A successful magazine relies upon the quality of its content. It is not vital to have a large number of pages, but it is important to have a regular supply of material that people will be interested in reading.People producing new magazines often think it will be difficult to get contributions and wonder how to source them. However, it is actually quite easy to generate a regular flow of items as long as you prepare the ground well and then continue to manage the process.
In order to do this it helps to know your field well, so that you can develop a wide network of people interested in contributing. If you are starting a publication in a field that is new to you, research into that field is an important first step in order to inform yourself about it and feel comfortable working within it.There are four key factors involved in getting contributions and if you pay attention to these you will be able to attract a good range of items and a varied group of contributors. These factors are set out below.
Planning For The Future
You should think ahead several issues, so that you are constantly generating material for the future. If you do this, you are more likely to have an ongoing collection of items you can use. You don’t have to put everything you collect into a particular issue and you don’t have to give contributors a guarantee that their items will appear in a particular issue. ‘Stockpiling’ material for at least two or three issues ahead can give you a sense of security about being able to fill future issues and will be a help if, for any reason, you are unable to spend time collecting material for a particular issue of your magazine.
‘theming’
You can simply gather together an almost random collection of items for each issue, or you can ‘theme’ your issues, so that you have a particular
subject for part, or all, of each issue. Theming will allow you to seek contributions on that topic and make the issue more of a coherent entity.
It may be easier for you to fill space if you theme, rather than having continually to seek individual contributions on different topics. It may also be that, once you have one or two items on a particular theme, other contributors will be keener to add their own material to that issue.
Gathering Material
There are two main ways in which you can find material: using existing material and commissioning new material.
Accessing Existing Sources Of Material
There are many sources of material that you can tap into. Some of these will be free, while others may require payment. If you are on a low budget you will probably need to find free sources of information, but it is worth knowing about the others in case your financial situation changes. Some of the information sources you can access are considered below.
Websites
Whatever field you operate in, it is likely that there will be others working in it too. If you use the standard Internet search engines, you will be able to put in key words that will help you find out what others are doing. You must be careful not to breach existing copyrights
(see Chapter 20 for more on this topic), but there is an enormous amount of free material available on websites generally. If in doubt as to whether items can be used in your publication, all you need to do is ask the owner of the site for permission. Some of the things you can find on websites are articles, useful hints, news items, information on new products, and so forth.