Starting my own local magazine(s)

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
It seems to me that there are a lot of openings to get into this business. Traditional costly print is dying, but one or five person ran shops seem like they can succeed. People still read. They just don't want to pay for content they can get for free online. And people pick up free ad supported magazines (Blush is a recent and popular one for women where I live and they have a good number of employees). Not to mention the prices for 10k copies (with color pages) is within reach and the subject matter I will start off with for the first mag is popular.

So I'm in the process of creating my first mag, all content, layout, and every other bit of work done by myself. Does anyone have any good advice or relatively recent books to link to? Distribution and knowing the audience are obviously of concern.

Thanks!
 

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
That looks like a very useful tool in the hopefully not too far future. Bookmarked and thanks!
 

patskywriter

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 27, 2011
Messages
326
Reaction score
54
Location
Durham, NC, USA
Website
www.durhamskywriter.com
This might sound backwards, but figure out who's going to print your publication before you do anything. If you have a web printer in your area, that's great. You'll be able to save $$$—web printers are cheaper than offset.

Ask the printer for advice on how to print a document at the best price. He or she might suggest that you go mini-web. My newspaper's format was 8 x 10 and was printed on a mini-web in blocks of 8 (pages). So I couldn't add just 2 or 3 pages when I wanted to expand—I had to make sure that I could afford to and have enough material for an additional 8 pages.

Ask about spot color vs full color, too. More savings!

Good luck!
 

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
This might sound backwards, but figure out who's going to print your publication before you do anything. If you have a web printer in your area, that's great. You'll be able to save $$$—web printers are cheaper than offset.

Ask the printer for advice on how to print a document at the best price. He or she might suggest that you go mini-web. My newspaper's format was 8 x 10 and was printed on a mini-web in blocks of 8 (pages). So I couldn't add just 2 or 3 pages when I wanted to expand—I had to make sure that I could afford to and have enough material for an additional 8 pages.

Ask about spot color vs full color, too. More savings!

Good luck!

I will do so. Right now I'm focusing on the content (and somewhat on the general layout), but I am keeping the price and pages and especially the size in mind. I really want it to be 'handheld size', about the size of an iPad Mini or Nexus 7 or Jet Magazine for instance (easily pocketable) and will explore the best way to go about that, if possible.

Can I ask you how much it set you back for how many pages and copies on the first run? I know the price will be different for my project, but helpful anyway.

Thanks!
 

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 17, 2012
Messages
3,539
Reaction score
429
Location
Floral City, FL
If you're serious about this business, you're going about this backwards. Every magazine starts with the most important content -- The advertising. All else is secondary. You're going to need 60% or more ad content to make it a viable business. You need to sell it, pre-sell it and make sure it's in hand before you even think about writing, layout or publishing.

Writers are cheap, layout designers are cheap, printers are cheap, ad sales people are gold. The moment you think it's a magazine and not an advertising distribution vehicle, you've gone bankrupt.

The way to learn this business is to go to work for a local, successful, magazine. Or buy into the local franchise for a national magazine, There are plenty of them out there.

Base line is that printing, layout, distribution and writing of your magazine has to be 30% (or less) of your net ad revenue (after commissions). If not, a job at your local fast-food joint will be less time consuming, less stressful and bring you more income.

Jeff
 

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
If you're serious about this business, you're going about this backwards. Every magazine starts with the most important content -- The advertising. All else is secondary. You're going to need 60% or more ad content to make it a viable business. You need to sell it, pre-sell it and make sure it's in hand before you even think about writing, layout or publishing.

Writers are cheap, layout designers are cheap, printers are cheap, ad sales people are gold. The moment you think it's a magazine and not an advertising distribution vehicle, you've gone bankrupt.

The way to learn this business is to go to work for a local, successful, magazine. Or buy into the local franchise for a national magazine, There are plenty of them out there.

Base line is that printing, layout, distribution and writing of your magazine has to be 30% (or less) of your net ad revenue (after commissions). If not, a job at your local fast-food joint will be less time consuming, less stressful and bring you more income.

Jeff

Advertisement is a major focus, but I disagree that it should be 60%. I believe that's the problem, not the solution. More content than ads, is the way I'm going (even if it's 51/49) and when it comes to writing and layout, the price is free, not cheap ;). Thanks though and will keep your advice in mind!

Trust me, I know what I'm doing. Even if it turns out to not be a desirable read, the concept (of which little I've said little about for a reason) is sound. :)
 

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
Make no mistake. I am doing this to get rich. I'm also a very realistic and insightful and open person. The traditional content printing industry is dead. But I don't think the printing industry is... And I believe in loops... ;)

So I'll find out for myself. :)
 

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 17, 2012
Messages
3,539
Reaction score
429
Location
Floral City, FL
The 60% rule has held for the last century or so, and worked. If you have a way to beat it, more power to you.

