A magazine online. monthly subscription etc

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

What do you all think of an 'online magazine'?

By that I mean a website that has information updated monthly, and each month is a fixed price to subscribe and access the info for that month
and also a yearly subscription option, of course slightly cheaper than 12 x single month price.

The most of the site is free to browse, maybe a forum that is also free, but each month new articles are released.

This isn't purely an idea to make money (although of course making money is a part of it) I have an interest, hobby, that I would love to establish a magazine and have it published and sold in the shops each month with my own product reviews in, but of course that is extremely expensive and a mammoth task to organise publication/editing etc

So the only possible alternative I have is put the mag online. There will be extensive articles and reviews of the product category I have interest in.
And these reviews would be done in the same way to the reviews of the current magazines that are already in circulation (for the same product category)
The only difference is I would provide mine online, rather than in a £3.50 magazine

Any ideas? tips or feedback

Cheers

He has: 698 posts

Joined: Jul 2005

I think the main problem you main have is the fact that so much is available on the internet at no cost. The features you have available will have to be very rare or of high quality for a great number of people to want to subscribe. However, you do say that money is not the reason you are getting in to this, so if you don't have that many subscribers, perhaps that wouldn't matter to you. In any event, you need your site (design AND content, the latter being an aspect people seem to lack) to be unique and, I hate to be a broken record, of great quality. You may have thousands of things across your website, but if they are all just quick knockoffs of things we have seen on other sites daily, it will seem repetitive and repulsive.

Good luck with your website, and I would be interested (just for personal knowledge) in what kind of content you would be featuring, and the complete site once it is, well, complete. Wink

Kurtis

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

The whole concept of paid content on the web has largely tanked. Back in the late-90s a lot of sites were trying to force people to subscribe to see content. They failed.

There are a couple of exceptions here. The first is e-books: something more extensive and authoritative than regular web content. Aaron Wall's SEO book is a good example. He pulls people in with his blog and sets up his repuation as an expert. Then people buy his book. SEOmoz has a premium members area with more extensive articles and tools (I'm not sure how well they are doing with their subscriptions - the rate is a little too steep IMO).

Another example is Before & After magazine, which I subscribe to. They release graphic design tutorials in PDF format. I once downloaded a trial from a web design magazine that was also releasing articles in PDF - some free, some for subscribers only. I think the PDF format only works when you can only deliver the information in that form. If it's text, it shoudl be web based. But that's a sidetrack.

I think this could work if a) you first establish yourself as an expert in the field, b) people aren't able to get the same type of content for free, and c) the content is actually worth paying for. I know Aaron Wall gets a lot of sales based on recommendations from readers. If yours is good enough people will tell others about it - that's what you need to be successful. Another factor would be the topic you're writing about - if there's not much available online about it then you'd be more likely to attract subscribers.

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

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Why not just have free information and have some advertising? If you don't want to deal with AdSense and the other large programs, sell ad space directly to people that are interested.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

The content I cannot reveal.
It's not anything bad, but what I will tell you is there are currently only 2-3 magazines that deal with this topic.

There is most definitely space in the market for another magazine with the same topic, mainly because of the reviews in the current mags.

Lets say its about pedal bikes, it obviously isnt, but all the other facts are true...
each month there are 10 (or whatever) of the latest bicycles being reviewed in the magazine. I am good enough to test the bikes myself and give an accurate and proffessional review on them for other bike enthusiasts to learn the good and bad points of the new bikes.

The current 3 bike magazines are completely biased towards their advertisers/sponsers.
This is actually what is happening in the current 3 magazines for thetopic I am interested in.

