Publishing companies must first decide on what type of texts they want to publish, for example they can publish books, newspapers or magazines, and then they can also select certain genres or types of these things such as music magazines, tabloid newspapers or fictional books. After this, editors must then select titles they wish to publish that fit with their publishing program and also are expected to succeed to a certain level, a timetable is set up for how often it will be published, deadlines for the writers and when the text is handed off to be published. The publisher will pay for all expenses for publishing the magazine upfront with no guarantee of a profit, meaning the publishers have to strongly consider if what they are looking to publish will make a profit.
After reviewing various publishing companies I have concluded that a publishing company that would likely publish our magazine is 'Bauer Media Group', they are a German based publishing company but operate in the UK for various successful music magazines such as 'Q', they manage a portfolio of over 600 magazines and so would be perfect for providing support and help for the magazine start up which could transcend into advice on the future of the magazine as it grows.
A distributor is someone who supplies goods to a retailer, in the case of magazine publishing they will be the ones who put your magazine in shops all over the country for people to buy. Frontline would be a good distributor for my magazine as they distribute to over 55,000 retailers and have experience in many different types of magazine including mojo music magazine. The majority of the business they do is UK based which is beneficial as UK indie artists do not tend to generate a lot of interest overseas meaning the distributor will operate mostly in areas containing our target audience.
There are multiple ways of raising the money to create the magazine, one of these ways is to ask musicians in the industry to promote the idea and get fans of the genre to donate on a kickstarter fund with a free first edition to all those who donate a certain amount, once the initial money is raised to create the magazine it will be self funded by money made from sales of the magazine. Another way to raise the money would also be to ask musicians within the genre to invest in the idea for a share in the company, similar to the music streaming service 'Tidal' which is owned and was funded by a number of hip-hop artists including J Cole, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Beyonce and Rihanna. This is the idea that I think would be best for my magazine as it allows for the chance to gain promotion through the artists themselves, an example of this is seen with Kanye West promoting 'Tidal' by releasing his 2016 album 'The Life Of Pablo' exclusively on the surface.
Institutionally my magazine is similar to 'NME' and 'Q' so my magazine would be released in a similar fashion. They are published every two or three months with a set amount each time, only around a quarter of all music magazines published go to stores as the majority of prints go direct to subscribers of the magazine, this is also the same for 'NME' and 'Q'. This is because most readers of the magazine each week are repeat ones and therefore a subscription is beneficial.
Due to the decline in magazine sales across the entire industry, but especially so in music magazines over the last 10 years due to the ever fasting increase in popularity for internet based information and entertainment sources, I would not release my magazine in general stores as costs may exceed income generated from sales. Therefore I would sell magazines at music events such as festivals and concerts, but also at stores where magazine purchases are noteably higher above averages such as at airport WH Smith's.
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