Website For Magazine?

Randy Savage

Hey, Im putting together a regional free bi monthly magazine this summer. Looking at getting a website done but nothing too technical, ideally starting off I would like to just have magazine appear page by page like a digital version so people who dont have the printed version can go online and read it. Something like www.lecool.com



Or a standard website with a PDF File of the magazine available to download could be good either, just wondering would anyone have any advice on this as my knowledge is limited. Have a designer on board just need someone with the know how of how to get eveything up on line.

Im working off a relativly small budget too so I understand it can be tough to do on a limited budget.

Thanks in advance...........

aidan_walsh

We do not allow solicating work on this forum, so I am going to leave this open for "how-to" information.

Pixelcraft

Sounds like Issuu would do you. Though, putting a digital copy online like that is a quick fix, it's not using the web at all for any benefit.

aidan_walsh

An online PDF version is not a bad idea if you're aiming to break into the (somewhat small) e-reader market, but other than that...

Sposs

How about wordpress with a magazine style theme - http://deluxethemes.com/

Sully

How about something like this; http://cde.cerosmedia.com/1C49242977281df012.cde

We came across this ourselves and hope to use it.

Surprised your own designer doesn't know how to put everything together or at least recommend someone.

Hydrosylator

If you're going to have a magazine on a website, there's a few things I'd say.
Lecool's presentation of the pages looks really slick, but won't bring much traffic in from searches, if that's what you want to do. I'd say have a seperate page for every article.

As Aidan Walsh hinted above, pdf's are probably a bad idea. They'd use more bandwidth than normal web content, so would cost you more money if you get popular. And, they're a clunky, ugly way of presenting content on a website.

I attempted publishing before myself, and I'd strongly advise a web-only approach. Printing costs are lethal. Also you'd need advertising to fund it, and advertising is worth shag all right now, and before that, there wasn't much of it in Ireland for small publications anyway.

The lads who did Mongerel magazine never got to quit the day job, and they were very good. The mag died.

There's more people reading Nialler9's music blog than there are reading Hot Press.

If anybody gets a full-time job on a new print publication, it's the person selling ads. With a website, you can use Google Adsense to take some of the load off, and you don't have deadlines.

Also, I noticed elsewhere that you were planning a Meath/Louth distribution. That's a wide area to cover with magazines, another reason to seriously consider web.

I know print is a lot sexier and everyone loves a cool-looking, alternative, magazine, but trust me on this one. Me and my partners had our hearts broken trying to meet costs for making an distributing our magazine, and never turned into a job for any of us. If we knew then what we know now, and had the web that we have now, we would have been all about the web.
It's cheaper, it provides an infinite canvas, people can hear the music instead of just reading about it, and if you throw in judicious use of social networking sites, you could be onto a winner.

Something to consider.