It's almost midnight and I'm wondering if I'm nuts...
One day I had this bright idea to create a photography magazine. I think it came to me after a bunch of long established print titles closed... magazines like American Photo and Popular Photography were in the headlines as they were announcing their closing down. So of course my thinking is create a magazine, with no budget and no subscribers.
I did have some experience, I'd been publishing digital magazines for 4 or so years - mainly pop culture and video game titles (you can see the newsstand here). But still, I literally had and still have no money to spend on creating this and promoting it. But, being a bit stubborn I gave it a go. The response from photographers I asked to interview was, at first, slow going, but then it picked up speed and we produced our first issue...
It got a fairly good readership too. Around 25,000 people which might not sound a lot but compared to other digital magazines, it was a pretty healthy first issue.
Then I began working on issue 2, still no budget, no money, a small subscriber base and a whole lot of other stresses to distract me. My job was changing and I'd soon be working 2 - 3 jobs part time as a consultant. Add to that we decided to sell our home, go on a holiday we'd planned months ago and try to put together a second issue that, I hoped, would be better then the first.
Thankfully the people I contacted to be involved were amazingly supportive and we featured some very talented people. It too got a healthy start in reader numbers but then work changed and I went overseas for almost 5 weeks and I couldn't promote it the same way I did for issue 1. The thing I've learnt about digital publishing in general is you are always hustling. Always promoting, always trying to get others to see your vision and help promote the title. After all, it features amazing artists and it's free - who wouldn't want it? The problem is that in today's social media drenched world, there is so much content, so much "noise" out there that people are swimming in information, maybe sometimes drowning in it. Social media gave everyone the chance to have an opinion, good or bad. Businesses could now promote products, services and information all over people's news feeds. It got crazy for a while - small businesses I was involved with felt social media was the answer to all their marketing dreams. Post a link and customers would flock in. Well that didn't happen and now it's going to be less likely as Facebook and now Instagram are strangling organic reach ... you want customers - you gotta pay for 'em!
So now I"m working on issue 3. I've got some big names again supporting me, but I need to grow my subscribers. I need a bunch of additional subscribers to keep the momentum going. I'm hoping that anyone reading this might share this link below and be part of our community. Be part of a dream to build a free but quality magazine about the photographers who create those brilliant images we love to look at on our screens. If you'd like to help - here's the link to subscribe. Share it if you like, and help me keep things building. Click the image below and subscribe - it takes 10 seconds... thank you.
