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Time to ask yourself a few questions before we get started
Do you have hours of time each week to commit to publishing your magazine?
Do you think you can produce enough content to make it worth while doing?
Do you have plenty of volunteers to help you write content?
Can you use a computer?
Do you have basic knowledge of Graphic software?
Can you write?
Do you have money to self fund the magazine?

These are all really important questions that you need to consider before committing yourself to starting a magazine.

All ok? on to step 1

Step 1)
Like any Business or product that you want people to use you have to solve a problem. Since this is a Music Website lets focus on starting a Music based magazine. What problems can we solve? is their a niche genre that currently doesn’t have a magazine? Does your local Music scene need a magazine? You need to decide what problem you are going to solve, if you don’t then why will anyone read your magazine? You will also need to consider a catchy name, a nicely branded theme / logo and of course the amount of pages and how much each edition will cost to print. Which brings nicely onto how much your going to charge for the magazine. I suggest setting the price at a cost level, most black and white paper based zine’s can be produced for around 80p each these days depending on the size and content. I suggest spending a few hours researching similar magazines, finding out what content they include, how many readers they have and how much they charge for each magazine. It might also be a good idea to find out who prints the magazines. Another point you should consider is how often will you be releasing your magazine, below are the most common release dates.

Weekly, 2 weekly, Monthly, 2 Monthly and every 6 months. I suggest Monthly as a start up magazine.

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Step 2)
Preparation is important! If you have rushed through step one without doing your research and without any idea of what your magazine is about, what it will look like or what content will be included then you might aswell give up now. Preparation is they key to most successful projects, you need to be ahead of the game at all times. I suggest working about 2 issues ahead which gives you plenty of time to correct any problems that may arise. You need to start getting together juicy stories, pictures, events and anything else your going to be included in the magazine. It might also be a good idea to get friends involved as columnists (i write for many of my friends small publications), they write the content so you don’t have to. Most people like to express their opinion and if your going to offer them the opportunity to voice their opinion to a few hundred people at a time then they will likely jump at the chance.

Next Steps coming very soon!

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