When Buzz Kanter was in high school, his parents bought him and his brothers a Honda minibike. “The following year they told us none of us would be allowed to buy motorcycles, which was curious,” he said of their change of heart. So guess what Kanter did when he went away to college and away from parental control? “I bought a motorcycle.”
It was a Honda 305 SuperHawk “because I could afford it and it was cool,” he said. “Then over the years I quickly traded up to bigger and faster bikes as often as I could.” In fact, the faster he could go, the more he enjoyed his bikes until, in the late 1970s, “I spent several years as a motorcycle road racer.” You”™ve seen them on television, he said, “usually dragging their knees around corners at hellacious speeds.”
“We would race 130 and 140 miles an hour on a closed course,” he said. He did it “because I could, it was fun, it was exciting, it was thrilling. I enjoy speed, more so when I was younger. On the race track everyone is going generally the same direction and the same speed without cars pulling out from driveways. If you want to test your skills, that”™s the place to do it.”
That was “a long time ago” when he was 22, the 52-year-old Kanter said. He was single during the three years he raced, but “I never really made any money, although I had a few sponsors, and that helped a little bit.” But he gave up racing because “I got hit pretty hard on the race track, which made me pretty gun-shy afterwards. And I realized I had advanced as far as I was likely to. I had neither the skills nor the drive to go any farther, so I finished the season and quit.”
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Naughty or nice
About the same time he was working at the family publishing business, Penny Press in Norwalk, which he described as the “largest crossword puzzle publisher in the world.” He began working at Penny Press in 1979, and by the time he left in 1990 to start his own publishing company, he was circulation director and vice president. “I had been in the family business for a number of years, and thought it was time to move on,” he said. “I foolishly thought I could do as well or better than anything currently on the market. I didn”™t know better, but my mistakes were fewer than my successes.”
He planned to wed his love of motorcycles with his background in publishing to create magazines for cycling enthusiasts. His business plan was a bit unique, in the form of his thesis for a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of New Haven. He attached the first issue of his first magazine to the thesis. That was 1989, and his first publication was called Old Bike Journal ”“ “predominately filled with ads for people buying, selling old motorcycles and parts.” He and his wife, Gail, started the business in a spare bedroom of their Stamford home.
“I published it for a number of years, but realized the Internet would eventually dominate the market, and I ended up selling it to a competitor seven or eight years ago,” he said.
Two years after launching Old Bike Journal, he bought American Iron Magazine, a fledgling biker magazine published in California that was losing $1 million a year. “I bought it because I felt the market was right, but that the product needed refocusing.”
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Most of the magazines at the time that featured Harley-Davidson motorcycles “were naughty,” he said. “This wasn”™t. We focused on the tin, not the skin. All the experts said you can”™t publish a motorcycle magazine on the East Coast, and you can”™t publish a Harley magazine without being naughty. I proved them wrong on both counts.”
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Image of success
Kanter and his wife bought American Iron in 1991. “When we were putting the deal together, I said I think we can do this, but at the rate the magazine is losing money, if we can”™t improve it, we”™ll be out of business in three months.”
Old Bike Journal was making money “and we were making a living off it, but not enough to offset the losses,” he said. “We had three months to turn it around and we”™d have to close up shop.”
The turnaround was immediate. “We made money starting with the first issues with a little hard work, a little moxie and a lot of good luck,” he said. “We cut expenses and refocused advertising. A lot of it was coming in for free or very cheap” ”“ an effort by the previous publisher, he said, to “create an image of success in hopes others might join.” Kanter began enforcing advertising rates, “started paying more realistic prices to contributors, cut pages slightly and refocused circulation strategies” by overhauling newsstand sales.
“We succeeded and continued to invest in it over the years by increasing quality, pages and circulation,” he said. American Iron Magazine (www.aimag.com) “outsells the No. 2 and No. 3 books combined on the newsstand,” he said. The magazine”™s international circulation is just under 200,000 a month, he said.
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Rallies and rides
Kanter isn”™t content just to publish motorcycle magazines, he also collects the hardware ”“ “I have a garage full of old motorcycles. Most are Harleys and Indians” ”“ and takes part in mass motorcycle rallies and rides for charity. On Sunday, Sept. 23, he plans on riding a 1931 Indian Scout 101 to lead, as grand marshal, the fifth annual anti-smoking Kick It Ride sponsored by the regional chapter of the American Cancer Society in Wilton.
Several-hundred bikers will converge on Marcus Dairy in Danbury on Sunday, then ride through Ridgefield, Wilton, Westport, Fairfield, Bridgeport and Stratford before finishing at Indian Well State Park in Shelton for a cookout. Proceeds from the ride will benefit the cancer society”™s research, prevention and education programs, and patient support services.
“I”™m involved in four or five of these rides a year, and I”™m happy to do it,” Kanter said. “But I have to spend time running my business and have to spend time with my young family” ”“ two identical twin 7-year-old daughters.
“I”™m a third-generation magazine publisher,” he said. “My grandfather was publisher of Classics Illustrated, the old comic books. My father worked for him, then left to do the puzzle magazines. I worked for my father, and I left to start my own business.”
“I”™m hoping that by the time our twins are old enough, one or both will be involved in publishing, whatever for that is,” Kanter said. “I think it will be kind of neat if we have a fourth generation.”
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