And now, the moment you've all been
waiting for...
How to Start Your Own Publishing Company, and
Publish Your Own Magazine!
I wrote this after
publishing
NeMeSiS, my first magazine. I will
probably edit it in a few months.
JANUARY 5, 1998
21 STEPS TO PUBLISHING A MAGAZINE
by luke keller
1 CONCEIVE IDEA FOR MAGAZINE AND DECIDE
TITLE
A friend of mine decided she wanted to publish a
magazine. She decided to call it Nemesis, and wished to
publish art, music-related material, and poetry.
2 MEET WITH MAGAZINE STAFF EXPAND AND CLARIFY
CONTENT
Our first meeting changed Nemesis (now NeMeSiS) from one
girl's idea into a group's conceivable vision. NeMeSiS
now had a staff, a logo, a redefined goal, deadlines,
and a basic financial plan.
3 CONDUCT PRELIMINARY MARKET RESEARCH
I discussed NeMeSiS with potential buyers. I found what
attracted them to a magazine, what they liked reading,
and a suitable price range, among other things.
4 RESEARCH BASIC INFORMATION PERTAINING TO PUBLISHING
OF A MAGAZINE
I spent many hours at the library, researching copyright
and tax laws and researching other legal and practical
information, then checked out several books which I
studied at home. I continued consulting these books
until after the magazines were printed and sold.
5 MEET WITH MAGAZINE STAFF EVALUATE RESEARCH AND
DEFINE GOALS
We met and discussed what our new goals would be, in
light of the research I had conducted over the last two
steps.
6 COLLECT SUBMISSIONS
My friend collected about half of the submissions
filling the Visions Of The Dark Night section from her
friends. I collected the rest. For this issue we had
to actively collect them, but I hope that I will receive
those going into issue 2 in the mail from the ads I
placed.
7 LAYOUT
I designed a basic layout, and discovered which pages
were filled by the material I already had,and which
pages were still left to be filled. I tenatively named
the sections, and made an estimate of how many pages
long NeMeSiS was to be.
8 WRITE EDITORIAL ELEMENTS
I filled the spaces which needed to be filled in step 7.
I wrote the dedication, thanks, and the copyright
statement/disclaimer. I wrote the Welcome, my letter, a
statement for I Cried, You Didn't Listen, the editorial,
and chose the epitaphs. I wrote the submissions ad, the
Goodbye, and the final statement.
9 LAY OUT MAGAZINE ON PAPER
I put it all together. I laid out the editorial
elements, my picks of the submissions, and a story,
gluing the originals to sheets of notebook paper. I had
new cover art. I changed the titles of many of the
sections. I chose where to put the art, and added
photocopied "clip art." NeMeSiS was ready to take to
the desktop-publisher.
10 CONTACT DESKTOP PUBLISHER
I called my desktop-publisher, and met with him. We
discussed what needed to be typed and what needed to be
scanned, and we worked on the logo, among other
things.
11 TRANSFER INFORMATION TO COMPUTER
My desktop-publisher scanned the pictures, and typed the
text.
12 LAY OUT MAGAZINE ON COMPUTER
My desktop publisher and I did the final computer
layout, coallating the text and pictures, laying out the
pages, and printing them out.
13 CONGLOMERATE COMPUTER AND COPIES
I did this final layout stage by cutting and pasting and
photocopying the text and pictures. The pictures came
from different sources; a Dover book of victorian
illustrations for use in publications, submitted
illustrations, photographs, and several other places. I
handwrote some of the text, and typed and printed some
of it on my computer. Most of the text reached its
final form at the printer of my desktop-publisher. I
put the pages in order, back to front to back. NeMeSiS
was reaching its final form.
14 CONTACT PRINTERS GET BEST PRICE
I called several different printing presses, and asked
for the prices of different qualities of paper, total
number of copies of the magazine, and numbers of colors
on the cover. Then I chose The Ink Spot, Inc., beacuse
they had both the friendliest, most helpful staff, and
the lowest prices (although they would take the longest
time to print the magazines).
15 FINISH FINAL PREPARATION FOR PRINTER
Since I was printing a two-color cover, I cut a mask
from black paper to make the plate used for the red on
the cover. I did a few last cut and paste things with
words. I made sure that NeMeSiS was to my liking.
16 TAKE MAGAZINE TO PRINTER
I took NeMeSiS to the printer, paid 361 dollars for its
printing, and wrote the price on its cover.
17 WAIT
Wait is all that SHOULD be done during this step. I,
however, did anything but wait. I stopped by the press
several times, the first to discover that they were
assembling NeMeSiS BACKWARDS, the second to discover
that they were assembling it WRONG, and the third to
assemble it MYSELF!
18 RECEIVE FINAL PRODUCT FROM PRINTER
I picked up the boxes of magazines in several shipments.
They were printed, assembled, stapled, trimmed, boxed,
and ready to sell.
19 CREATE FINANCIAL BOOKKEEPING SYSTEM
I calculated how much money would be generated by
selling ten magazines at 60% of the cover price, and the
rest at full cover price. I then figured how many I
would have to sell to break even. I set up a system for
keeping track of how many magazines I have sold, how
many remain to be sold, how much money I have made, how
much remains to be made, and any expenses I might incur.
I also had to create invoices for my vendors.
20 CONTACT AND DELIVER TO VENDORS
I called Borders and Tower Records. I delivered ten
magazines to Borders. Several of my friends are vendors
also.
21 MARKET AND SELL
This is the most decisive step. If very few people wish
to buy a magazine, it cannot continue for long. If,
however, a magazine has a large, consistant clientele
from the beginning, it has it made.
-E-mail me with any questions or comments on the
magazine-publishing process at
numquam@hotmail.com. I'd love to help!-
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