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.)