Hatrack River Writers Workshop: need business advice

This is topic need business advice in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Piece of work (Member # 3038) on :

Hi, I'm 17 and looking to start up a speculative fiction magazine here in Perth, Australia in a few months. I have researched plenty but was wondering if you guys could give me any specific advice that can't be found in marketing textbooks, which I know is heaps.

I have won a few, though only a few, writing contests for my age group here in Perth. I have chosen to be the only editor and have executive control to avoid the risks of a partner bailing out, or simply just being more interested and simpl doing more work than any partners I might already have.

There isn't nearly asbig a market for speculative fiction short stories here as in America so I'm not looking to hit it big, or expecting any particula competition, just to give up-to-17-year-old writers and artists a venture into the world of published work without the risks and plenty to gain.

I'm not planning on paying the writers up front from issue subscriptions, but will offer readers the option of getting their favourite writer/artist to personally sign their copy of an issue for an extra $1.50 on top of the original issue prce of $3.50.

There's plenty more to explain but I'll elaborate more as this thread develops. Any advice you might have for me would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Well, undercapitalization is often fatal for small businesses...however, in the "shoestring publishing" mode so common among science fiction fans, you should be able to get out a few issues. Keep a careful eye on the costs, and you should be able to get through the experience while learning a few things...

I don't have any idea, actually, how much it takes to put together a magazine of this kind in a dollar amount (or equivalent in some other currency). Some of the rest of you must know better than I.

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

Going from the idea to a successful publication requires much more than just an idea. I suggest you spend the next couple of years doing the proper research. You need a business plan... you'll find good advice for the entrepreneur at Inc. Magazine. I'm not sure if Australia has an equivelent of SCORE or not. Become familiar with the self-publishing industry to learn the challenges of starting up your own publishing house. You'll find resources at Creative Minds Press.

Gathering stories and editing them are only a tiny fraction of what you need to do to be successful. If you want to hand distribute a few dozen copies of your compilation then you can do it from your home computer and printer. But if you want to make a printed magazine publication available for the Australian market, you have a lot of work ahead of you. Consider learning web design skills and publishing electronically.

Any way you go, it's going to be a challenge. If you relish the idea of the challenge, then this might be the path for you. If you don't want to go through the work to adequately research the topic before launching your project, that's a good sign that it's probably just a pipe dream. Good luck, whichever route you take.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Trying a venture like that is bound to be challenging, in many ways, and I applaud you for trying. That said, when this fails, take it as on-the-job training and don't just give up on the dream. You have plenty of time ahead of you to make it work.

mikemunsil

Posted by Piece of work (Member # 3038) on :

I've found a company willing to do the printing for a good price, and also offering service as main distributor. So having it on this larger scale of distribution, I've decided to throw away the idea of personally signed issues and all that. Of course, that was just silly dreaming on my part, hoping I could get away with not paying them. <grin> But I do have a pay rate now and a few other means of servicing the writers that I think will work well.

First is arranging a weekly writers group to help writers get motivated and have a proper critiquing of their WIPs on a weekly basis. This will probably be free provided I can get a venue, or else very cheap.

The pay rate I'm thinking of would be around 3.5c a word up to $300 as the cut off. I'm not sure why magazine owners do this but no doubt there's a good reason and I'll have to look into it.

Also, and some australian hatrackers may disagree with me here, Australian speculative fiction writes, even of the highest calibur, aren't very hard to get in touch with to do one off interviews for small ventures like this. I personally know my second favourite - OSC being my favourite - author, though not all that well. He's a local West Australian, not a speculative fiction writer, but a great writer in the eyes of just about all Australians none the less. I've talked to him about this and he's more than happy to do an interview for the first issue.

I've even got a chartered accountant, my friends dad, who has agreed to mentor me until I get settled in. And I do have investment capitalization (not sure if that's the right terminology, still learning economics). My oldest brother has offered to loan me between $4000 and $10000 with a very low interest rate we're to work out later. On top of all that, and this may make it harder to run a magazine but oh well, I have an apprenticeship lined up to start next year so I'll have full time income to support myself and pay my brother back faster. I know what I'm doing bussinesswise, sort of. That's not to say that I know everything. But I'm in a good position to learn as I go right now.

