Northern photography publication

welly

welly

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Alastair
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Hey guys,

I'm thinking about publishing a journal/magazine/zine for photography in the north of England. It's going to be a pretty DIY affair but I'm just looking for some feedback as to whether people reckon it's something worth pursuing.

Basically my idea is to produce a bi-yearly or quarterly print publication to showcase photographers in the north of England (sorry, southerners!), hopefully have sponsorship/advertising to cover the cost of printing and distribute the magazine for free.

The kind of content is going to be more portfolio/gallery/showcase of photographers in the north as opposed to "this is how you take a photo", and will also include info on events etc. It's pretty much going to be a picture book/photo album!

I've worked in publishing before so have a reasonable idea of how it all works and I loved doing that so wanted to start something else up. No ambitions to become the big publishing mogul but thought it could be a fun and interesting project for myself and of course if anyone here is interested in getting involved, please do because it's not something I could take on myself!
 
welly said:
hopefully have sponsorship/advertising to cover the cost of printing and distribute the magazine for free.
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Yikes, I spent almost 10 years of my life doing this every month with a print-run upto 60,000 copies a month. A thankless task and very difficult to make any real money. If you really want to publish a magazine I'd recommend you look into making it a paid for title. If it's free, it must be worthless. You get nothing for free nowadays.
 
Sorry welly, but your idea doesn't have any chance at all. Stone dead zero, mate :(

I've spent 30 years in photo magazine publishing and this is the worst time ever to think about a printed publication of any sort, let alone a specialist title. Not directly due to the current economic situation, it's the internet that has killed the market. Everyone is struggling ATM, some of the biggest photo brands are shutting down even as I write, and more will follow in 2009.

Ironic that you should float this idea on the internet ;)

Richard.
 
HoppyUK said:
Sorry welly, but your idea doesn't have any chance at all. Stone dead zero, mate :(
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Blimey, you might as well have flopped it out and started peeing. :D

I'm not sure I'd write it off completely. The web might be great for sharing pics, but it's hardly showcase quality. I think if you went more down the fine art route as a 'showcase' of northern talent, printed to a high enough standard, decent large format and quality stock, it might be worth exploring. Almost like a soft-backed book every 6 months. Might even be arts funding available for such a project?

I think the killer phrase in your original post regarding the above though is "It's going to be a pretty DIY affair".
 
HoppyUK said:
Sorry welly, but your idea doesn't have any chance at all. Stone dead zero, mate :(

I've spent 30 years in photo magazine publishing and this is the worst time ever to think about a printed publication of any sort, let alone a specialist title. Not directly due to the current economic situation, it's the internet that has killed the market. Everyone is struggling ATM, some of the biggest photo brands are shutting down even as I write, and more will follow in 2009.

Ironic that you should float this idea on the internet ;)

Richard.
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I'm not planning on it being an "on the shelf" publication to make me gazillions! Or even make me any money. I'm talking more a 16-32 page affair, with a short print run. Just a real grass roots effort. Less "Amateur Photographer" or "British Journal of Photography" and more "Reason to Believe" or "Viz" (in it's early days) but with higher quality print :) I think there's plenty of scope for something like that.
 
68lbs said:
Blimey, you might as well have flopped it out and started peeing. :D

I'm not sure I'd write it off completely. The web might be great for sharing pics, but it's hardly showcase quality. I think if you went more down the fine art route as a 'showcase' of northern talent, printed to a high enough standard, decent large format and quality stock, it might be worth exploring. Almost like a soft-backed book every 6 months. Might even be arts funding available for such a project?

I think the killer phrase in your original post regarding the above though is "It's going to be a pretty DIY affair".
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That's exactly what I had in mind. Kind of like a half yearly journal.
 
Sorry to post such a downer on your idea, but the internet is rife with all sorts of naive notions and, sincerely, this is one of them.

The internet already provides exactly this service to an international community of many millions, not just a handful of togs up north. And it's available here, on your PC, right in front of you now. And it's also free.

Despite these quite compelling circumstances, I am not aware of websites offering the service you suggest. Okay, maybe nobody has tried, so try that first. It won't cost much more than your time. And to address the quality issue, offer hi-res downloads for people to print stuff out at home.

