Why not emphasize that open cd-tray? You could use that to visualize the magazine's content. Maybe an open cd-tray with a disc inserted with all the topics on it? I agree there's a need for some graphics design on there though.
nice idea, tought i just splashed in a random pic you know it's just a concept... we still have to choose topics, who will review, who will take care of the graphics and paging, basically EVERYTHING
I could try and help a little, I could try some designs and could always help with cost. If we tried some designs, how long would we have to work on them? I could help with articles on 'present' items and stuff like that too.
I feel that I have to chime in on a couple of things, since you guys seem sincere about doing this. First, you NEED to setup an overall magazine layout. I cannot emphasize this enough. There needs to be a concrete layout that sets the goal for each issue. That doesn't mean it cannot be flexible from time to time, but there needs to be consistency. Magazine readers typically have their favorite section(s) and it is very easy to lose someone if they never see that section for months at a time. Just chucking out ideas: - Cover (1 page) - Table of contents (1 page) - Copyright/Contributors/Statement of Purpose (1 page) - Editorial (1-2 pages) - Current Events (2 pages) - Year in Review (4-8 pages, reviews of systems/peripherals/games released for that year) - System Focus (4-8 pages, review of games/peripherals for a particular system) - Guest Reviews (4-8 pages) - Website of the Month (1-2 pages) - Collection of the Month (2 pages) - Special Features (4-8 pages, everything else not listed above) - Back Page/ (1 page) That provides a simple framework for a magazine that could continue for a while and gives some flexibility in the length of the articles. Right now, it feels like you guys risk burning out after only a couple of issues. The enthusiasm is great, but it can only carry on for so long. Advertising: Don't do it. Nothing kills a magazine layout and readership more than advertising, especially for a release this small. Front Cover: Needs to have the website address directly under the ASSEMbler logo for those people who happen to see the magazine, but know nothing about the website. I am thinking that simple white text in that extra red bar under the logo would be very asthetically pleasing. As cliche as it is, the magazine needs a catch phrase. Something along the lines of "The magazine of the obscure" would be in line with the website. Legal Issues (Standard IANAL disclaimer): I do not see much in the way of legal issues as far as printing pictures of equipment/games/dev hardware taken by contributors to the magazine. Do not, I repeat NOT, just use pictures off of websites, magazines or other sources unless you can get clear permission to use them from the source. Even then, it is important to identify the source of the photos to avoid potential copyright infringement. Likewise, you absolutely must have Kevin's approval for the magazine name/logo. If he does not approve, or does not want to be associated with the magazine, it just means that you will need to come up with a different name and logo. Unfortunately, the same is not true for development software. I do not see any way that SDK's and development software can be discussed in any depth due to the licensing and NDA's associated with them. If there are going to be any lawsuits against the magazine, it will be in this area. Staffing: There must be a distinct "chain of command" as far as who decides what goes in the magazine and what does not. Probably overkill, but there could be multiple section editors, who determine and adjust/edit the content of their respective sections, and an overall editor/editor-in-chief, who determines the magazine layout, monthly theme (if any) length restrictions for each section editor to work with, etc. I know it is a long read, but if you are going to do it, then might as well try to do it right. :thumbsup:
I had exactly that kind of ideas and was trying to to work in such a direction, but... This is the reason i'm not going deep in any way... we're expecting kevin to drop in and say something I already started making such a projection, but as for now we still doesn't have any chain of command as you noticed Great idea, putting a reference to the website is nice tought the poeple that will buy it will aready know this place... whatever, i did already put a provvisory slogan on the proto cover, but that is no way near definitive or official 1000 thanxs for you suggestions, but as you see we can't be serious until kevin drops by. Karsten
I don't see why not. Sure, he will make the ultimate determination on whether or not the website is affliated with the magazine as well as being a valuable resource. Aside from the name and the logo, there is no reason that the magazine cannot continue on if he does not want any part of it. I can always setup a section on my forums just for the magazine. :nod: On a side note, has anyone tried to PM ASSEMbler to see what his view is regarding the magazine?
I think mairsil is correct in that the magazine staff needs to be determined first. Even without Kevins blessing we could do some preliminary assigning of duties. Choose people with the most relevant experience. If there aren't enough volunteers to fill all jobs I guess some of us will have to pull double duty. Then we need to figure out how many articles can be fit in reasonably without unnecessary stretching/skimping on info. ie: assign a page and word count on articles based on the subject matter. That will give the contributors a chance to start researching and planning their articles.
