Interested in Starting a Magazine?

Sine I just answered a post on Yahoo Answers about starting a magazine, I though I might as well share the same information here.

Question: Here was the question by Windy:
Am interested in starting a local magazine ? what are my best chances to succeed? How can I do this? what do I need to do to start ? do I need to file legal paperwork? what do I need? how much ?

My Answer:
One great way to learn more about starting a magazine is to read books on magazine startup. Here's a few that I have read:

Starting and Running a Successful Newsletter or Magazine by Cheryl Woodard http://www.amazon.com/Starting-Running-Successful-Newsletter-Magazine/dp/0873374614

How to Start a Magazine by James Kobak
http://www.amazon.com/How-Start-Magazine-James-Kobak/dp/0871319276/

Next, you'll want to get involved in a community with other indy publishers that have likely had to deal with many of the same challenges. Sites like http://MagazineLaunch.com and http://sam.magazinelaunch.com are excellent for startups. Next you'll move to sites like http://foliomag.com and http://pubexec.com.

Based on sharing some information about your planned magazine in the above community website http://sam.magazinelaunch.com, I'm sure there will be people interested in helping you to determine first steps. You'll likely need to have a written business plan and magazine concept before you can prepare a media kit and begin talking to investors and advertisers.

There are a number of regional magazine publishing groups that can help you network and find all the necessary resources to start your magazine. I recommend you join CRMA - City and Regional Magazine Association at http://citymag.org or MAGS - The Magazine Association of the Southeast http://magsoutheast.org.