Gene Curtis Blog

Part C

There are other costs such as paying the contributors that will bring the maximum per page ad dollars needed to around $400, but even so that still makes an eighth page add very affordable at $50 - $62.50.

Acquiring & assembling quality magazine content month after month is no easy task. Make no mistake, it is the content that builds a subscriber base and without a number of people to actually see the ads a print magazine is doomed to failure. With that in mind I’m going to take a look at a hypothetical example of how a real life group might launch a magazine.

Rebecca Miller runs the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy Blogtour. Her goal is to promote the genre. Her niche market is Christian SF & Fantasy readers. An old marketing axiom is: have something others need or want, be where they are gathered and let them know how they can get it. Her market not only gathers online but they also use church libraries. These libraries are interested in knowing what’s available and what’s good, not only for SF&F books, but other faith based entertainment as well, such as: other book genres, music and film. I suspect that if Mrs. Miller (or anyone else for that matter) were to provide a concise, one stop source for church librarians on what’s good in the Christian entertainment arena that that would be something they would want. The last time I checked Church library personnel had to pull from many sources in order to determine what the library would stock and what they would recommend for entertainment.

On the flip side of the coin, faith based entertainers whether authors, music groups or film producers are looking for cost effective ways to promote their art. That means there is likely to be an abundance of material for magazine content in the form of reviews, interviews and advertizing.

Why a print magazine and not just an ezine, blog or website? Credibility and readership. While not the most effective in most markets for advertisers (TV takes that position), it carries the most weight for trustworthiness. A print magazine also tends to stick around, being read on average an estimated 4.9 times per distributed copy. A single Internet website simply lacks trustworthiness for the simple fact that just about anyone can throw up a website or blog and say anything they like. Not to mention that competition for visitors is fierce.

I’m not one that gives up easily. The next model I studied was rather interesting and I plan to implement it this summer either myself or by helping a couple of local ezines do it: Discover Southside and SoVaLife.
To understand what I discovered you need to understand the standard structure of a magazine. A glossy, newsstand style magazine is usually comprised of about 50% editorial content (text and graphical elements) and 50% advertising content. The percentages will vary slightly from issue to issue but that is the usual breakdown. Of the advertising content about half goes to cover the cost of production (printing, paying the contributors and whatnot) and the rest is profit. A 64pp magazine will have about 32pp of advertising, sixteen of which should cover the cost of production.
The numbers I used to construct the chart were from Print Pelican’s automated cost calculator. I chose Print Pelican after an extensive search for magazine printers. They have the best reputation and price structure for short-run magazine printing of any printer I checked out and there were many. They also have an excellent quality product; I ordered samples and was very much impressed. The numbers were collected in mid January 2009, and are based on an 80# Gloss Cover, 80# Gloss Text, Saddle Stitched, Subscription Card-black. The numbers may have changed some since then, but it doesn’t change the concept.
In the chart, the dotted lines represent the cost of printing and mailing (using Print Pelican’s mailing service) minus a two dollar per issue subscription charge ($24 per year). The surprising thing was how few subscriptions were required to negate the need for high priced ads.
The highest per page need for ad dollars doesn’t go above $320 for the 64pp magazine (16pp of ads to cover costs). That makes an eighth page ad come to forty bucks. ($319.74 per page @ 64pp, $310.70 per page @ 48pp, $265.13 per page @ 32pp) Mind you now, that is the highest need for ad dollars per page for 64pp magazines and under. Ad dollar needs fall off before and after the points indicated on the chart.
Most printers use an 8-up (& 8 down) printing method so you’ll probably notice that it is sometimes less expensive to print a magazine, excluding mailing costs, with page counts that are multiples of sixteen. For example, try 1000 copies of 64pp vs. 68pp on Print Pelican’s calculator. That’s why the chart shows 32pp, 48pp and 64pp. The 128pp is there for comparison.

click to view larger image

Part A

One of the most interesting things I’ve done over the last several months is to try to start a print magazine. After reading everything I could find on how to start a magazine I tried the approach that other print magazines in the area were using: no subscriptions plus inexpensive distribution, i.e. drop points.
I was able to put together an experienced and dedicated group of editors and writers, experienced layout and graphic design artists, a consulting team of former magazine publishers and a reliable printer (Print Pelican), but the one thing I couldn’t do was generate funding for the project. This model required about $20,000 per month for each issue of the magazine just to cover costs. I understand why so many magazines are going totally online.
The cost of actually having 20,000 copies of the magazine printed required the ad rates to be too high for this area with a standard full page ad at $2400 for a one time insert or $1750 each month for twelve months. These rates were lower than other area magazine’s rates (Showcase for example-pdf), but after contacting more than two hundred area businesses that regularly advertize in local magazines and not getting a single ad, I gave up on this model. The rate card I was using is below.

Rate Card

I haven’t given up on the idea of starting a print magazine. I discovered something remarkable that I’ll discuss in the next installment.