Whatever sort of magazine you are producing, there will be various kinds of resource you need. This chapter will cover three different sizes of magazine:
Small-Scale, Self-Produced Magazines
At this level, you can probably get by with a word processor (or even a typewriter if you are not yet in the electronic age), a telephone and an effective filing system. You can get your magazine photocopied locally and you can distribute copies by hand, giving them out at meetings, popping them through letterboxes or posting them in the normal way.
If you are working to a very limited budget, it is worth exploring the many sources of discounted, or second-hand, items of equipment. You can find out about these in a variety of ways, such as:
- scanning local newspapers or websites or checking out electronic auction sites such as Ebay and Loot (see Resources List in Appendix 4
- reading ‘for sale’ columns in the trade press
- looking for auctions or disposals of bankrupt stock (there are magazines devoted to such sales, often read by people wishing to find cheap supplies of stock to trade in and you can find out the names of such publications through your local library)
Larger-Scale, Self-Produced Magazines
If you produce your magazine on a larger scale, but it is still produced entirely, or mainly, by yourself, then you will need more in the way of resources.
A Computer
This will be your main production tool. It will be useful if your computer has the following capabilities:
- Word processing. Nowadays, this is the only practical means of production for anything other than the most basic document. Word processing will enable you to type, store, manipulate and retrieve your text. Word from Microsoft is the commonest word processing package and Word Perfect from Corel is another option.
- Page layout and design. There are various software packages available that allow you to produce your text in the form of a laid-out page. The simplest thing is to use a basic word processing package, such as Word; if you want something that will do a more sophisticated job you could use PageMaker from Adobe, Microsoft Publisher or – more economical – PagePlus from Serif. Many professional designers use QuarkXPress and, although it is expensive, it can be useful to have access to this software, especially if you have to make last minute editorial changes.
- E-mail. This will allow you to communicate with relevant people, such as contributors, readers, subscribers, suppliers, and so forth. The most commonly used e-mail package is Outlook Express from Microsoft, which comes as standard with any PC that has Microsoft Windows. A similar product is Outlook which comes with Microsoft Office and has many additional functions useful to a prospective magazine publisher. Excel can be used as a simple substitute, and it is also worth checking out the contacts and scheduling functionality of Outlook(not Outlook Express). It is worth getting a fixed-price package for your Internet access, rather than a pay-as-you-go one, as research may take longer than you think. Many packages allow you several email addresses, so you can direct incoming and outgoing messages to particular people or computer folders such as ‘editor@. . .’; ‘advertising@... ‘subscriptions@. . .’ and you can register a domain name inexpensively, which will give you an address, without necessarily having to set up a corresponding website. Finally, broadband/ISDN access is also useful if you need to send or receive lots of images, such as photographs, that can otherwise take up a lot of computer/telephone connection time. (See also the section on telephone lines later in this chapter.)
- Database access. If you plan on keeping any records, a database will be important – as it is for the management of any major project. Some of the things you may wish to record are contributors’ contact details, the contents of each issue of the magazine, time scales for production, actions to be progressed, and so forth. Access from Microsoft is a commonly used database package which will cope with this kind of material.
- Accounts packages. You may want to have the option of running your own accounts on computer, particularly if your magazine is a subscription-based one and you need to keep a database of people subscribing, magazines sent out, payments due and made, and so forth. Accounts packages suitable for small magazines include QuickBooks from Intuit and Sage. When installing such packages, it is worth looking ahead to anticipate any major developments in your publication as some packages are quite limited in their applications and you may find in the future that they cannot do all the things you would wish for.
- Internet access. It is useful to have Internet access so you can search for material and contacts relevant to your magazine. There are many search engines {see comments in Appendix 7 that will help you locate material and it is worth experimenting to find the best one for your purpose. Remember with the use of both the Internet and emails that you will need effective virus protection software on your computer.