There are many ways in which I could publish my magazine. There are major publishing houses such as EMAP and IPC, independent publishing houses and self-publishing houses such as Fanzine and Sniffin’ Glue.
Major publishing houses specialise in magazines which are aimed at mainstream audiences and have departments which are dedicated to specific areas in each magazine meaning they have more resources and money. This shows that major publishing houses are very powerful in the magazine industry. EMAP have three separate operating companies, focussed on customer needs in separate market areas; Events and festivals, Information services and Publishing. They own many magazines such as Screen International, Broadcast, Retail week etc. however they have owned other magazines in the past such as Smash Hits and Nintendo Office Magazine. EMAP have previously owned a magazine which is to a similar demographic to me by owning Smash Hits, it shows that they will have the resources and experience in order to make my music magazine big in the young teenage demographic music magazine industry. 
IPC focuses on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women. IPC publish very few music magazines and mainly publish life style magazines such as Look and Now. The main music magazine they publish is NME which is a very successful music magazine which is mainly aimed at men. They also have an IPC digital sales department. It reaches over 20 million unique users every month, across more than 30 sites such as www.nme.com and www.marieclare.co.uk. It helps the magazine producer to target their customers through a specific brand, defined audience group or relevant editorial context. This helps reach many of their target audiences as men, mass market women and upmarket women use the internet a lot more knower days than before. NME has built on its heritage and credibility to become a truly unique multi-platform media proposition. Across the magazine, www.nme.com, NMETV, NME Radio and the brand's live events and awards, NME reaches over one million music fans every week. Uncut is the most authoritative music and movie magazine. Every month, it celebrates all that is great in rock and film, both new and old, cult and classic. Using a major publishing house such as EMAP and IPC carries a risk as there is no guarantee it will be successful as they are not as passionate about the magazine as independent publishing houses are.
Another way to publish my magazine is through independent publishing houses. They generally focus on the high end magazines for a niche market. Normally if independent publishing houses magazine become successful and very popular, major publishing houses would buy it. One example of a independent publishing house is ‘Church of London’ which publish two magazines, Huck and Little White Lies, which embody their passion for creating something of their own, and in doing so connecting with other like-minded individuals. My music magazine is not for a niche market and so using an independent publishing house would not be the best way to reach my mainstream demographic. 
Finally, the last option of publishing my magazine is by using self-publishing houses which are online publishing, e-zine. Two main magazines use this Sniffin’ Glue and Fanzine. Sniffin' Glue is the name of a monthly punk zine started by Mark Perry in July 1976 and released for about a year. The name is derived from a Ramones song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue. Others that wrote for the magazine that later became well known journalists include Danny Baker. Although initial issues only sold 50 copies, circulation soon increased to 15,000. The innovative appeal of Sniffin' Glue was its immediacy. FANZINE is an online general culture magazine that was launched in August 2005 at the CMYK Independent Magazine Festival in Barcelona, Spain. Blogs are the cheapest, fastest and easiest way that gets your music writing out there – but that hasn't stopped a new generation of writers picking up the stapler and putting out a fanzine. Using a self-publishing house would get to my demographic of young teenage girls as more and more computers are being brought and so therefore more and more of my demographic will be using the internet. It will also help the environment as fewer trees would need to be cut down to make this magazine. However, publishing my music magazine online would mean that I would have to change the form of my magazine which would be very time consuming and may not be worth it if my magazine doesn’t hit/meet the target audience. Also printing a magazine would make the magazine look better as it would be more impressive and look more formal.
Taking everything into account I have decided to distribute my magazine using major publishing houses as I feel that my demographic is big enough for a major publishing house to be able to cater for. I think EMAP would be the best option for my magazine because even though IPC sell one of the biggest music magazines, EMAP have the experience in selling young teenage music magazine and with their knowledge and skills; they will know exactly what my demographic like and need. I will have to use synergy in order to appeal more to my demographic as the sales of magazines have been falling year on year becuase people can now get all their information on the internet. This means that I will use EMAP's knowledge in order to promote my magazine online and get the audience to interact with it. With any of the publishing houses due to audience fragmintation, I will be using synergy in my magazine by interpreting websites and advertising my product on other social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter).
No comments:
Post a Comment