Writing a magazine is a great way to get your ideas across through print. Some self-made magazines gradually developed into more serious publications. There's no reason to wait any longer. You can create your own magazines by hand or with software to design and print professional-quality magazines.
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Method 1 of 3: Getting Started
Step 1. Determine the theme or focus of the magazine
What is the main topic of your magazine? Note that most magazines are niche publications with a very specific target audience (for example, people interested in the art of knitting, or brides looking for wedding party ideas).
- Ask yourself: is this magazine a single publication or a serial? If you were going to make it part of a series, what would be the main theme?
- Try to come up with a magazine title from this main theme. Keep in mind that most magazine titles are 1 or 2 words long (e.g. TIME, National Geographic, Seventeen, Rolling Stone, and Forbes). A short title not only sums up the theme of the magazine well, it's also easier to style from a design point of view.
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What is the focus of the magazine? How can you use this focus to unify the entire content of the magazine? It is not without reason that a magazine issue is called an issue in English.
One good example of a theme is the school dance issue for a teen magazine, or a swimwear theme for a sports magazine. All articles in the published magazine will be made related to the main focus
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What is the title of this magazine issue this time? If necessary, specify the title of the series as a whole.
Some examples of magazine titles are the Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated, the Hollywood Issue of Vanity Fair, and the September Issue of Vogue
Step 2. Decide how to arrange the magazine
The way the magazine is structured will determine how it gathers and puts its content together. There are a few things you should consider:
- While the look on glossy paper designed with software is the standard for magazines, creating a magazine without using a computer can give it a more artistic feel. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to create a magazine manually, so it may be more suitable for someone with experience working on it before.
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Although expensive, the standard design tool in digital magazine creation is InDesign. Magazine content is often typed and edited using InCopy, which links to InDesign. Another option is Quark which is used by some magazines.
If this option is outside your budget range, Office Publisher might also be effective enough to use
Step 3. Set a deadline
When do you plan to finish the magazine? Consider whether you set realistic timelines, and whether you might finish and get the magazine into the hands of readers by a set time.
Deadlines are more important if the magazine's topic is about something new (like news or humor), or if you're publishing a magazine that covers annual events (like fall fashion trends)
Method 2 of 3: Creating Magazine Content
Step 1. Write articles, columns and stories
What do you want to convey to the readers? Whether your magazine contains jokes, art fiction, news, serious interviews, or a combination of certain things or stories, you need written content. The following are some possibilities to consider:
- Write articles on topics that interest you or the magazine writing team. Does it contain humanitarian issues? Is it about recent events? Does it contain advice or interviews with interesting people?
- Write short stories to give the magazine a personal touch. You can make fiction or non-fiction short stories according to the topic of the magazine.
- Find an old poem, or ask a friend for permission to publish his work in a magazine. Poetry will give an artistic impression on the magazine.
- Working with others to provide a different point of view is a great way to structure the content of a magazine.
Step 2. Collect the pictures
Even though the focus is on the writing in it, magazines are visual media. A good image will attract the reader's interest and strengthen the impression that the article makes in it.
- Take photos that relate to the contents of the magazine. Be sure to include neutral, empty space in the photo, so that it can be used as a writing background.
- Create a photojournalism project. This means that you have to go deep into one topic and guide the reader with several photos that go together. This option is perfect for people who are quite skilled in the field of photography.
- Search the internet for Creative Commons licensed images. While all of these photos are free, be sure to read the terms on whether or not you must include the name of the author, whether or not to modify the photo, and whether you can only use it non-commercially.
- Purchase photos from a photo provider's website. Although more expensive, photos on such websites are created with their use in magazines in mind, so you will find it easier to find images that match the content of the magazine.
- Draw your own, or ask a painter for help. This option is more recommended for home style art magazines.
Step 3. Create a magazine cover
Without the need to include a lot of things, magazine covers should be able to attract people's attention to read the contents. Here are some ways to achieve this goal:
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Make sure the magazine title stands out. Although many magazines will change the color of their titles from one issue to another, the typeface used is almost always the same. Choose a typeface that is easy to read in a style that matches the content of the magazine.
Most magazines put the title at the very top of the cover, to highlight the brand. For interesting ideas on how to organize magazine titles and content, take a look at the cover image of Harper's Bazaar magazine
- Decide what to include on the cover of the magazine. Fashion magazines often use cover models, gossip magazines often feature paparazzi or artificial photos, and news magazines may use photos of specific events. Whatever you use, choose photos that look interesting and relate to the story in the magazine.
