Self-Publishing Your Own Magazine

In between working on a new web project, I spent most of today going through tons of emails. Two of them happened to be about the SistaSense Magazine, which gave me the idea to write this post about my self-publishing a magazine – journey thus far aka the “Day I decided to turn my Blog into a Magazine!”

Starting up your own magazine on a large scale can be a lot of work and a lot of money, but of course SistaSense always finds a smart way to start on new business venture on a budget. About two years back I discovered MagCloud.com, a great print on demand service that allows you to produce your own original magazine. The big pro about MagCloud is that you pay for what you need, so there are no larger up front printing costs and you can easily sell your magazine via your own magcloud store. Your magazine price is the total of printing costs + your desired profit. The only downside is that print on demand magazines tend to cost more, because bulk printing is cheaper. Fortunately, my experience selling SistaSense Magazine, has taught me that people are willing to pay more for a special interest magazine they enjoy.

SistaSense Magazine is actually a print version of my blog. With years of great content, I thought it would be fun to finally see my digital work in print and it’s also a creative way to monetize the content on my blog (as Pam and I talked about in the video here).

If you are interested in self-publishing your own magazine, definitely look into a MagCloud. I am a web/graphics designer so I write, design and publish everything in the magazine on my own. You will need to think about the following questions:

• Will you be working on your own or with a team of journalists?
  I pull from my best blog posts.
• What images will you use and where will you find them?
  I get most of my photos from istockphoto and bigstockphoto.
• What tools will you use to produce your magazine?
  I use MS Publisher.
• How big do you want your magazine to be?
  I generally do issues that are 28 pages long. More pages take more time to produce and more money to print.
• How often will you produce your issues?
  I started out with the goal of doing 6 issues (one monthly). I have so much on my plate after the first 6 issues I decided to low down, and do issues bi-annually and special quarterly issues when time permits.

Beyond making the extra income, I love the fact that having my blog in print format gives me the ability to have these great SistaSense Branded products that I use as gifts at my live events and/or sellable products and conferences and expos. Have you ever considered turning your blog into a magazine, even if it’s only one issue, it would be great promotional content for you! And if you would like me to help custom design your special Blog to Magazine Issue, contact me for details and I’ll give you a price quote.

If you are currently self-publishing your own magazine, be sure to post on the BBWO Network discussion post: Her Magazine: Publications by Women Entrepreneurs. And be sure to browse my complete list of sistasense tutorials for more blogging for profit tips and links to the web tools and services I use to produce my custom branded products and promotional items online.