Editorial Policy

Martial Arts Professional is a trade journal. This page sets out who publishes it, how editorial decisions are made, how commercial relationships are disclosed, and how to get an error corrected.

Who publishes this journal

We publish that sentence rather than bury it. A trade journal owned by an association whose publisher also runs a coaching business is a normal arrangement in trade publishing; concealing it would not be.

What we publish

Reported articles about how martial arts schools are operated: pricing and tuition, enrollment and retention, staffing, teaching, facilities, and the history of the profession. Columns from named working operators. Association standards and awards. Obituaries and industry history.

Where an article makes a claim about money — a tuition figure, a retention rate, a revenue number — we say whose number it is and when it was measured. Unattributed industry averages are not evidence, and we try not to print them as though they were.

Archive material

Martial Arts Professional has published since 1996, and a large part of this site is the magazine’s print-era archive. Every article carried over from the print edition is labelled From the archive at the head of the page. Those articles are kept because they record how schools were run at the time. Their principles often still hold; their tools, prices and channels frequently do not, and readers should treat them accordingly.

Where a print-era article has been substantively rewritten for current conditions, it carries a dated editor’s note saying so.

Sponsored content and advertising

Advertising does not influence editorial. Advertisers receive no advance sight of editorial copy, and no advertiser can buy a review, a profile, an award or a place in the awards register.

Sponsored material is labelled “Sponsored” on the page, in the byline and in every listing where it appears, and is not written by the journal’s editorial contributors. Media information is on the advertising page.

Relationships we disclose

Where the subject of an article is a client of Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, a NAPMA member, or otherwise commercially connected to the publisher, the article says so. School owner profiles in particular: if the operator profiled is a coaching client, that is disclosed in the article rather than left for the reader to discover.

Links to Martial Arts Wealth Mastery, NAPMA and the publisher’s books are publisher resources, not editorial recommendations, and appear as such.

Corrections

We correct errors of fact on the record. When an article is corrected after publication, the correction is stated on the article itself — what was wrong, what it now says, and the date — rather than silently edited away. Significant corrections are noted at the head of the article; minor ones at the foot.

To report an error, write to the editor through the publisher’s contact page or telephone (720) 256-0208. Tell us the article, the sentence and what you believe the correct fact is.

Letters and contributions

Letters to the editor are welcome and may be edited for length and clarity. Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs are handled with care, but the publisher assumes no responsibility for their safety or return.

Citing this journal

The publication’s official name is Martial Arts Professional. Some print-era issues carried the title Mastering the Martial Arts Business Magazine; that is the same publication. Cite articles as: author, “Article title,” Martial Arts Professional, publication date, MartialArtsProfessional.com.