The magazine business is an entirely unique industry. It might even be said that every magazine is, in fact, its own business--what works for Playboy is very different than what works for Vogue. The key is in knowing how the business works, and then adapting to fit your idea. James Kobak has the know-how to teach you just that, with over fifty years of experience and several successful startups under his belt. He has written this book to help a new generation of magazine publishers avoid reinventing the wheel, and to let them learn from someone else's missteps and heartaches instead of their own.
The book starts with the basics: why there is a constant need for new magazines, what makes for a successful magazine, and the life cycle that all magazines go through. Then it plots out, step by step, what is involved in starting a magazine: how to test the concept for a new magazine, produce a pilot issue, develop a business plan, assemble a staff, raise money, and more. Next the book helps you develop an organizational plan: who's in charge of what, how the various departments get their jobs done, and how they interact with each other. Finally, Kobak covers how a magazine's strong brand can be used to expand into other areas, such as database marketing, book publishing, and the Internet.
Peppered throughout with immutable laws of magazine publishing, real-life examples, helpful charts, and 168 things you must do, the book concludes with appendices on the history of the business, sources of information, major suppliers and consultants, a glossary of terms, and other necessary facts and information about this growing industry.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
THE BEST!!! This one is the best out there:
you can skip to any chapter and read that topic without having to read the first chapters. Go to what you inquire and the author will present it as standalone material. THis is like the bible of Magazine How-to books...
A Tough Read:
I found How to Start a Magazine by James Kobak difficult to read and somewhat depressing. The promises on the cover, in my humble opinion, we never fulfilled and the textbook-style format was flat. I felt as if, rather than a telling me "how to" he was telling me all the reasons "not to." He also came from only one perspective--that of a large scale, national publication. My goal is to build a local business-builder magazine. Therefore, much of the information was irrelevant for me. Based on the cover... more info
A wealth of information:
So you want to start a magazine? It won't be easy..it won't be fast--and it definitely won't be cheap!
Author James Kobak took up the unthankful task of trying to write a user-friendly guide to a profession that many magazine publishers study for four years or more at a university or college.
For the most part, Kobak does a pretty good job. He is obviously enthusiastic about the subject. He has been direct witness to the start-up and/or purchase of many magazines. So he knows his subject.
Every single book that I'd ever picked up about the magazine business was pretty cut-n-dry and hard to understand (vocabulary wise) with entirely too many numbers that made me go "???" But this book was conversational and informative. I found out some things that I didn't know about from the magazine I was writing for. It's a great way to learn about the magazine business if you're starting it on your own or just to understand the behind-the-scenes of what the owners do. He lost me in the end with the... more info
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