“People who are very active in a given field are great audience candidates because you already know they’re interested in that subject. If people go to conventions, buy products, join clubs, or even subscribe to other publications on a certain subject, they might well subscribe to your periodical on the same topic.”
- Quote from ‘Starting & Running a Successful Newsletter or Magazine’ -
As Café Construct we recognise that there are several paths one can take within the Construction Industry and it inspired the selection of this month’s read: Starting and Running a Newsletter or Magazine by Cheryl Woodland.
For our followers interested in publication within the Construction industry you can start off with our podcast episode with Arch. Martin Tairo on how he created the Buildesign Magazine in Kenya. You can listen to the episode here.
After listening to the podcast episode, supplement it with this book. Cheryl Woodland, the author, does a great job of taking you step by step with the decisions involved in creating a successful publication all down to recognising problems and possible solutions.
She starts out by speaking of the ecosystem and careful balance involved in churning out a publication. On one end you have to be thoughtful with the content that your readers will be interested in while at the same time keeping in mind the interests of advertisers.
There is a challenge in creating quality products and also keeping in mind that you are running a business and you have to think about the related costs. Ultimately Cheryl does not hide it that the publishing revenues have to exceed or at the very least match the expenses involved.
She dares you to ask yourself if indeed the discussions you want to bring to the surface will only need a book to solve and exhaust or a regular publication as they cannot be exhausted in one sitting. So much of the success of your magazine or newsletter lies in an audience seeking constant answers or having constant interest in whatever you bring to the table with every issue.
Once you get your audience on lock, the look and feel of your publication comes next…keeping in mind the creative solutions versus the cost implications. This needs a careful balance- as she puts it- “Art meets reality…Yes, it’s beautiful, but how much does it cost?”
In Kenya we have seen test/sample newspapers in distribution, the same is required of magazines and newsletters once crucial issues like the layout, rate of publication and pricing are sorted. The book guides you on this and other mini-events leading up to solid operations involved. How to shift strategies depending on the evolving needs of your target audience while still keeping the overall business plan in mind.
A well-written book that you can get through easily because it does not lose you in its complexity. These are the topics you will get into in each chapter:
Smart publishing, Building the reader relationship, developing your circulation strategy, subscription budgeting and profitability, building your advertising business, adding more products, raising money and working with investors, gathering and using financial information, getting help from other people, managing employees, an internet publishing strategy, making strategies, troubleshooting and finally resources for publishers.
We highly recommend it! Any person in the world of written content stands to greatly benefit from this 460 page read.
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