I was excited to learn this morning that there’s actually a sanctioned circ term for what I notoriously do on lunch breaks, shopping excursions, and (after a few cocktails) at my 7-11 pit stop on the way home from the bar. The Newsstand Shuffle is an age-old circulation sport explained by Ted Bahr at Folio.

"Basically, all you had to do was go to a newsstand, browse the magazines, and accidentally place your companies’ titles on top of your competitors’ magazines," says Behr. "The trick was to make sure you didn’t get caught by the newsstand manager but this wasn’t very difficult. It was a cheap thrill."

Perhaps a little more popular in the indie mag world (and extremely common amongst small press authours–what writer hasn’t snuck a copy of their book into Heather’s Picks?), the newsstand shuffle is a guerrilla tactic not reserved for the minor players.  I’ve even heard anecdotal evidence that true magazine lovers will pull the Canadian titles to the front shelf while sneaking the Americans behind. Covert nationalism, if you will.

I’m curious how many of you, with titles large and small, have increased your title’s visibility with a little clandestine switch?