9 Tips for Successfully Starting a Magazine

Do you want to start your own magazine? In the United States, you will find competition with 7,537 other print magazines already published.

Do not let this statistic deter you from following your dream. Instead, step up your game!

Read on to learn 9 words of advice for starting a magazine!

1. Table of Contents

   Toggle

   Choose Your Niche

Your niche will help drive your business when writing a magazine. Narrow down as much as possible and stick with your niche.

For example, if you know you want to create a magazine about health, decide whose health you want to write about (men’s, women’s, kid’s, senior citizen’s, pet’s, etc.)

Then, take that in more by deciding which factor of health you want to focus on. You could choose pregnancy, aging health, living with a specific illness, fitness, etc.

Tapering your options may seem to limit what you can write about and your audience. But, choose something you feel passionate about and you will find endless ways to fill your niche creatively.

It will also strengthen your reader base since people will know what to expect. This will also help you attract advertisers!

Check-in with your competition. You may want to take a different spin on the same niche, or you may want to rethink your niche if you find a powerhouse already taking it on.

2. Define Your Audience

Who will you speak to? Just like you need a tight niche, you want a well-defined target market.

If you try to please everybody, you will probably satisfy nobody. Narrow down your audience with age, education level, region, and areas of interest.

Once you decide on your audience, speak to them. Everything in your magazine should revolve around what they need, want, and enjoy.

3. Distill Your Objectives

Once you know your niche and target market, make your objectives clear. Refine your goals so that you and your readers know exactly what you set out to accomplish with this magazine.

Does your magazine sell items related to your niche? Or does it offer useful information to readers?

Maybe your magazine will take on a creative edge to simply expand minds and satiate the soul. Will this creativity come through in the writing, in the photographs, or both?

Like any other company would, write a vision and mission statement for yourself, to create a clear direction. Then write out for yourself clear ways that it will meet those goals.

If you do not distill your objectives, you run the risk of creating a wishy-washy magazine. This will lose readers and advertisers alike.

4. Fill Ad Space

Once you solidify your magazine idea, pitch to advertisers! Most of your money actually comes from here, and not from magazine sales themselves.

Create a mock magazine so that potential advertisers can visualize your idea.

When deciding which companies you want to pitch to, keep your audience in mind. What products or services will benefit them?

In answering this question, you develop the, ‘why’, when advertisers ask the benefits of paying for an ad in your magazine brings to them. Creating a symbiotic relationship between you, readers, and the advertisers will keep your magazine in motion.

5. Stay Consistent

Constantly changing your magazine setup creates more work for you and leaves readers unsure of what to expect. If they really enjoy a specific section in one issue and cannot find it in the next, you may lose them to disappointment.

Create a content skeleton for every issue of your magazine. It will also help you to decide how many pages each section from your table of contents will get ahead of time.

6. Don’t Allow Stagnancy

Though you want consistency so your readers fall in love with the familiar, don’t get too comfortable. Keep pushing boundaries with the content you provide for each content section.

Keep up on current events so you know what your readers want to read about. Think outside of the box for how you can present your information.

Offer a variety of delivery styles. For example, use a mixture of expert interviews, how-to articles, straight facts, infographics, and creative stories that pertain to your content.

7. Make It Visually Appealing

If people only wanted to read, then they would pick up a book. Your readers expect good visuals from your magazine.

First, make sure they match your content. Do not ever use stock photos.

For each photoshoot, pay attention to detail. Whether shooting a person, pet, food natural setting, or anything else, perfect placement and lighting. Something small can set you apart from your competition

Only use high-quality photographs that do not appear blurry or pixilated. Choose professional wholesale magazine printing for a flawless finish.

8. Captivate With Your Cover

As people pass by the shelf, a magazine cover can catch their attention. You will count on this until readers get to know what it’s all about.

Your image should reach out and pull your readers in. When designing a magazine cover, do not overdo it. Place one focal point that really lands.

Offer a few highlights of what they will find inside. But do not overwhelm them with type.

Create a good balance of picture and print. Leaving some blank space will help everything else pop.

9. Name Your Magazine With Purpose

Pick a name that your readers can remember. It should flow off the tongue and sound snappy.

Get creative and play with words. With that said, do not title it so obscurely that nobody knows what it means.

The name should match your magazine’s content and main purpose. Pay attention to competitors though. Naming it too closely to their magazine may lead readers to them instead!

Have Fun Starting a Magazine

Starting a magazine provides you the opportunity to share knowledge and creativity with the world. Entering the entrepreneurial world can feel overwhelming, but it also offers a sense of excitement. Your attitude towards it will come through in your content, so have fun!

Are you looking for content ideas to add to your magazine? Read through our news, travel, entertainment, and other sections for awesome ideas.