Magazine staff roles and responsibilities in a nutshell:

All magazines have a publisher - both in the sense of the entity (organisation) that owns it and the person that manages it. With an independently published magazine this can be the same thing. In a large publishing organisation there will often be ‘group publishers’ who manage a number of different titles, typically organised in genres such as ‘lifestyle’, ‘motoring’, etc. (Above this level will be a publishing director or a board of directors - this is at the upper levels of the business, and it normally follows standard business management structure conventions.)

The publisher’s role is to:

1. manage the overall strategy of a magazine
   
2. Long-term direction
   
3. Big advertising deals (not the day-to-day ones)
   
4. Any large-scale economic considerations
   

They will not normally get involved in the day-to-day running of a magazine; that is done by the editor and the rest of the editorial team.

The structure of a magazine’s editorial structure will generally be something like this:

Editorial assistants

• Researching for others
  
• Writing smaller items
  
• Picture research
  
• Admin
  
• Milk and sugar in your tea?
  

Staff writers

• Ideas for stories, features and news
  
• Write large portions of a magazine
  

Section editors

• In charge of parts of the magazine
  
• May write content, may commission staff writers or contributors
  
• Liases with the design team for illustrations, photos, etc. for articles
  
• In conjunction with the editor, proofs and signs off pages as they go through production
  

Art editor

• Responsible for the look of the title and visual content of articles
  
• Art-directs most photo shoots
  
• Commissions photographers and illustrators
  

Designer/junior designer

• Tackles the normal design tasks; customising feature layouts, etc.
  
• Liases with photographers and illustrators
  
• May also do production work
  

Production editor

• Manages the production of layouts and final artwork
  
• In charge of the actual production of the artwork
  
• The voice of God when press day comes around: do NOT cross the production editor!
  
• Needs to be a multi-tasking detail meister and control freak
  

Sub-editors/production subs

• General layout production
  
• Proof-reading and copy-fitting
  
• Work with page templates and house styles
  

Editor

• Legally responsible for what gets printed
  
• May write a lot, may not (often determined by the size of the publication, which dictates the overall workload)
  
• Proofs and signs off pages as they go through production
  
• May have a deputy editor who helps share the load
  

Magazine launches - the process in a nutshell

The number of magazines available today is huge. But most of those are published by established magazine publishing companies, not small independents. Why don’t more independents launch and run magazines?

One big reason is that launching a magazine is a risky venture. It needs a fair amount of capital and experience. There are more than a few independents around, of course, but the average magazine is published by a company that deals with at least a few other titles as well.

The structure and workflow involved in setting up a magazine:

First comes the idea, then comes the search for a proper business case.

1. Is there existing competition? What is it doing and how well is it working?
   
2. Is there an existing potential readership? Who exactly are they?
   
3. Who would be the advertisers?
   

This is typically done by a launch publisher or associate publisher. Some publishing companies may have a dedicated launch researcher to do this initial work.

If the business case seems valid and the project gets the ‘green light’ (you can’t escape marketing-speak, sorry), then two people will normally then be hired or assigned from elsewhere in the company to get the project started.

Launch editor. This should be someone experienced at dealing with the stress of launching a new title. They may stay on aterwards, or they may hand over to someone else and move on to another launch project.

Art editor. This person will be responsible for establishing the new magazine’s look and feel. It is likely that they are a highly experienced magazine designer that does a lot of launch and redesign work, so they may also hand over the reins to a permanent art editor once the launch is under way.

At this stage you have three different key people:

1. The publisher (part of company management, one of the ‘suits’)
   
2. The editor (leads the editorial team, concerned with direction and content)
   
3. The art editor (part of editorial, in charge of the visual and creative aspects)
   

This team will produce a small concept magazine that will be used to try to attract advertisers and to help with market research in focus groups. This will have a very small print run (maybe a dozen copies) and not be distributed publically at all; it will normally be a ‘for eyes only’ item, not left with anyone outside the organisation.

How long could the process of going from concept to launch planning take? Well.. how long is a piece of string? In theory it could be as short as a month or two, although this would be hugely rushed and excessively optimistic. Six months is a more likely timeframe. It could take as long as a year, particularly if delays occur as different stages. It is vulnerable to being shelved or canned entirely, particularly if there are management-level changes in the publishing company, and also if the process takes a long time. But, with luck and a following wind, the end result is a successful magazine launch. (Note that a ‘successful magazine launch’ is not the same thing as the ‘launch of a successful magazine’; this kind of success is something that can only be established after a period of time.)