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If you want the help of a trained professional—and we’ll always point out situations in which we think that’s a good idea—consult an attorney licensed to practice in your state. please note Starting & Running a Successful Newsletter or Magazine by Cheryl Woodard 5th edition Fifth Edition NOVEMBER 2006 Editor BARBARA KATE REPA Book Design SUSAN PUTNEY Production JESSICA STERLING Proofreading ROBERT WELLS Index BAYSIDE INDEXING SERVICE Printing CONSOLIDATED PRINTERS Woodard, Cheryl. Starting & running a successful newsletter or magazine / by Cheryl Woodard. 5th ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-4133-0523-7 (alk. paper) 1. Periodicals Publishing United States. 2. Newsletters Publishing United States. I. Title: Starting and running a successful newsletter or magazine. Z480.P4W66 2006 070.5'72 dc22 2006048280 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright © 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006 by Cheryl Woodard. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and the author. Reproduction prohibitions do not apply to the forms contained in this product when reproduced for personal use. Quantity sales: For information on bulk purchases or corporate premium sales, please contact the Special Sales department. For academic sales or textbook adoptions, ask for Academic Sales, 800-955-4775. Nolo, 950 Parker St., Berkeley, CA, 94710. Dedication I dedicate this book to Katie, Leo, and Mick. Acknowledgments I’ve learned about publishing from many wonderful people. Most recently, I’ve enjoyed serving on the board of directors of the Independent Press Association (IPA), an organization dedicated to empowering new and controversial publications. In particular, I’ve enjoyed working with Richard Landry, the IPA’s executive director, and the IPA staff. My fellow IPA board members are also constantly inspiring and informing me. I’m also grateful to all of the people I’ve met as consulting clients over the past decade. Clients continually surprise and delight me with their brilliant ideas and unquenchable energy. Some of them are listed on my website at www.publishingbiz.com. And I extend a nod of appreciation to the folks who are working to educate and enlighten publishers through the Western Publishers Association, the Society of National Association Publications, and the Stanford Professional Publishing Courses. Each organization brings publishers together to share ideas and insights, making all of us stronger and better at what we do. My editor on this edition has been Barbara Kate Repa, a woman who knows how to say “no” more gently than anybody I ever met. ank you, Barbara. And finally, forever, and for everything else, thanks to my husband Mick Wiggins, who is still the first person I want to talk to every single day. Preface to the Fifth Edition I receive emails every day from people who want me to help them sell a magazine idea to an established publishing company, much like an author sells a book idea to a book publisher.ese folks hope to create the content of a magazine and then get a publisher to handle all the production and distribution details, splitting the revenues with the author much as a novelist would. Unfortunately, magazines and newsletters don’t work like books. For one thing, a magazine idea by itself has very little value until somebody invests money to prove that readers and advertisers like the idea as much as you hope they will. And for another thing, periodicals normally take three or four years to become profitable, and many never do. Knowing the risks involved, experienced publishing companies rarely make deals with outsiders— unless of course you offer them something guaranteed to succeed like Oprah Winfrey did with O magazine and her 65 million daily TV viewers—and if you are Oprah, then you probably don’t need to read this book. Ordinary souls like us generally have to become the publisher to get a new magazine or newsletter off the ground. We have to find money, get talented people to help us, and launch the thing ourselves. en, we might be able to sell our work to an established publishing company—but only after we have clear proof that the idea resonates with customers. Lots of people have come up with a good idea, invested a couple of years to prove that readers love it, and then either sold out completely to a big publishing company, or partnered with big investors to grow the business on their own. at’s how we started PC Magazine in 1981, and you’ll read other examples throughout this book, e magazine world has changed dramatically since we started our four computer magazines back in the early 1980s. You may have read about ownership consolidation in the newspaper, TV, book, and radio industries—and periodicals have been through the same process. While there were hundreds of small companies owned by private families or investors 20 years ago, there are only a handful today. ose small companies used to provide start-up capital for entrepreneurial ventures in the past, and what’s more important, there was plenty of room in the market for a small operator back then. Today, six companies own about 80% of the magazines you see on newsstands, and they have tremendous market power—over the shelf-space for magazines, their pricing, and even the postage rates. Today’s publishing entrepreneurs have adapted to that changing marketplace. People don’t try to compete head-on with the mass- market titles such as Oprah’s magazine, or People, or even PC magazine. Instead, entrepreneurs find opportunities the big players are not likely to exploit on their own—special interest titles, or quirky ones that appeal to a unique audience, or mission-driven publications that have social rather than commercial value. I’ve put many of those examples into this book, too, and also on my website. And you can find them yourself at bookstores or through some of the publishing associations listed in Chapter 14 of this book. Another big change in publishing since the 1980s is, of course, the Internet. When we launched PC magazine in 1981, we didn’t have a fax machine, let alone a website, and our staff didn’t even have email accounts. Everything had to be accomplished face-to-face back then. But today, publishers routinely work with writers, designers, circulation experts, and other collaborators living far away. You can outsource nearly everything. We started PC magazine with about 40 employees in 1981, but publishers today can get by with five or six people on staff, some of them not even living in the same city, getting everything else from remote contractors. e Internet also helps entrepreneurs reach their customers more efficiently than in the past. And the Internet is particularly suited for niche publishing. I’ve included many good examples showing how small-operator publishing companies have effectively used the Internet to economically reach a very loyal audience. You can see many other examples by combing the Web on your own. Perhaps the biggest news in recent years has been the explosive growth of online ad spending. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which measures online ad revenues, total spending increased 30% from 2004 to 2005, reaching $12.5 billion. Most of that money goes to the biggest websites: Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. But there are also some pie crumbs left over for smaller sites. Notably, all three major search engines have developed programs to place their ads onto other websites, allowing smaller publications to share in the estimated $5 billion spent on search ads in 2005. And vendors are also helping smaller publishers capture some of the other growth categories, especially email ad sponsorships—up 260% last year, and commission-based “associates” programs—up nearly 400%. (See Chapter 11 for more on how smaller publishers can tap into these new dollars more readily than ever before.) e publishing world is still evolving, and I encourage you to visit my website, www.publishingbiz.com, where I offer the latest information and trends. And please feel free to email me; I would love to hear your publishing adventures. My email address is Cheryl@publishingbiz.com. —Cheryl Woodard, July 2006 [...]... path can be equally successful, but in a different way Many people start publications that achieve social, political, or cultural goals rather than commercial ones My favorite example is Glimpse, a website and quarterly magazine started in 2001 by a group of students that promotes global awareness among young Americans The founders said, “The need for understanding and communication across national,... way is to raise significant start-up capital and launch a glossy national magazine This may be the dream you have in mind—remember, though, that this is a high-end route, likely to cost $4 million or more, and there are plenty of other options At the other end of the spectrum, you could keep your day job and create a magazine on a topic you care  | starting and running a successful newsletter or magazine. .. Atlanta, for example, instead of just Brides • Ad sales are targeted Again, without the huge circulation numbers that national advertisers demand, smaller publications focus on selling ad space to very targeted companies—surfboard and swimwear shops for Surfer, for example, not car makers or soft drink companies Many smaller publications carry no ads at all When they do have ads, the products are always... channels Chances are better than 90% that any magazine you see in a grocery store checkout line belongs to one of these big companies And you have almost no chance to get your magazine into a grocery store checkout pocket because the space is already sold out to these big players The table below shows the major magazines and an estimate of each one’s share of advertising revenue and consumer magazine. .. niche and serve it well The Bark magazine is another lean team publishing success story It was started in 1997 as a newsletter for dog owners in Berkeley, California— and slowly expanded to a national magazine The publishers kept their day jobs for many years, and volunteers helped them with key tasks, such as building a website and selling ads They turned to the Independent Press Association (IPA) for... approach, plan on spending at least $5 million to launch a glossy newsstand publication like PC magazine If you want to start a more modest magazine like New Moon described earlier—you would probably have to spend about $100,000 As for starting a magazine driven more by passion than a massive financial investment, I’m sure that the people who started Glimpse never spent more than their credit card limit... More Than a Decade I looked back at the magazines started in 1993 to determine how they were funded and also which ones have succeeded According to the standard record of magazine launches compiled by Professor Samir Husni (www mrmagazine.com), there were 417 regular magazines launched in 1993 By my own count, 180 were financed and launched by entrepreneurs— including notables such as Fast Company and. .. Center Each issue of Terrain contains about 40 pages, including hard-hitting articles about the environment and national news for the ecology movement The total publishing budget for Terrain is under $500,000, and the magazine generates much of that money from ad sales You can start a lean-team publishing company— and earn a comfortable living from it—for less than $200,000, assuming that you find a solid... revenues and earned $1 billion in profits Advertisers contributed $2.8 billion just to the Time, Inc., magazines, which earned $1.6 billion revenue from readers In other words, for the magazines, advertisers contributed about $1.2 billion more than readers 20 | starting and running a successful newsletter or magazine This dependence on advertisers is actually increasing among the largest magazines because... the pages Let these small companies guide you Take advantage of their experience and follow their leads 22 | starting and running a successful newsletter or magazine Creating Relationships From a reader’s viewpoint, the relationship with a good periodical is a little like dining at a favorite restaurant: You know what to expect each time you visit If the experience is a good one, you can repeat it . | STARTING AND RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL NEWSLETTER OR MAGAZINE Startups at Survived More an a Decade I looked back at the magazines started in 1993 to determine how they were funded and also. for personal use. Quantity sales: For information on bulk purchases or corporate premium sales, please contact the Special Sales department. For academic sales or textbook adoptions, ask for. understanding and communication across national, cultural, religious, racial, and ethnic lines has never been greater and yet 85% of those 18 to 24 years of age cannot identify Afghanistan on a