Starting a magazine...

Hello,

would anyone have suitable knowledge, links where I might do some investigations about how to start a new niche magazine for Ireland only. Initially it would be either monthly or quarterly ... not quite sure for now...

For now, the sector that this would apply to is quite small, but growing significantly and i don't feel the local Irish interest in catered for in UK magazines for similar. Readers are quite affluent and do spend money on
keeping up with their peers re:Equipment, Material ... as well as possibly
being a good audienceto target by Advertisors not specifically linked to
this sector.

Sample questions for me ...
How much could i expect to spend to get say a 16-20 page colour magazine printed ? I'd expect no more than 1000 copies to be appropriate .. is this simply too small ? Such that with this figure in mind, i can work backwards to devise the likely advertising pricing ...

How much should distribution cost .. be it by the like of Easons or others ?

For now given the small nature of the market, I'm thinking it might well have to be a freebie, and rely on advertising ! Is this a no-no ? Should i always charge something ?

I'm considering having a website to go with the magazine ? any pointers ? good ideas and aspects to avoid ? Hoping that advertising on the site in conjunction with the magazine itself will be attracitve to sponors and readers alike.

Are there appropriate websites, companies, books, magazines (?) that i could consult/check to get a better handle on this possibility.

I would expect this to be a part-time task to begin with, at least for the first couple of issues ?

Any advice more than welcomed,
cheers
Y

Afraid I cant give much advise on the magazine distrubition.
On the website,
Best thing to do is contact some web development company let them ask you the questions and let them come back with a price. Post the details here and i will review and give you my thoughts.

Something you need to ask:
Can i update the site my self
What type of hosting plan to you offer
Someone gave me this link http://www.letshost.ie/ (from here) they look good.

Actually Maybe you could phase this out.
First get a simple web site up and running that would just hold some brochure ware information about your magazine. - make sure its looks good though

Depending on the success of the magazine, let that drive the next phase of the web site.

This would ensure that you dont end up spending too much money on a web site and invest better in the magazine - the real bread and butter.

I'm considering having a website to go with the magazine ? any pointers ? good ideas and aspects to avoid ?

Click to expand...

I do have *some* experience with small-run magazines...

Your first step is to contact a number of printers in your area and ask for quotes, that will dictate the rest of your costing for advertising etc. Depoending on colours and quality of paper, format etc you will see differences. Also some will only deal with specific software.

Actually before that your real first step is your market research, do not understimate that! If you are planning to sell advertising space you will need a lot of patience!

Send me a private message if you wanted to chat about it. I have limited experience but will happily share.

Hi Y (or is it Rodney?)

I will frame this by saying I work in the print & display business.

My thoughts are that 1000 is a small distribution, would you be better posting them out? With a market this tight it could be possible to contact the intended recipients and promote and an annual subscription for the mag?

With regards price major factors include i) number of colours, ii) quality of paper iii) output size. Magazines are not our line but I would think that the quantities you are looking for are against you.

Having said this, if the content and presentation is right then your audience (and advertisers) will pay.

Best of luck with the plan.

H

Magazine publishing in Ireland is notoriously difficult because of the low volumes.

I work in a newspaper department that sells everything from Anglers Digest to Bob the Builder and it seems that there are only two distributors of size in Ireland - Easons and Newspread. Easons is proably the better known. Newspread is owned by Tony O'Reilly's (he hates when he's not refered to as Sir!) Independent News & Media group.

I'd recommend reading The Unsinkable Entrepreneur if you have the time and interest, its about a galway man who set up several magazines including "Afloat" and a security industry magazine.

Good luck.

Wow - thanks for the all the quick and varied advice...

RedEagle
I had originally considered it as a magazine first, with the website more secondary ... however this isn't written in stone by any means ... could end up with a 50:50 or as you suggest the website initially with the mag to follow.

