This is Amy Ranahan from the
I'm just emailing because i'm really worried since my recent tutorial and wondered what your opinion on it would be.
Upon recieving my tutorial I was told that my idea has no real market and that it wasn't going to be viable.
My idea is to publish a wedding magazine and (eventual) shop which focuses on partnering with emerging talent and small local businesses to offer close contact services and personally serviced workshops for brides who consider DIY wedding approaches. We would also like to plan events that gain us status within the industry and provide us income.
So in the feedback Deb said I had no real market but i'd asked about 40 people and feedback was positive and now i'm trying to engage with more of my target audience to achieve more results.
However she also said that it generally was too financially unstable (which I too found in my research beforehand anyway) so she said to try considering an online magazine to save costs and scrap the shop/ magazine and maybe exhibit at events to raise awareness. Since the feedback I have researched into costs for income/expenditure if I should take this route and again it raises too little income to be sustainable income for myself.
Now i'm stuck, do you think I should proceed with more research or should I start my report describing my research and how it has become evident that this venture is an unsuccessful one?
I just need to know so that I can carry out appropriate work for the oncoming weeks. I need clarification that if through my research, understanding that my venture would fail as it stands, this wouldn't mean that I would fail the course or recieve a lower mark.
Many Thanks
Amy Ranahan
Fashion Design
What's the best way to grow/monetize an online magazine?
Hi everybody,
I am the co-founder of The New Student Union, an online magazine written for and by college students.
It's very much a mass collaboration project with writers from campuses across theU.S.
The site will feature a wide array of material -- everything from traditional op-eds about politics and college experiences to high-profile interviews and craft beer reviews. It's very diverse.
Thus far, I feel like attracting interest has been mildly successful. We haven't even launched yet and get an average of 2 or 3 resumes sent over everyday -- many from prestigious schools. We are at the point where we are turning down many applicants because they don't possess the journalistic skills we would like to see.
That being said, I have noticed that online media is not a particularly lucrative endeavor. At least, not until a certain threshold of unique visitors per month. Any recommendations on 1) ways to increase readership (quality isn't everything) 2) methods to monetize the site early on, outside of Google AdSense? Thanks.
I am the co-founder of The New Student Union, an online magazine written for and by college students.
It's very much a mass collaboration project with writers from campuses across the
The site will feature a wide array of material -- everything from traditional op-eds about politics and college experiences to high-profile interviews and craft beer reviews. It's very diverse.
Thus far, I feel like attracting interest has been mildly successful. We haven't even launched yet and get an average of 2 or 3 resumes sent over everyday -- many from prestigious schools. We are at the point where we are turning down many applicants because they don't possess the journalistic skills we would like to see.
That being said, I have noticed that online media is not a particularly lucrative endeavor. At least, not until a certain threshold of unique visitors per month. Any recommendations on 1) ways to increase readership (quality isn't everything) 2) methods to monetize the site early on, outside of Google AdSense? Thanks.
6 Answers
Anon User
You haven't even launched yet and you are asking about growth and monetization? Sorry to be harsh, but get real. "Growth" only matters if you first manage to capture a real audience and a seed of a brand/positioning that is worth growing. Monetization and profit sharing only matters if the volume of traffic gets to a certain point where advertisers will be interested.
Not only are you not there yet, I am afraid your starting conditions don't sound too promising to me. The idea seems to be a little too hung up on prestige and perceptions and you seem to have paid little/no attention to actual content. Your extremely broad/diverse intent doesn't indicate to me that you intend to cover "everything." It indicates to me that you intend to cover nothing. That sort of broad editorial intent is fine for a big media company with deep pockets and the actual editorial and writing depth to do the agenda justice. I doubt you have that kind of money lined up.
Calling it a "magazine" and relying on mass collaboration, with university affiliations and resumes as the screening criterion, is a recipe for a very dubious site. Chances are, you'll end up with something that looks like vanity publishing and is read by nobody other than the contributors and their immediate friends, and has no credibility elsewhere. It may end up as a site where people primarily contribute in order to have a resume-stuffer credential. Some will want to join the editorial team in order to add things like "Sports Editor" to their resumes. Such a site will likely have a spike of activity and traffic following an initial burst of enthusiasm and curiosity, but then die with a whimper.
I'd suggest the following:
Not only are you not there yet, I am afraid your starting conditions don't sound too promising to me. The idea seems to be a little too hung up on prestige and perceptions and you seem to have paid little/no attention to actual content. Your extremely broad/diverse intent doesn't indicate to me that you intend to cover "everything." It indicates to me that you intend to cover nothing. That sort of broad editorial intent is fine for a big media company with deep pockets and the actual editorial and writing depth to do the agenda justice. I doubt you have that kind of money lined up.
Calling it a "magazine" and relying on mass collaboration, with university affiliations and resumes as the screening criterion, is a recipe for a very dubious site. Chances are, you'll end up with something that looks like vanity publishing and is read by nobody other than the contributors and their immediate friends, and has no credibility elsewhere. It may end up as a site where people primarily contribute in order to have a resume-stuffer credential. Some will want to join the editorial team in order to add things like "Sports Editor" to their resumes. Such a site will likely have a spike of activity and traffic following an initial burst of enthusiasm and curiosity, but then die with a whimper.
I'd suggest the following:
1. Don't call it an "online magazine." It sounds EXTREMELY pretentious and empty. If it isn't available in print (or isn't laid out carefully in a PDF by a professional editorial staff for a good reason -- like being photo-feature heavy, or iPad-optimized), it isn't a magazine. More to the point, wanting to start a "magazine" in 2011 makes you sound rather clueless. If your ambitions are online-only, a blog (team blog) is a far better structure. Less pretentious, more substantive, better suited to what you are trying to do.
2. Starting with 5 GREAT writers, regardless of their resumes, is better than starting with 500 ordinary writers. Seed at a very high quality with a few people and grow carefully. Even if it means starting with only a few campuses. You should NOT be asking for resumes. You should be asking for writing samples or initial contributions.
3. Really think about positioning and value. What content will be on your site that isn't available on other student sites? It will take several iterations to figure this out.
4. It is completely premature to talk about ad revenues and sharing. Just because you are receiving several resumes doesn't mean you'll be able to generate great content and grow an audience. It does NOT matter how many writers you have. It matters how many READERS you have. At the moment, you have zero.
5. "New Student Union" has all kinds of connotations that are guaranteed to drive traffic away. The brand name seems to have been chosen more to project the perception of an "official" newspaper/magazine than to communicate the value proposition. It's a brand name chosen for the writers' resumes, not to connect with the readers.
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