On Nov 27, 2005, at 9:38 AM, Bob W wrote:
My main interest in photography is in photojournalism, documentary and
reportage, which are not particularly well served by the magazine
market,
for reasons that are perhaps obvious. The few that are around (like
'ei8ht')
fit this description exactly. 'Reportage' was the same, but even so
couldn't
keep going. I don't mind the high subscriptions to help magazines
like this.
The problem with starting/running a magazine like that is finding
enough people like you who are willing to pay the necessary high
price. That's why most of them fail. It would really require a
financial "angel" to do one right. I searched for such a person for
a long time and never found him/her. Doing a magazine right, with
good paper and high quality printing/binding costs a lot. But the
single biggest item in a magazine budget is always postage. Postage
to mail a magazine costs more than all other costs combined! And it
is scheduled to go up again soon.
Also, how many realize that the Post Office dictates editorial/
advertising percentage. You have to have the right percentages or
you can't get reduced postal rates. I think the current ratio is
70/30 in favor of advertising. It's averaged over the year, and we
always had to do a bunch of last minute juggling to get the yearly
average to come out right.
Bob