To an extent I could maintain the site myself once initially put in place by a developer, but as you say it would have to be impressive to attract and keep browsers. From other work-related investigations, I think itt wouldn't be too difficult nor particularly expensive to get a basic site up and running ... well relative to the costs of getting a hard-copy magazine together... i need to reconsider this!

D2X2
Hopefully your experiences aren't all bad.
Totally agreewith your point regarding research and then more research. I suppose the main point of the posting was for anyone to supply me with some ballpark ("back of an envelope" oops?!) pricing with which to get started.

Hamlet
Posting certainly seems a viable alternative, which i had never thought of before to be honest. Given the size of my target market, and the frequency with which i'd be publishing then posting would be a strong contender. For the printing I would want the mag to be as impressive as possible, with attention grabbing colours, and within the mag itself superb pictures...

CGorman
Thanks for the note, i certainly have the time and will look for it this weekend.
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(new) Q - how much would a distributer take as a slice to distribute my magazine ? Is it a percentage , or flat fee per say hundred/thousand copies ?

===================

Thanks again for the different perspectives, I need to get my head around these very valid suggestions. Hopefully I will be able to make some positive steps and revert with progress...

slán

as you say it would have to be impressive to attract and keep browsers

Click to expand...

With a website (and I guess with a magasine also) content is most important. If there is sufficent, relevant, changing and up-to-date content then your website will attract regular vistors. If not, then all the fancy graphics in the world won't attract and keep browsers.

From my limited knowledge in this area, I though that the magazine / periodical market in Ireland is very competitive

Assuming that your first 12 months in business is successful what is to stop one of the bigger players in the market putting together a rival magazine and with a greater advertising spend being able to take most of your customers?



I'm not trying to be too negative but it's just another factor to consider



efm

Would you not be better off making the magazine web only?

The three advantages are

Allowing you to save money on publishing / distribution to pay for writers etc?

Giving your advertisers the ability to see how effective the advertising is, as they can monitor the click throughs to there website etc?

You can quiet easily use google ad sense, which gives you a much quicker access to advertising revenue.

Im looking at some magazines on my desk, both aimed at niche Irish markets and both ****e, they are nothing but vehicles to sell advertising who pad the magazine out with press releases and product placements.

Looking at other magazines / papers like the FT and Economist, yes they have ads, but they also have top notch content, what Im trying to say in around about way is

If you have top notch content, you will get the readers, if you have the readers you will get the advertsing (print or web).

Best of luck

Once again - thanks for the new suggestions.

Fintan - i hope i'm not splitting hairs here, but i take it you're suggesting as a possibility a subscription based website, with free access to certain articles, itmes etc. People would be 'encouraged' to become members and sign-up for a year or X months to allow them browse the information.

This would be different to an electronically available 'magazine', which could be emailed to people, printed out etc as they desired.

Option 1 would seem to require a serious amount of material.

... more to chew over !

Yep, you see some articles pay for the rest type of thing would work (like what ft.com do), give them the option of printing the article / email to a friend / send them an email when a new article is put up etc

Another option to look at is what wired.com do. They publish a magazine, in there on-line edition they allow you to view the first article for this months edition for free, you can see the blurb for the other articles but need to subscribe to see the articles there and then, alternatively, if you return a week later another few articles are viewable until all the articles are there and its time for next months magazine. (not sure if i explained it well but if you go here you can see what I mean http://www.wired.com/wired/

(Just had a look at the site, they have changed how they do it, all articles are available from the beginning of the month)

This in my mind also works quiet well, as it gives you a reason to return to the website more than once a month (which is vital if you are advertising)


Also you could look at building a community by allowing people to submit there own articles or article suggestions, you could add a bulletin board, which could work well if you are aiming at a niche area.

The reason I have been thinking about this so much is because Im also looking into providing a news source aimed at a niche market that isn't being served currently. I have a guy doing some work for me at the moment on the website and we are looking at different options, for us the news is important but the community we plan to build around the site is essential for it to work.

PM me if you are interested, we may be able to share resources

Cheers

Fintan