Mike, I don't appreciate the "when this fails" comment. I don't think this will fail but you're free to your own opinion so I'll leave it at that. Anyway, you've all been very helpful and I thank you for your time.

mattdamon

[This message has been edited by Piece of work (edited December 04, 2005).]

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

Good luck with it.
I will keep an eye on it.

Up to $300 per story sounds like a lot of money for a startup magazine -- but may draw more response than the 'up to $50' crew -- keep us in the loop here at hatrack.

Hoptoad (tassie)

Posted by yanos (Member # 1831) on :

Even the upto $50 markets receive lots of interest. I'd be tempted to stick to $100 if I was you, for the first few issues. Best not to bankrupt yourself before you know the lay of the land, and $300 is a high level for a startup zine.

I think what Mike is trying to tell you is that there is a great deal to learn. You might be being over-ambitious trying to do everything yourself and trying to set such a high fee. Remember you are marketing this in Australia not US and there are not many mags paying that much in the US. Reading the stories and editing is enough for 2 people full-time if you are publisging quarterly. If I was you I'd find someone with some experience to talk to first.

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

I've lost the password to my new account so I'm afraid I've had to resort back to my former one.

I can't see why two people would be needed to make one 90 page magazine in three months. I'm not going to have any co-editors, but will have at least one secretary.

I've decided to make it 2c/word up to $175. This is not going to be a quarterly magazine. It will be a monthly. That could work well with an e-zine, constantly updating it's material no doubt. But to get patron readers who have to wait three months to get the next issue seems too unreasonable to me, I'm afraid.

[This message has been edited by rustafarianblackpolarbear (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :

We're talking about Australian dollars, right?

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

Yes. I'm only after Australia writers/artists/poets etc. so that shouldn't be an issue. i don't know if I've just repeated myself, but I've answered your question to the best of my ability, so I'm happy.

Does anyone think, with the magazine coming out monthly as of July, a goal of selling 100,000 issues by the end of the first year is an unresonable goal?

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

100,000?
Yeah, that's unreasonable for a first effort unless you have one heck of a distribution plan.

I'm not sure there are very many fiction magazines with that kind of distribution numbers.

Edit: With a great international distribution plan, you might might hit 10,000 at the end of one year.

[This message has been edited by pantros (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

A reasonable guess, for an entry level speculative fiction print magazine would probably be closer to 2-4,000.

If you manage a subscription base of more than 400, you will be doing better than most similar projects.

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

By that, I meant in total from the 6 months. But yeah, how about 10,000 total?

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

For fun, I have been exploring the potential here. The largest US print speculative fiction magazines have print runs of about 200,000 and a subscriber base around 40,000.

Now, consider that you are looking at an Australian market and have not been established for decades and rethink your numbers. A realistic business model will help you succeed in your project.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

I can't really venture any real numbers without a better look at your business plan and your first edition.

You will probably want to get your premier edition printed in at least a mock-up so you can both sell it to prospective markets and sell advertising once you get a better feel for the size of your market. What is your market? Bookstores? Newstands? Will you be selling an e-zine version or just using the web to post teasers so people will then purchase the print copy?

Do you have an advertising plan beyond putting a flashy cover and hoping people will notice it on the magazine racks?

You do seem to actually want to invest the effort into this to take this all the way.

How many stories will you include in the first edition? How much will you have to pay for the works? Will you be including your own fiction as a sort of vanity press? How much does it cost to print per copy? Given that, How big of a first run can you print?

Now, as I understand it, the actual RoI on a $5 magazine is about $1.

Now you know if you afford the start-up.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

And, just for the record, my relevant background is purely general business. There are people around here with actual magazine publishing background. This will give you a feel as to how many grains of salt go best with my advice.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

Hey Piece-of-work/rustafarian-black-polar-bear;
I published a non-fiction wildlife magazine with national distribution for four and a half years here in Australia. If you want to talk at all about my experiences, feel free to drop us an email. BTW the magazine is still going, but I exited stage left.

But then again, you may already have plenty of helpers.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

As to Pantros:

quote:

Now, as I understand it, the actual RoI on a $5 magazine is about $1.

