Publishing Innovation

2009-02-04T14:31:00.000-08:00

Interesting site

2009-01-31T03:00:00.000-08:00

I came across this blog today as Advertising Age continues to compile a list of the closing titles in the US. I wonder if there is something similar for the UK or worldwide titles.
http://www.magazinedeathpool.com/
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=132779

Magazine staff roles and responsibilities in a nutshell:

2008-12-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

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:

manage the overall strategy of a magazine
Long-term direction
Big advertising deals (not the day-to-day ones)
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

2008-12-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

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.

Is there existing competition? What is it doing and how well is it working?
Is there an existing potential readership? Who exactly are they?
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:

The publisher (part of company management, one of the ‘suits’)
The editor (leads the editorial team, concerned with direction and content)
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.)

Notes from a seminar / lecture on design

2008-11-11T03:08:00.000-08:00

A thousand apologies for the delay. It was unavoidable. I was struck by the disease of not being able to decipher my own handwriting within 24 hours of having written something down. And by the fact that putting up this post didn't have a deadline. This is what I could salvage and make sense of. If you feel I missed out something, add it in comments.

What is design for?
Design presents the message and is also the message. It is a visual language, which is used to convey specific matter. The content and the medium has some bearing on the overall presentation of the message. Using design effectively strengthens your message.

Factors influencing design (medium)
Print:
The kind of paper used (e.g. coated vs uncoated stock) says a lot about the publication. It also creates issues pertaining to printing, clarity and the feel of the magazine.

Screen:
Platform differences (Mac vs PC) affect the viewing of a webpage. Another factor to consider is the viewing of a page on different web browsers.
PDAs and mobile phones now allow web access, though on these systems, one may see a more direct navigation system as compared to a normal web browser.
E-book readers, meanwhile, cater to content that is already packaged in a certain format.

Which comes first - content or design?
The content comes first - Christian
Design may come first depending on the audience. If you are making a website more enticing for 50+ users, you may want to consider design first and then the content - Mandissa
Just think of it as a whole! - Keith

Magazine redesign
A magazine redesign is the creation of a design scheme for a magazine. It may be a new design scheme or just a fine-tuning of an existing scheme. A redesign is the process of synthesising into a workable design, guidelines and templates that are easy to use, effective and repeatable. A redesign affects editorial, marketing, advertising and design departments, apart from the readers.
A succesful magazine redesign makes your magazine fit in and stand out.

Elements of page design.
There are three elements to be considered while making pages: Content, Design and Production.
Editorial and advertising pages have different costs of production.
For an editorial page, the following costs must be taken into account: Cost of content creation (i.e. paying writers for articles, designers for conceiving a layout, photographers, freelance contributors), printing costs, production costs, and distribution costs
For advertisements, there is no cost for creation of content. Instead, there will be costs for printing, production, distribution and ad sales.
The cost of producing one page can be calculated by dividing the total cost by the number of pages produced. (Such simple math).
Calculating the costs of page production are important. In case of a new magazine, they may help to ascertain the budget for production and it is may be an indicator for fixing advertising rates.

Welcome!

2008-10-23T05:27:00.000-07:00

Don't worry what to write about... just write, dammit!