Anyone have experience or info on creating an online Magazine?

I am looking to create a magazine, automotive/motorsport (modified Japanese and maybe the odd V8 or muscle car) but have very little knowledge of online publishing.

I have written and shot for several mags, been the editor of one (all print) and a part time journo for the local paper for several years...but, i'm just not up on the electronic side of publishing.

I assume I need a website, maybe with the latest version of the "mag" downloadable as a PDF? That's about as far as I've got...

Many US Online+Print Magazines use MagCloud.com for distribution. They will sell digital and print editions, add your custom markup to cost, and send you the difference every quarter. Since this is a US based company, I'm not sure if its even economical to serve NZ customers, but perhaps they may recommend someone.


Good Luck-
Scott

Not sure what your wanting, here is one option:http://www.flashpagefl​ip.com/demos.asp
and if you google wordpress magazine theme you will find many options.

There are many premium (paid) Wordpress themes for magazines and especially for automotive niches.

http://themeforest.net​/tags/magazine

https://www.3dissue.co​m/ is the one I've seen that works the best. As mentioned in this thread, there's MANY options for software that has the 'page flip' feeling. http://issuu.com/ is another one I've seen used on a few sites.

I think the publishing / technology portion is the easiest part. Making money from an e-zine is the difficult part since it's pretty much the worst of both physical and digital publication (no 'leave-behind' viewership like print, horrible SEO, slower to publish than wordpress or 'blog' style pages due to the need to layout the content, too low of resolution in most cases to print and 'hang on the wall', all page views and time spent on pages is tracked closely and tends to trend well below standards for other electronic publishing, etc.)

Unless you're a physical magazine that is transitioning to digital and using this as an intermediary before going to a blog-style site, I can't understand why anyone would think that moving to this 'page flip' style of magazine is a good idea.

Thanks for the replies.

To clarify, I am wanting to start a completely new magazine, mostly for the local market.

No print version (the cost of a print version, for a privately funded, stand alone mag in NZ is ridiculous considering the complete lack of any economy of scale with such a small population).

I would be producing all the content and layout, with advertising for revenue.

It's an ongoing project/idea... as a writer/photographer who is also trained in graphic design, i figure it's a good use of my abilities, would be a lot of fun (and a lot of work, i know, I've done it before)...

I would say your biggest challenges are:

1) Advertising yourself - or rather the magazine. You've got to find the magical way to stand out against the crowd and draw in readers/buyers. In fact I'd say this is likely to be the biggest and most time-consuming aspect of the whole setup.

2) Advertising within the magazine; its a balancing act. You've got to have enough adverts to make it profitable; but at the same time if Joe Blogs opens your magazine and over half is adverts then; yes the ads are paying their way; and yes online Joe is going to go "eh this ain't worth it all I'm buying is ads" and away he goes.
Indeed if you look at online magazines in the comic industry online many are shifting away from advertising revenue and now going for donation approaches; offering perks for paying fans and sourcing money direct. This is generally only valid for those which have an already established large user base. That said the advertising system is suffering online - ad-blocks are effective and more and more people use them.

You're right. I may look at outsourcing the advertising aspect, although I do still have a few contacts from my print mag days, dealing with ad managers from the likes of Castrol etc

Would be looking at a ratio of approx 4 or 5 content pages to each ad page, however, homepage adverts and homepage/magazine hyperlinks to current advertising deals/special items/offers should also work in the favour of advertisers...

A couple of questions . . .

Your thread says "online magazine", but if it's online, how is that different from a well done web site that sells advertisement and has great periodic content?

If you are talking about an electronic magazine (that can be downloaded and read on a tablet while off line) that is a different question/challenge. I would think this has more challenging aspects (especially selling advertisements).

Perhaps start with a good-better-great (over time) website. Once you have a strong following, then think about the next step (E-Zine).

Just my 2 cents.

JacobPhoto wrote in post #17455480
https://www.3dissue.co​m/ is the one I've seen that works the best. As mentioned in this thread, there's MANY options for software that has the 'page flip' feeling. http://issuu.com/ is another one I've seen used on a few sites.

I think the publishing / technology portion is the easiest part. Making money from an e-zine is the difficult part since it's pretty much the worst of both physical and digital publication (no 'leave-behind' viewership like print, horrible SEO, slower to publish than wordpress or 'blog' style pages due to the need to layout the content, too low of resolution in most cases to print and 'hang on the wall', all page views and time spent on pages is tracked closely and tends to trend well below standards for other electronic publishing, etc.)

Unless you're a physical magazine that is transitioning to digital and using this as an intermediary before going to a blog-style site, I can't understand why anyone would think that moving to this 'page flip' style of magazine is a good idea.

Indeed. don't forget slow. there's no need to beat around the bush. you might as while "publish" on toilet paper. NOBODY going to look through this flip book format. It's been DOA for 10 years.

Downloadable Ebook PDFs yes...print material yes...BLOG STYLE EZINE.... YES.....on line 'flip books' ?!!! Dude, NO.

Just create a wordpress site. There are many of templates available. You'd need your own dedicated server or a VPS so that your site loads faster, and some basic SEO.

Good luck!

Thanks for all the suggestions, i'm still looking into it...