Events Listings
This is a section which gives details of meetings, courses, conferences, exhibitions, social activities, visits, and so forth. You may run this as a simple list, or diary, or you may also have larger spaces available for advertisements of events. You can run events listings as a free service or you can charge for listings.
The chapter on advertising, Chapter 9, gives more information on this.
Networking Information
You may have a section that allows readers to contact each other in some way. For example, you may print details of regional networking groups, include requests for information and advice, promote email discussion groups, have a ‘personal’ column and so forth. You may also choose to run
events at which your readers can meet; for example, social events, courses, workshops or exhibitions, although this is likely to be highly demanding of resources and very different from your publishing activities themselves. Be careful not to be taken off track by such activities, which can result in resources being diverted from your core activities too early.
‘snippets’ And ‘fillers’
These are any small items that are of interest to your readers; for example, quotations, news of forthcoming radio or TV programmes, humorous items, previews of forthcoming articles, local news items, ‘personal’ columns, items ‘overheard’ by readers, crosswords, competitions, horoscopes, and so forth. These can be used to fill in space and lend variety to the pages. You can group snippets or you can intersperse them throughout the pages as appropriate, and they are very useful for filling awkward areas left over after installing major articles. It is worth collecting and filing such items so you always have a readily available supply to hand.
These items appeared in
Effecting Consulting magazine.
Pictures
Most pictures in your magazine are likely to accompany other items, such as articles; however, you may wish to include photographs or other illustrations as items in their own right – for example, running a photographic competition or including a really interesting picture relevant to your subject matter. If you include photographs, they will need to be good quality and, if you receive them by email, at least 300dpi (dots per inch) for them to reproduce well. You should also remember that pictures take up quite a bit of space in transmission and unless you are on broadband they can be costly in connection time and hold up other incoming matter while they are downloaded.
There are many commercial suppliers of items such as crosswords, games and jokes, and there are also agencies that can supply you with news and other items. You can also search on the Internet for interesting bits and pieces and there is a range of websites that is likely to be really fruitful in this context. As sites change frequently, I have not listed many in this book, but you should be able to track them down fairly easily using standard search engines
see Appendix 2
Production Information
This is information about the magazine itself. In this section, you can list the editorial and production team, give contact details, include guidance for contributors, print your advertising rates and guidance, and so forth. There is some information which there is a requirement to include, such as details of printers and ISSN numbers (
see Appendix 2). It is also useful to include some disclaimers, such as the editorial team not necessarily agreeing with the opinions of individual contributors and the publisher not being responsible for any consequences of articles being published. It is wise to take legal advice before putting such wording in your magazine.
Contents Listing
If your magazine has more than just a few pages, it is helpful to include a contents listing. This can give topics and page numbers and may also include a very brief summary of what each major item contains. You may also want to include a note of some items, or features, contained in your next issue and this is a good aid to planning as well as being informative to readers and advertisers.