community magazine - Help!

[rebellion]

Hi everyone

Just wondering what people thought of the concept of setting up a community magazine and selling advertising space to local businesses. I know mymag.co.uk offer a package doing this tho I don't believe the franchise is worth anywhere near what they are asking, but think the concept could work.

Much better to save the £3600 they are asking for and go it alone.

Not sure if it would really only take 10 hours to maintain though as they would lead you to believe.

Anyone any experience in this area?

Cheers

Reb

[Amber]

I've been involved in helping set up a magazine, and it's certainly very time consuming, especially when you're just getting started. Once a publication starts to become established and you're in a position where people are coming to you for advertising/with stories, it will take less time, but it's not exactly something that will run itself.

I definitely agree with you about the £3600. I had a look at MyMag and while they've clearly had a lot of success with it, I don't think they're offering anything you couldn't do for yourself.

[rebellion]

Thanks for the comments Amber.

[clickprofits]

Hi,

I know of someone who has started a mymag franchise recently - I can put you in touch with him if you would like to ask him any questions (pm me).
I have had a quick look at the my mag site and had the same impression as you and amber about the £3600 fee - although it depends how much 'hand holding' you require and wether you have previous experience of starting and running a business...my inclination would be to go it alone. This would also allow you the opportunity to expand and cover a wider area which I assume the franchise would not (without paying an additional fee)

[William Wilson]

We produce a community magazine during the festival, it costs us nothing the publisher sells the advertising space keeping this revenue we receive 4000 mags of which we sell to raise funds not what you want to do but deals can be struck with printers and they know how to sell ad space.

All the work was done by us regarding the copy and images, and given to the printer for setting.

[rivendale0506]

Hi There. This is my first post. I bought the My-mag franchise and our 2nd issue is about to go to print. I am still debating whether the fee was worth it, but after a nail-biting first month (and lots of filler!) we have been inundated with requests for advertising this month. It is true that if you are creative and good with words, it wouldn't be a hard to start your own mag though. Everyone who does my-mag does it very differently, the lady who started it produces a mag, jam packed full of adverts, on plain paper, black and white with a coloured card cover. It works for her but wouldn't work in our area, where there is a lot of residual income. We have had similar magazines here and I know a lot of them get thrown in the bin. Hence the reason we decided to go glossy. The main problem you will probably face setting up a community magazine is getting your pricing right. It took us ages to come up with our pricing strategy, which I still think we didn't get right as not one person has tried to negotiate a discount with us!! so we are obviously not charging enough! :smile:

Anyway, hope this helps. Our magazine is called RH10 Uncovered (we operate in and around the RH10 postcode) you can see our website at rh10uncovered.co.uk if you would like to take a look at our magazine. (I would warn you it is a large file to download!)

[FreeLocal]

We have a couple of network partners that run printed area magazines under a franchise agreement and are now with us as the website provider. We had one start this week, take a look at the early stages . . . www.ourlocalguide.co.uk

[mattk]

Would this be a free magazine or one available to purchase?

[robertm]

There's a number of newish but well-established community-inspired magazines in my area, ranging from fairly glossy (A4 magazine style, full color) to pretty basic (A5 b&W - i mean half of A4 - think thats A5? May be an audi if not!!)

So seems to be a thriving market.