Jeff
 

Maxinquaye

That cheeky buggerer
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
Messages
10,361
Reaction score
1,032
Location
In your mind
Website
maxoneverything.wordpress.com
The 60% rule has held for the last century or so, and worked. If you have a way to beat it, more power to you.

Jeff

Don't print, at all. The future is smart-phones and pads. I say this as a former editor of a wire-service. Dead tree newspapers and magazines are dying, like the OP already said.

To the OP.

You're right. Printing a magazine is not for the future. Look around. How many of your peers actually read magazines these days? If your avatar is you, you look fairly young, so your peers should - if they're anything like the millennials and the Y-generation around here - mostly consume digital media.

No, not everyone is like this, but more and more people will go mobile. It will creep up in the ages. Over the next ten years I expect most news content to be consumed digitally.

Your problem is going to be developing an initial template for the look of the magazine, and finding ways to distribute it digitally - if you go that route. You're not going to see that much savings because the costs were never really in the printing. It's the content creation and distribution that costs. I think the 60 rule is still applicable, even for a fully digital magazine.
 

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
Good luck and please post the submission guidelines soon.

There won't be any for a long time, if there ever will be. My long term ideas require locally based writers and no more than two per magazine.

You're right. Printing a magazine is not for the future. Look around. How many of your peers actually read magazines these days? If your avatar is you, you look fairly young, so your peers should - if they're anything like the millennials and the Y-generation around here - mostly consume digital media.

My first is a magazine directed at all ages. Free, available to anyone who sees it.

More so, it will be written in a style suitable for them...

No, not everyone is like this, but more and more people will go mobile. It will creep up in the ages. Over the next ten years I expect most news content to be consumed digitally.

10 years is way more than enough time to make this a success, then add mobile offerings in a similar vein.

I'm a geek who spent the last decade looking at and by virtue studying the technology (and its subset mobile) market. It's been a ridiculous obsession. I can write a book off the top of my head about user experience, so to speak, and how important it is. I think traditional print in certain categories fail on the user experience.

Yet even so, we have a regional car paper, which exists only as an advertisement vehicle for every auto related business in 200 miles (basically a classifieds with a hot woman on the front). They pay to be included and the mag charges $1. But this is a user experience that isn't yet matched on the web. (It can be, but isn't. Local apps and websites haven't taken off yet, though I expect they will one day...)

My point being, magazines can be very profitable when certain criteria are met...

Your problem is going to be developing an initial template for the look of the magazine, and finding ways to distribute it digitally - if you go that route. You're not going to see that much savings because the costs were never really in the printing. It's the content creation and distribution that costs. I think the 60 rule is still applicable, even for a fully digital magazine.

It's not about 'print savings' vs digital. It's about free content vs free content. It's about flipping pages vs using a web browser and using Google and deciphering through all of the spam and unhelpful junk. It's about local content vs generic content. It's about easy to read content vs complicated and long articles.

I'm not saying these ideas will hold up. But... I do like how the iOS has made Indie app development a profitable thing... For most devs? Of course not. For a small subset who did something new? Yep.

I've been to three women's houses in the last couple of weeks. Each one had a copy of that women's magazine there. This is a new magazine. It's a seemingly successful magazine. It's a local magazine. It has general and local content. And all three women had smartphones and laptops or PCs that they used religiously for reading, including the type of content Blush does.

http://www.blushmag.net/

stash it in your bag and soak up little snippets as you can

My plans are still a good bit different from that mag though. Blush is really a legacy magazine at heart. But even so, they're not unaware of the effect.

Trust me, I am thinking of the reasons why someone would want to pick up a magazine off a shelf at a gas station or restaurant. I certainly don't, unless I have to.

Thanks for your opinions. I truly appreciate them, since they force me to defend (test) my own ideas. More so, maybe an app and website are more urgent than I previously thought...

Oh and btw, you may find this ironic, but it's a mobile tech focused magazine. ;)
 

BlackBriar

Bricoleur
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 10, 2009
Messages
1,295
Reaction score
203
Location
South
If you want to reach a broader spectrum of people I would have some print runs because the mountains of Tennessee don't all have cell towers and ipad availability. Some people out there still like the book form, myself included. If I have the choice between online digital magazine and print, I always pick print. Why? Because I like to keep them, look at them when I'm outside or on the go, read them in bed and when there's a storm that knocked out my electricity. I don't know what your magazine will be about so others may know best. I just know what I like.

I'm nowhere near the mountains (assuming you mean the Smokey?). Heh.

Chattanooga is about 250k though.
 

Finchlark

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 20, 2008
Messages
197
Reaction score
28
Location
Norfolk, England
Website
www.finchlark.webs.com
Hi there, wondered how the magazine progressed? My husband and I started a specialist magazine in 1988 and it's still going. We sold it in 1992 and it's very popular, and it's free. They make their money on the advertising. We used to charge, but since it's been free it's become more popular.