Starting a photo story/essay magazine

[CallibCarver]

Howdy everyone,

I am putting together the fine details of this idea still, but I'm looking to start a photo story/essay style magazine. I want it to be both informative and maintain a high quality journalistic ethic & style, while embracing the artistic side of photography.

I haven't picked a name yet, but that isn't a huge concern at the moment. I wanted to not only reach out to any photographers that would be interested in working on the magazine, which would be published digitally, but to get advice from anyone who has worked or created a similar project.

I have worked on photo essays, multi -media pieces, and similar projects before and as a photojournalist this is my passion.

So any tips, suggestions, comments, concerns, etc. about how to publish, create content, style of photos, size of photos, questions, or really anything would be greatly appreciated. Please don't take this as me being clueless on the topic because I'm not, but I always like to see what other people are thinking. It helps me iron out ideas and in turn bounce ideas off of them.

MY IDEA

I want to publish these photo stories in either a video slideshow of the photos with audio playing in the background, the traditional print style (like in a news paper) with the photos being the main piece of content and no more than 250-300 (give or take) words, or even in short documentary style videos.

I'd love to move beyond publishing on a website, which would be the main place of publications, but I have looked into having a Android & iOS app built and it can be done professional and affordably for my budget. The app could be a free or paid app, or have a free and paid version. The website itself could display very minimal ads, no more than say one footer and one on the navigation bar.. As a journalism major I see news sites with to many ads that just turn you off to the site no matter what the news is.

In an idea world we would publish a new piece every day, but starting out I personally would aim for one a week (As I'm the only person on this project at the moment), but my goal for the site is two to three stories per week.

Each story would be produced in a journalistic fashion, but the photos or video would have an artistic quality to them, while not breaking photojournalism standards.

This is the raw idea and I didn't want to write a book length posting. Also sorry for any typos or errors. I'm posting this through my phone and we all know it can be difficult to type on a touch screen sometimes.

Thanks.

 

[amolitor]

Is there a business model here?

You've proposed a couple of tiny revenue streams, which will actually start out as zero, and build up from there to extremely small assuming you can find an audience. If you can find a very large audience, you might be able to work your way all the way up to merely small.

Basically, you are describing a web site with some photo essay content. Let's say you want to put together 52 essays/stories a year, you're probably talking about, what, two full-time-equivalent photo-essayists, maybe? You'd know better than I, but I sure wouldn't want to to try to put together a high quality photo essay in less than a couple weeks of full time effort. So, whether it's 2 full timers, or 52 people each putting in 2 weeks a year, it's two FTEs.

Good luck and all that, I personally like the format. There's probably no money in it, though.

What you COULD do it target a boutique audience. People who are in to it, who love your style, and who want in. Put together a sample photo essay and video, high production values and show your stuff and style as best you can. Try to show that you can in fact make this happen. Put together a kickstarter campaign to launch it, and make it expensive, $400/year or something. Raise $100,000, and pay a could people to help you pull the content off. Commit to 40 full length photo stories a year, so your $400 subscription is really $10/story.

Figure out how to promote it, whatever you do. The content's tough, but it's the easy part.

 

[Overread]

Another point that I didn't catch is who your target market (or markets) are. Any magazine or production tends to clearly identify (for themselves) who they are pitching to primarily as their audience and who they want as a market. You need to clearly work out who you are intended to write for and pitch to and thus that will dictate the nature and detail required in the articles.

It will also determine the level of quality and detail as well as the styles of work and also the nature of any advertising drives that you perform. Certain markets won't react well to certain areas - for example "overcooked HDR" is less likely to interest a matured experienced market whilst on the other hand it would likely really interest a beginner market more (That is a VERY rough generalisation of course).

 

[curtyoungblood]

I don't think the production schedule that you've outlined is practical. The kind of projects you're talking about take a lot of time, and aren't easy to do well on a time crunch. Informative pieces that maintain a high journalistic standard, while being artsy, and that actually tell a story aren't easy, and I can't see how you'd be able to publish that 2-3 times a week. I think you'd need to find some type of filler content that would keep people interested, but isn't terribly time-consuming. The easy idea is high school sports.

Your description of your project has a lot of great ideas for things that you're planning on doing in the future (mobile, print, video, etc), but it doesn't sound like you have a strong understanding the small steps you're planning on taking to achieve your goal. You need to know exactly what you're going to do right now to succeed.

Where are you going to find your stories? I'm not sure I could reliably come up with 2-3 stories a week if I really wanted to.

Finally, it wasn't entirely clear, but are you trying to make a living off this, make a little money, or just do it for fun?

 

[CallibCarver]

I would ideally like to make money off this, but at this point it is a hobby and my way of pre suing my passion for photo essays/stories that my current job on my paper doesn't always allow, and by allow I mean they don't typically do big photo pieces. I have dont my fair share of these projects and know the steps involved, but I did not mean that I personally would produce two or three a week. But I would, again ideally, have other photographers working on their own project(s) and we would publish regularly.

