I want to publish a magazine within my budget how do i go about doing that?

Question

i have written some articules already and i want to organize the articules with interviews and picture's but i have no idea how or where to start i need some advice on where i need to go for help with puttung a magazine together and publishing one for a reasonable price can you help me

Answer 1

i've never made a magazine, but start by putting everything i the order you know it needs to be in:

cover

editorial

contents

cover story

etc etc

as far as publishing goes, any old copy place will be able to talk to you about that. Start with a heavy glossy cover, then lowerweight pages (id suggest colour). if its less than 64 pages, you can get it stapled. any bigger and it will have to be bound. they'll charge you a per page rate, and give you discounts for larger or more regular runs.

i'd suggest you find your market for it before you do all this. test it by starting out electronic maybe? then, when your readership is larger, talk to some retailers.  no point having 10,000 beatiful magazines produced at a nice low cost if you have no-one to sell them to!

not sure what your situation is, but if you're a school/college/uni you can ask whoever does the school paper/magazine? a career advisor can often have great contacts.

Answer 2

Hey there,

Congrats on starting with some articles!

First you should decide how often you want to publish your magazine.  If for instance you decide to make it every 2 months, then you will need to plan for 6 issues per year.

Before you create your first magazine, sit down and draw up an issue plan, with the articles and content you will create or source for each issue for the next year.

Next, put a mark next to the articles you will write yourself, and allocate the other articles to other writers.  If you have no other colleagues or friends to write the other articles for you, goto a site like www.ezinearticles.com and source your articles for free from there.

Next you want to grab youself a cheap template like the one at http://www.magazine-template.com   Use this as the basic structure for your magazine, and drop the content in and adjust the front cover title, content pages etc.

You probably want to register a domain name for your magazine where people can order the hard copy of your magazine, or download the PDF.

Once you have a prototype together, you can approach potential advertisers and sell advertising space.  Offer a discount if they book for 3 months in advance etc.

If you choose to create physical copies of your magazine, you will want to approach a printer for some quotes, and then look at your distribution plan.

I hope this helps

:)

Answer 3

I assume you want to publish a hard copy (i.e. one on paper). It is not an inexpensive enterprise and you would need to have a large run to make it viable, but this assumes that you have a targeted readership and a plan to sell as many as possible.

You can easily typeset the magazine in a publishing programme, rock-bottom, but still decent would be Microsoft's Publisher, there is an option to save the publication ready for the printing press using the four colour method.

An electronic magazine is much more cost-effective for a small publisher. The readership can be built up and there are no lost printing costs. A hard copy could be published when it starts to be viable.

Lastly, a magazine needs input from varying sources to be as wide-ranging and varied as possible. You might consider publishing in another magazine (print or electronic) if it is your own work you want to publish.