WE ARE STARTING A MAGAZINE - ARE YOU SAM?
21 Years Old & Launching a Magazine
I've been a member for a very short time but already I've found this forum to be a wealth of information.
I am a 21 year old entrepreneur and am in planning to launch a new magazine in March of 2010. I already have a small publication that I've been working on (Bit & Bridle) and after 2 years of giving it a whirl with absolutely no idea what I was going, I've learned a TON and have figured out what I'd like to begin doing differently. I am "retiring" the other magazine and bringing out a new one that is full color and 32 pages, unlike the 20 page B&W magazine I've been doing up until now. I will also be changing the name to something that better reflects my vision.
I'm beginning the new mag with almost no startup. I'm not a fan of bank loans and honestly I probably couldn't get one right now anyway. :) I believe that I should be able to get a lot of the funding from ad revenue. I've already secured a new office, gotten quotes on printing, mailing, travel/events, and all that good stuff.
Even with all of those things in place, I still have so many questions. I do have 2 years of some experience which will help a lot, in addition to a small mailing list that's already been established. I'd really like to connect with others who have launched a magazine without any startup funding and see if there's any advice available to me in regards to that.
I do have a few questions right now:
*Do I need to form an LLC or S corp?
*Are there certain insurances I will need for the business?
*Can a regional magazine with circulation between 1,500-3,000 expect to get national advertisers?
*What is the most cost effective way to prepare a media kit?
Please bear with me if some of these are questions other folks would typically already know the answers to - at only 21 some of these things are very new to me.
I would love to hear any thoughts here on the forum, or you can email me at mandee[at]bitandbridlemag[dot]com.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Mandee
Views: 2
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by 6thAveConcepts on -
An LLC or some form of legal protection is not a bad idea at all. I'm still a little worried that I don't/haven't done any legal covering of my behind in my design business.
Insurance? Out of my area of knowledge. I would assume that, depending on the amount of equipment/stuff involved you may want to have insurance of some kind. You mention an office for example. You'll definitely want to have insurance to cover that (theft, fire, vandalism, etc...)
National Advertisers - The sky is the limit for you. If you don't reach for it, you'll never get it. Yes, I think you can get national advertisers. It will be difficult and you'll have to find the right advertiser. For example it seems like local high schools always can get Coke or Pepsi to put an ad in their high school football or basketball programs. Now, is this advertising done on a national level or is it through the local franchise/distributor? I don't know. Same holds true for McDonalds, etc.. I know from working at a newspaper in the Advertising Dept. that a lot of places we think are national handle their advertising out of the local franchise level. Each McDonalds, for example, is responsible for it's own local advertising while corporate handles TV and radio. If there is a Rural King in your area you may want to pursue them as an advertiser since they cater to the same target clients your magazine will. - In other words try as hard as you can to get your national advertisers and see what happens!
Most cost effective way to prepare a media kit? Do it yourself! LOL!!! Of course, you get what you pay for. Second best course is to find someone who can do it for trade or for a cost break. Shop around and compare prices for designers. Ask for work examples. Find out what kind of items you want in your media kit. Online printers, Office Max, Kinkos, Vista Print, etc... all offer cheap/affordable printing service.
Be careful though. Do you want cheap or do you want affordable? Quality is also an issue. This media kit will be your face to the world. What kind of face do you want to present?
Are you designing the magazine yourself or do you have a designer in place? Maybe you could find some designer somewhere... .oooohhh I don't know where.... maybe who lives on some 6th Avenue somewhere or something :P that you could work with in designing your media kit and/or magazine design. We can talk about this in more detail through private e-mail if you're interested.
Shawn
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