I do admit that two or three a week is a lot, and that it would be more reasonable to say two, three, or four a month, if there were more than one person producing content.

 

[Steve5D]

Maybe I'm just blind to some of the nuances of this, but how is what you're proposing any different than a slickly produced blog?

 

[curtyoungblood]

my current job on my paper doesn't always allow

Are you on staff with a newspaper?

If so, talk to your boss and his/her boss about your idea before you take a single step. This could easily be considered competition and be frowned upon.

 

[Light Guru]

I did not mean that I personally would produce two or three a week. But I would, again ideally, have other photographers working on their own project(s) and we would publish regularly.

Unless you are going to be paying these photographers you are not going to find enough relabel people who will acutely get their projects in on time. And based on what I have read you are not going to make enough to pay photographers.

 

[Light Guru]

Maybe I'm just blind to some of the nuances of this, but how is what you're proposing any different than a slickly produced blog?

Yea thats kinda what it sounds like to me. And nobody is going to pay to read a blog, you have to offer something more.

What out should do is have the basic free blog and then after a whole once that has gained a following then you would be able to start offering a payed subscription to your more exclusive articles in magazine format.

Bu first you need to get that following, and I don't see that happening with out a free blog or other web version first.

 

[CallibCarver]

1) I freelance between local publications, online, and then I also write for my college paper. So I'm not technically on staff anywhere outside my college. So I am able to work on whatever as I'm not contractually obligated to only produce content for one publication.

2) I do want to make money with this, like any other person and their passion for an art, task, or what have you. BUT I don't intend to implement a subscription system right off the back, if at all. Again while I'd like to make money I'd rather reach an audience.

 

[ryanwaff]

Your overall concept doesnt seem to solid by way of the format you want the stories to take. I think that an andriod / IOS app is probably the most lucrative market. But again depends on who your target market is and what content you will have in the stories.

So for example, if you produce stories about particular shots which in the story part, the photographer speaks about things they found difficult about the shoot, what they would have done differently and a couple of tips for that genre of photography which people can then read while on a shoot from their phone or tablet and implement there and then could potentially work quite well.

But like others have said, if you are aiming to just post some photo stories in a blog format, that market is over saturated already and trying to make money there will be like sucking water from a rock.

Reading what you wanted to do reminded me slightly of this one magazine called "Extraordinary Vision" which I have on my ipad, its free and honestly one of the best magazines I have read about photography. They post issues every month for free, so I am absolutely hooked, and then they post special edition magazines on specific topics which they then charge something like $5 for. I recommend you take a look at it. Because if you produce free articles that your consumers can read on the go, they like the content because it has informative tips then they will be more than likely willing to purchase your 'special edition' magazines which will have more tips and tricks in them.

 

[imagemaker46]

I would have said 10 years ago that starting up a magazine would have been a risky venture. I know too many people that started publications with money in the bank, produced a great looking first issue, an ok looking second one, and then the quality of paper they used dropped off in order to save money on the third, finally with no money left in the bank, they all went under. If you look into all the print publications that have folded over the past 10 years you'd reconsider even starting one. On the other hand if you can raise a couple hundred thousand dollars, find enough people willing to advertise, printers, layout, and then a distribution method that will get the magazine on the stands, you might have a good shot at running it for a handful of issues.

You may be better off considering one issue with solid photo stories, and run it as a test. It is still going to cost a lot to produce, and it has to be good, really good to survive past one issue. Print publications are folding all the time, dumping staff and going online only. It's a tough market these days and a tough sell. Do all your homework before walking into a venture that may end up costing you too much money.

 

[CallibCarver]

It is a digital publication, we wont actually print anything.

 

[Overread]

Even without print costs you'll have many others to cover.

It sounds like you'd be better set identifying an existing online publication and maybe applying to work for them; produce a few articles and show them the style and quality that you'd bring to their publication and let them worry about financing and sourcing income whilst you can concentrate on teh writing.

If you want to "run" something like this you won't have much writing time as you'll have to source writers to produce articles (and pay them) as well as find advertising backing; marketing; hosting etc.... You can do this yourself as a free site no problems; but if you want to go serious you'll have to work at it.
Also most if not all online magazines have extensive connections to social media alongside their own forums so you'll have to hook into them as well in order to keep up with the competition.

 

[spacefuzz]

It sounds like an interesting project, but I think you need to structure it around monetezation from the beginning. Look at airshowstuff online magazine, it tried to monetize after a year of free issues and got slapped down so hard I think it broke the founders pride into a thousand pieces. They were able to get good contributions in trade for press access to air shows, but werent every able to pay photographers or really make any money for themselves.