We had a unit cost of about $5.40, the retail price was $8.95. Subscribers want a cut-price deal, so it was $7.95 plus $8.00 postage and handling. When I finished, the distribution was 3500 per issue. We were always pushing subscriptions and promoting our back issues just to stay afloat. We found that most new subscribers would order back issues too -- which was great. The mag was full colour, 48 pp plus covers and contained about 27000 words per issue. Much of our space was taken up by images (people love their wildlife photos). Our advertising was limited, people usually opted for smaller adverts for longer periods. I sent out a lot of Advertising Spec sheets which converted to about a 1 in 5 ad placement -- which I thought was pretty good. We got about 5-10% of our subscription online so most were directly from the ads we printed in the mag itself.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

I have up to $12,500 to spend on this. Most of what ever budget I choose will go into the first publication and getting it off the ground.

I'm going to be selling it wholesale at shopping centres, from home and by post. Three friends in statewide (It's a huge state!) rural towns have agreed to take fifty each to distribute them for a profit to both of us. I'm also going to be putting weekly advertisements in the State Newspaper that month advertising it. Most of all, though, I will be counting on word of mouth. It's going to be a professionally published, colour but not glossy, magazine starting with 2000 prints for the first issue.

I plan to build up "regular readers" numbers gradually from there. I'm thinking of having a small, tight knit, staff and rewarding them raises for helping me achieve quarterly sales goals.

I don't know if I've said this before, but I'm planning on having critique groups weekly for writers. Whether they sell to me or not, this will energize the teen speculative fiction market here a little, which can't hurt. I'm counting on having at least a few more credentials myself by the time that starts.

Thanks for your help and the time you took to research that. Even if it was something you wanted to do, I really appreciate it. just wondering, what is a Rol? And what did you google to find out "The largest US print speculative fiction magazines have print runs of about 200,000 and a subscriber base around 40,000."?

[This message has been edited by rustafarianblackpolarbear (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

I used to live in Perth, (Kalamunda/ Lesmurdie and then down at Waterman). Where are you at?

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

Joondalup. I know of Lesmurdie. Sorry to say I can't recall the other two. But then I don't do much travelling in this state.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

I know Joondalup. Up north of Heathridge.
Waterman is the closest of those three I named.

I was wondering, its been a long time since I was there, (17 years ) Maybe you should also try distributing through game shops and comic stores. Are there many there? There used to be a great comic/game shop in the city near the train station. The bigger newsagents may be interested too in taking a few.

As to size and colour, I think a colour cover is fine, but colour throughout may be a bit of a luxury. If you have a good designer, a single colour interior can be visually stunning and cut your production costs incredibly. If you want to print a black and white interior you can always use a print-on-demand place and have it perfect bound. (It also saves you stuffing up the pagination/imposition if your designer tries to do it themself. 90 pages is a lot to keep track of. Not to mention gutter creep.) It all depends on unit price. I think 90 pages is getting a bit too big for saddle-stitching.

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

I live in Heathridge! lol. When I said Joondalup, I meant the shire, thinking that's all you might be familiar with. I'm really surprised you know about Heathridge when you, I assume, have never lived in the shire of Joondalup. There's not that many people outside the shire I know that know about Heathridge.

Yeah, I guess it makes sense to have a maximum of one colour inside the magazine if that's the case. Interesting that you ran a wildlife magazine: I'm starting voluntary work with CALM in Yellagonga Regional Park this Sunday.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

Cool!
CALM used to regulalrly contribute.
We did a story on the reintroduction of the Mala in Return to Dryandra project. The mag was Wildlife Australia Magazine I haven't been involved since Spring 2004.

(I lived with friends in Duncraig for a while, too. Used to go shopping at either Heathridge, Whitfords or Carine.)

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited December 06, 2005).]

Posted by rustafarianblackpolarbear (Member # 2638) on :

Sounds like it must have been a great magazine. Too bad I wasn't born. lol. I'll have to go see if it still exists. If you want to know if it still exists I can report if you want, though not just yet. I'm having sleeping problems at the moment and will probably be asleep by 1pm today, unfortunately.

I spent yesterday morning looking in newsagents and the local Library for a speculative fiction magazine. Couldn't find one, though. You wouldn't happen to know if Aurelias (sp?) and the like all have to be ordered?

[This message has been edited by rustafarianblackpolarbear (edited December 06, 2005).]