- Write a brief explanation (optional). Some magazines will only write a brief description or title of the main story (eg TIME magazine or Newsweek), while others will provide a brief description of some of the contents on the cover of the magazine (eg Cosmopolitan or People magazine). If you choose the second way, try not to look messy magazine covers.
Method 3 of 3: Putting Magazine Contents Together
Step 1. Determine the finishing touches for the magazine
Almost the same as its contents, the appearance of the magazine determines the brand. Consider:
- Font: do you use a typeface that is easy to read and fits the theme of the magazine? Is this typeface related to the typeface used in the title on the cover of the magazine?
- The paper: are you going to print it on glossy paper or not?
- The color: some magazines such as People previously used half color, half black and white to save on ink costs. Although most well-known magazines are printed in color, there are still many literary magazines that are printed in black and white. Consider which color choices fit within the magazine's budget each time it's published, and how you can blend those color choices into the overall look and feel of the magazine.
Step 2. Decide how to arrange the contents of the magazine
The way the content of the magazine is arranged determines the flow of readers to enjoy it. Here are some basic guidelines:
- Usually, the table of contents is listed at the beginning. If your magazine contains a lot of advertisements, it may be possible to put several pages of ads before the table of contents.
- The publisher's mark usually follows the table of contents. This publisher tag must include the title, edition, and issue number of the magazine (mark both with the number 1, for the first issue), the place of publication, and the writing team (editors, writers, and photographers).
- Arrange the contents of the magazine so that the main article is in the middle, or even near the end of the magazine.
- Consider including the jokes on the last page. Many magazines like TIME or Vanity Fair fill the last page with easy-to-read things, like interesting information charts or funny interviews.
Step 3. Create a magazine layout
After determining the arrangement of the contents of the magazine, now is the time to arrange the layout. How you layout magazines is largely determined by the software you use (or not), but there are certain things to keep in mind:
- Consistently format. Use the same border, style, and page numbering, and typeface throughout the magazine. You certainly don't want to create a magazine that looks disjointed and looks like it was made by 12 different people, right?
- Number the pages of the magazine, especially if you are providing a table of contents.
- Be sure to make a magazine with an even number of pages (including the cover). In magazines with an odd number of pages, one of the pages will be blank.
- If you're making magazines by hand, it's time to decide how to move content onto the pages. Are you going to print it? Or pasting it over the image?
Step 4. Publish your magazine
You can use the old way by printing it first, or publishing it on the internet. Research your options to determine the one that best fits your magazine creation budget.
Your magazine bindings (only if made by hand). Once the magazine pages have been created, you can bind them together. Consider one of the steps in the Book Binding article
Tips
- Give a few copies of your magazine away for free, such as to the library to make it more recognizable.
- Be sure to align your magazine with its mission. For example, glossy paper in an environmental magazine will certainly make readers avoid it, even though paper like this can be made environmentally friendly. Use only non-glossy paper. In other words, understand your readers' expectations!
- Consider a subscription program to invite potential readers. That way, you'll always have a budget for printing magazines. In addition, subscription programs are also a powerful way to provide special offers and connect with readers.
- To expand the reach of the magazine, try to publish it yourself.
- Even if users love them, Quarks are much more difficult to master.
- InDesign is an excellent magazine design graphics program. This program is quite easy to learn and has a wide range of uses. The Text-Edit program is a great complement and easy to use. Enhance the article with Text-Edit, then copy and move it to the available space on the page.
- Try adding an introductory page before starting with a 'message from the editor/author' and talking about the positive impact of the magazine, its multiple content pages, and the facts about the product that are conveyed to the target audience, and anyone else who might find the magazine interesting.
- You can also include a child column to attract younger readers.
Warning
- Start small. Printing in small quantities rather than printing in bulk and spending a budget to test market interest and the success of the magazine first is the right move.
- Some people say that magazines are a dead art form. But not so, because there are still many people who enjoy reading in magazine format. What's more important is the topic, some magazine topics are less interesting to the reader, so make sure to research them first. Furthermore, some topics may look better digitally than on paper, and vice versa. So, do some in-depth research before deciding which format you will use.
- You will need magazine samples and a list of advertising rates to show potential advertisers. To find out advertising rates, you need to know how much it costs to publish a magazine once. Attractive images and layouts are only one part of the magazine publishing process.
- Most of the magazines get a large income (money) from the advertisements listed in them. After knowing the target audience of the magazine, you must find a company that is willing to advertise its products to these readers. This may take a long time. Check the number of ad pages in the magazine in relation to the page count of the article. This will give you an idea of the percentage of ads needed to make your magazine a success (this is advice from an experienced print ad marketer).