The reviews are inaccurate as they suck up to their sponsers and often appear to be cowardly.
Instead of saying "well, this bike wasnt very good, I could feel flex in the frame, the brakes werent responsive, seat uncomfortable" etc etc

They would instead not mention the brakes, seat or frame flex, but tell you "well of course its a wonderful bike it was made by *** and of course all the top riders use them. I loved my testing of this bike, so much fun"

Its not any use to the readers as they then go out and buy this bike and find out for themselves that the seat was awful, the brakes where rubbish etc

And this is what I want to offer. An honest unbiased opinion regardless of if it was negative or posative.
Of course, I wont simply just say the bike is rubbish. Point out the good and bad parts, and even with bad points, being realistic, the bike might be £50. So i can say "so with even the few faults, the bike is one of the cheapest on the market. So in fact, it is excellent value for money.And for this price it in fact a bargain"

This is my key selling point, as the other mags do not give this kind of review

And from researching these other mags and the people that read them, i have found out that many people feel the same as me. They can see the writers obviously give bad and biased reviews and the readers are sick of it.

As there are only 3 mags currently for this topic that all do the same thing, there is space for me too.
As I said, a magazine is a very involving business, printing, editors, deliveries to shops etc etc, so I figured make it online.

So I believe the paying for monthly subscriptions wont be a problem, if my reviews are better than the other mags' then people will pay it, it will of course be considerably cheaper than buying a magazine too.

I know there are benfits of it being a physical mag, take it to your caravan to read, to work for your dinner break etc, but I will of course make the pages printable in a neat usable way.

So really what I am asking is do you think if I market it well enough, have the reviews unbiased and decent honest accurate reviews, better than all the competition, it will be viable?

I dont have much experience in the sales and business aspects of the internet in general, and I know a lot of you peeps do have this.

cheers!

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Quote: So I believe the paying for monthly subscriptions wont be a problem, if my reviews are better than the other mags' then people will pay it, it will of course be considerably cheaper than buying a magazine too.

The problem is convincing people that they need to pay for this subscription. If you develop a reputation for yourself then it might work out fine - the problem is getting to that point where you can sell it. This is where a lot of sites failed in the past. It's just really difficult to convince people to pay for content online.

Here's an idea: start up a blog with shorter, supparized excerpts from the magazine. This starts to generate traffic, search rankings, and a reputation for yourself. Search engines won't index paid content so you've got to have something that's publicly available. All of the examples I pointed out above offer some form of free content.

The shorter reviews can then link to the full version of the magazine which is only available by subscription.

Another factor is finding the price that more people will pay, and making sure your publication is easy to read and well designed.

greg's picture

He has: 1,581 posts

Joined: Nov 2005

Megan;221816 wrote: The problem is convincing people that they need to pay for this subscription.

I thought that wouldnt be too much of a problem in this particular business. (only this one of course due to its circumstances)

There are already magazines that people buy with the same content
I know the internet is full of free stuff, but if the mags are charging £3.50, and I only charge £1 (or whatever)for the same content, the same as what you get when you buy the magazine...but with honest reviews instead of biased ones, which is what i think will draw customers in from the current mags.

Megan;221816 wrote: Here's an idea: start up a blog with shorter, supparized excerpts from the magazine.

Thats a very interesting idea!
hmm, thanks! I will investigate this as I havent done anything with blogs before.

Megan;221816 wrote: The shorter reviews can then link to the full version of the magazine which is only available by subscription.

I had the idea to have this on the site, a snippet of a few (or all) reviews to show people they are worth reading and pay to read the rest.

Also i would probably have a few free reviews so people can see my writing and opinions are factual, non-biased and very informative...i.e. worth the price, especially as its cheaper than buying the mags

thanks for the feeedback

ticktac's picture

He has: 28 posts

Joined: Jul 2007

Sounds like you have a good idea, hopefully it'd work out well in your niche. i can see this type of subscription site working well from the beginning, but only in certain niches. The information would have to be just want they want to read, and read easily. Meagan brought up some great points. I'd say maybe try a trail membership, if the visitors like it, then they'll keep their subscription, or at least complain saying its too expensive, but they love the site. Feedback would be a great key to pulling off this site, get visitor feedback and show you care. Build a nice community around that.

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I think the main problem you main have is the fact that so much is available on the internet at no cost. Meagan brought up some great points. I'd say maybe try a trail membership, if the visitors like it, then they'll keep their subscription, or at least complain saying its too expensive, but they love the site. Feedback would be a great key to pulling off this site, get visitor feedback and show you care. Build a nice community around that.

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