Things to keep in mind when you wish to self-publish an amazing magazine

by Shruti S. fashion, travel, sports

WHAT IS SELF-PUBLISHING?

The popularity of Self- publishing as a smart method is strikingly running at a fast speed. To self-publish is the first baby step to become self-reliant. It offers you the capability to occupy the throne of governing and dictating the entire process of creating and building your voice into a written or print form. It gives you the jurisdiction to control and own the whole profit in your fatty piggy bank.

WHY SHOULD ONE SELF-PUBLISH A MAGAZINE?

The amazing idea to self-publish a digital magazine comes from the initial thought to hold strength in your vision to view beauty in holistic manner. A magazine is informative, engaging and entertaining. It is a legitimate sin being issued on a regular, weekly or monthly basis offering you a chance to read for pleasure all the articles, stories, photographs and advertisements that it contains.

STEPS TO WALK A SUCCESSFUL ROAD TO SELF-PUBLISH A MAGAZINE:

• INVEST YOUR TIME IN PRODUCTIVE RESEARCH: Producing your own magazine will require you to put your body, heart and soul to it. You are bound to get physically and mentally engaged. Because your every minute counts then let the research make every minute turn valuable for you.

Points to remember:

I. Is there already a magazine being circulated in the print world that is producing the same content?

II. What will make it a winner?

III. Which will make it a loser?

IV. How can you make your magazine better than the other?

V. Who falls within the set of audience that your magazine intends to target?

VI. How can you learn about earning success?

VII. How can you learn about your failures?

• CONSIDER AND DEFINE THE OPTIONS FOR YOUR BUDGET PLAN: The circulation of your magazine will reach to a maximum height and the profit incurred from it will gradually speed up in the whole process. Just for safety purpose suppose you encounter with certain check bounce in your attempt to make money. What are you going to do then? How are you going to adjust your budget?

Points to remember:

I. What are your available printing options set in parallel to your budget?

II. How many pages you need to paint with color, and how many are going to remain plain black or snow white?

III. What is your distributing target?

IV. Is sponsorship an option for you?

V. Can you secure the much-needed advertisement for it?

• FIND THE AUDIENCE WHO IS JUST MEANT FOR YOU: You will have to circle mark your target audience. This will help you to map the right directions for the kind of layout, content creation, set market for your magazine and friend zone serious advertisers.

• CREATE A POWER WEBSITE AS A SOCIAL MEDIA TOOL: Your website must be professionally enriched.

On your site, you must keep a page for contributors.

You must whole-heartedly keep the option for online subscription open for people.

• TRIGGER EVERY WRITER TO WRITE: Put a “call for submissions” to your newfound groups. When this call will ring into the ears of every passionate writer, it will surely get you articles for your web page. You can place a classified ad in magazine inviting every writer to contribute for your magazine.

• REACH OUT TO THE POSSIBLE ADVERTISERS AROUND: Do not hesitate to contact and establish business links with the advertisers.

• EDIT TO CORRECT IT: Once you have collected the written articles with you. Try to edit the flaws and faults to make the article appear blemish-free.

• FRAME-OUT THE MAGAZINE: Self-publish a magazine will only be successful it stands out in its professional image. Professionals prefer to use desktop publishing software such as QuarkXPress (the industry standard), Adobe InDesign (Page maker) and OpenOffice.org Writer (it can handle the layout and is free of cost).

• FILL IN THE FRAME: Once you are done with the layout, you need to decide about the inside cover, outside cover and pages.

• PRINT AND PUBLICIZE: If your budget is low then buy a simple black and white laser printer with duplexing.

• MARKET YOU’RE MAGAZINE IN THE MARKET AREA: Go with the online marketing of your magazine. Take the help of MySpace, Google’s AdWords, etc.