another. If you want to do a deep dive on how to communicate effectively on social media, Gretchen McCulloch’s Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language is an A+ primer.

It’s especially helpful for people who didn’t grow up swimming in this online environment, but still want to deeply understand its nuances to do better work.