If it takes off, use this as a marketing portal for people to sample the publication, then order a printed magazine by post.

Meanwhile, find somebody to stump up a few grand just to get 1,000 copies 32pages A4 printed on nice paper, bearing in mind that advertisers/sponsors can get a full page ad in a national photo magazine selling (that's selling, not merely printing) 40,000 copies a month for £400.

If you think I'm being harsh, don't venture in the Dragon's Den ;)

Richard.
 
Just as a bit of history, I was the co-editor of a similar publication for 5 years, albeit on a entirely different but significantly more niche subject (mountainboarding) - I was co-editor, photographer, writer, graphic designer and occasional getter-of-advertising. We had a print run of up to 5000 in the end, and distributed it through specialist shops and other outlets. We used to make around £2 1/2k per issue in advertising (and printed 4 issues a year) and would give away the publication for free. It was a successful publication and had distribution in Europe, the US and Australia. I'm certainly not naive and not approaching this from a totally inexperienced background :)

This new project, I plan to put out maybe two issues a year and aim to distribute through camera shops, galleries etc. and just see it as an opportunity for some of the amazing talent that there is around these parts to get a bit of exposure and for people interested in art and photography something new to read. I certainly don't plan to make any money out of it.. it's just about doing something positive I suppose!
 
Welly, the point I made right at the start was that the internet has changed the media landscape forever, particularly for specialist magazines. What is the status of your mountainboarding magazine now? That is a crucial question.

BR,

Richard.
 
HoppyUK said:
Welly, the point I made right at the start was that the internet has changed the media landscape forever, particularly for specialist magazines. What is the status of your mountainboarding magazine now? That is a crucial question.

BR,

Richard.
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We stopped printing the magazine about a year and a half ago for a few reasons (the biggest one being our house was broken into and all our computer equipment stolen!), none of which the internet had any impact on. I understand that the internet has had a massive impact on publishing and media as a whole but this isn't really a traditional magazine that I'm planning on producing and more like 68lbs described as a soft-backed book. It's going to be more like the Beano annual, just with photos :)
 
If you can get good reproduction quality and good picture content I reckon there would be a market for a publication which departs from the unfortunate (and incredibly tedious:bang:) formula of news (ish, basically new kit in bitesize form), new kit, how to photoshop your stuff, letters, adverts.

The real question is where does "The North" stop being the north and become "The South":gag:
 
Then good luck to you welly. I would love to see a magazine like this succeed, as I was editor of a strongly image-based mag in the 1980s called 'Camera'. It failed. I'm trying to be realistic, that's all.

Use this site as a bit of market research and see that, right now, most people (about 50) are viewing the equipment section, followed in popularity by this section chatting general photo stuff.

There are a handful of people in most of the Photo Sharing sections. How many of the images in there fit into your Northern photo/art/gallery concept? Honestly? That's how niche it is.

BR,

Richard.

Edit: It's up to 67 in the equipment section now!
 
HoppyUK said:
Then good luck to you welly. I would love to see a magazine like this succeed, as I was editor of a strongly image-based mag in the 1980s called 'Camera'. It failed. I'm trying to be realistic, that's all.

Use this site as a bit of market research and see that, right now, most people (about 50) are viewing the equipment section, followed in popularity by this section chatting general photo stuff.

There are a handful of people in most of the Photo Sharing sections. How many of the images in there fit into your Northern photo/art/gallery concept? Honestly? That's how niche it is.

BR,

Richard.

Edit: It's up to 67 in the equipment section now!
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I do appreciate your feedback, and I do understand what you're saying but I have no plans for this to be a mass market publication or anything that will make any money other than covering it's costs or that it'll be on the shelves of WH Smiths.

If I print 1000 copies, I'll be happy. If more, then fantastic. Now obviously whether I'll find advertising on such a small scale, who knows but I'll find that out in due course. I want to produce a high quality publication with fantastic pictures in it that can be distributed in outlets that are relevant. Anything above and beyond that would be great but one step at a time :)
 
Welly, I wish you every success with your venture, it may be a difficult one ,but good luck.

PS...I`m Oop Narth, so if I can help with an image or two, I would do gladly.
 
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