If there’s one thing that fills the web more than cat pictures it’s ruminations on the state, past or future of newspapers and magazines. The truth is old models are failing and no-one really knows. Rupert Murdoch is trying paywalls, which is a possibility for publications with existing audiences and strong brands, but what can a start-up publication do?
In my own small way I’m experimenting — this week sees the launch of a—yes—paper-based magazine that Danny Smith and I have been working on for the best part of six months. This is what it looks like:
Things we’ve worked out so far:
- Print is really expensive at small scale, but it’s still much easier to get people excited to work for and to sell than web content.
- Brand is all important: we’ve gone for wilfully obtuse and arty—we think that’s a sector we can sell to.
- A clean break between web and print means that you need to create lots of reasons for, and a fair amount of, ‘related but not similar’ content. Content that reaches the same audience, but isn’t seen as either a free or a second-rate version of what you’re asking payment for in print.
- A new thing needs its networks—we’ve tried to make sure that everyone that can feel ownership of the magazine finds it easy to talk about and share stuff about it with their networks.
- If you’ve got a brand, related events can make a fair bit of money—but they’re an additional risk. We’re operating at small scale, but publishers have tried this — Wrox Press when I worked for it’s web design offshoot was trying to maximise return on brand by conferences, it didn’t bring in enough money to save the company. It seems easier, however, to sell a specific happening via the social web than it does an ongoing concept.
- No-one’s going to pay to get past the paywall on a Twitter account—well only about ten people in my experience.
As well as being exhausting and a great hobby, there’s been a fair few opportunities to try out different promotional web-tricks that I’m going to use again. Issue two shouldn’t take so long.
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