This week there are fireworks shooting off all over the country for the 250th anniversary of the United States founding and it is also the official on sale date week for Barnes and Noble and my magazine!
Some Barnes and Noble’s stores got their magazines last week and put them out already. Here are some tweets and Instagram posts from some of those B&N’s.
I have been exclusive with Barnes and Nobles since 2020, and I wrote about it on page two of this year’s magazine again with the picture of my TV’s.
Here is what I said.
First of all, I would like to thank Krifka Steffey at Barnes & Noble for basically saving the magazine. During the Covid year, I was on the verge of hanging it up as I did not know if they were going to play football and I invest way too much time and money into getting the magazine produced each year. My staff and I put in a legitimate 6.5 months of labor into the magazine, and I work year-round on football averaging 102 hours a week during football and another 75-80 hours a week during magazine season. My “free months” are during the end of June, all of July and the start of August. Just when I announced on Twitter that we would NOT be on the newsstands in 2020, Krifka from Barnes & Noble called me and said they NEEDED the magazine and purchased them from us direct. She took a BIG risk as it was not really known if they would be playing football at all in 2020! We did distribute in 2020 thanks to that risk that Krifka took and now I am no longer thinking of folding but instead looking ahead to producing this labor of love all the way thru Volume 50 (currently on Volume 32). In 2023, Krifka came up with the idea that we could put two different covers into the same store!!! We jumped at the opportunity and if you are reading this in your local Barnes & Noble you probably have a choice of covers. Great Idea Krifka! Tracy Eng, who is my daily contact at B&N, does a tremendous job and she is a great pleasure to work with!
A big thanks to Barnes & Noble!!!
Despite being Exclusive with Barnes and Noble, they have allowed me to also sell to Books-a-Million. Books-a-Million also took a chance with me in 2020 by buying a smaller quantity of books and I greatly appreciate that. For the fifth straight year we deal direct with Books-A-Million.
Last year Stewart Mandel of the Athletic did an article on College Football magazines and detailed how Krifka saved the magazine. Here is a link to the article. Click Here
This is year 32 of the magazine and many of you have been purchasing them at many different locations thru the years but save your gas and only head to Barnes and Nobles or Books-A-Million are they are the two EXCLUSIVE locations. If you are in Las Vegas you can also get them at Gamblers Book Club. Also at SureShot Books!!
This week is also the start of my radio show season. I wait for the week that we are officially on sale at Barnes and Noble. I also wait until I have gone thru every matchup for the upcoming season. I worked my way going thru each match-up for 2026 and looking at all the factors, home, away, favorite, dog, situation, revenge, past series history, letdown look ahead & all nine sets of my power ratings and coming up with my preseason line on each game. I have this done for every game and have who I would favor and by how much. During the shows I am asked for win/total predictions for certain teams, and I have all 138 at my fingertips.
If you have not yet picked up your magazine yet for this year it is 376 pages. The First thing you will notice is the WEIGHT, this is as thick as a catalog. Your next step will be to open up to the two full pages that we put on each team. If you are a casual football fan, you will probably put the magazine back down as it has TOO MUCH information. The magazine had three to four times the information of any other magazine and I would estimate over 1 million words and starts. If you are a football fan, you will use it ALL season long as it has everything you need to know for each team. It is like having 138 media guides rolled into one! It is also the most accurate over 31 years! Stop by your local Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million this weekend and grab one before they sell out!