Chain of Command: Karsten, I nominate you to be the big cheese, since it was your idea and all. Of course final word on stuff should come from Kevin since it's his website that started all this (of which without none of this would have happened.) I would hope he wants to be involved. Distribution: I say we stick to mail only to test the waters. A distribution deal wouldn't be worth it until we could prove to ourselves that the magazine will actually sell in stores. (Besides that it would require thousands of magazines, and thousands of dollars.) Printing: That Dreamweaver place specializes in B&W comics (color covers, black and white interiors,) which could work for our purposes but I get the feeling you guys want a little more. Here's a place that does small print runs of full color magazines: Print Pelican A little more expensive than Dreamweaver, about $700 for qnty 100, 32 pages, 4-color interior pages, full sized magazines. This seems to be the cheapest I can find so far, still may be a little more than what we're willing to spend. I'm cool with B&W myself as long as the pics come out clearly. If we do end up spending this much I'll put in $100 myself (self publishing is expensive, a lesson I learned well back in the day.) All you guys keep your eyes open for a deals on printing, I'm sure we can find places cheaper than this. Articles: I would like to do something on obscure handhelds (Gamate, Mega Duck, Game Axe, etc.) as really that's about the "rarest" items I own. I could also supply some of the graphic desgin if need be. Also I think it would be cool if we did a page on one of the high profile members here who has a massive collection to show off, like Yakumo, Madhatter, Gajinpunch, Soundabout, or Assembler himself? Some of those "ownage" pics along with a small story about how he aquired all of it (like the Acclaim auction for example) would be pretty cool.
that would be nice on the game companys there could be a article one how they where founded which where there milestones and when they did jump the shark aka when they did start to make crap that pathed the way to their doom - went bust or where swallowed by bigger companys like ea did with a lot of studios
Paper issues are very nice (you can read them on the loo), but PDFs would make the mag more accessible to people overseas, and they could print it out if they so wished. Air-mailing magazines out might be expensive. Just a thought anyway. Edit: Also you need to think of adopting a "house-style" for the magazine, focusing the type of language used - are you going to be formal or informal, is slang/street talk going to be used, how much amount of detail are you going to include in the articles and so on. The editor would be responsible bringing everything together, but the varying writing styles of people on the forum could clash if you don't make rules about how articles should be constructed. If you set these out now, people won't feel they are getting toe-trodden in the future. i.e. You should also think about the rights people have to the articles they write. If they submit the article to the editing team, do they still own the copyright to it? What rights will they have after publication? One day you might want to release an archive of the magazines, so you should consider the issues relating to this - for example: if someone decides they have had enough of the forum or have a disagreement with the magazine members and leave. Will you have measures in place to prevent people taking the article with them and thus stopping you from being able to re-print in the future? If so, you need to create a disclaimer and some kind of statement of ownership/rights form and get the submitter to sign it before they send their article to you. Also, how will the submitting process work? Are you going to let anyone send you an article, or are you going to require the person to seek authorisation before they send it? This might not seem important, but if someone is already writing an article about the history of famicon clones and has put a week's work into it, it wouldn't be fair to have someone submit a finished article out of the blue and make said person's work null and void. You should also bear in mind that if someone comes up with a idea and sends you an article outline which coincidently matches an article already in production, they will claim you stole their idea. You need guidelines and procedures in place to ensure this doesn't happen - at least from a legal standpoint. In terms of money and any profit that is made, does it go into the website or the magazine? Who pockets the cash? I don't want to make this a mercenary post, but if the magazine takes off and you have a reasonable readership then people are potentially going to want to take a cut of the profits for the articles they write. Again, this could be covered by a disclaimer and rights form that you make people sign when they submit work, but you need to be clear about this from the very start so that you don't get yourselves in hot water later down the line. Will you have paid positions? Who is going to be doing the grunt work etc? Making a magazine is a very time consuming business and it might be fine for one issue but what if it really takes off and becomes a regular thing? Will the same people be willing to give up their time every week/month/quarter? You don't want someone getting sick of working for free and leaving you in the lurch half way through a publication. Nor do you want just one person in charge of all the work being submitted - they could leave/fall ill/ die (it happens) and take everything with them (as has happened with many websites in the past). Without wanting to appear overly dramatic, I think these are all things you should take into consideration. I am sure other forum members can think of more. The best of luck!
I would take it gladly so i guess I should start taking submissions from the people here for the various places... I proposed it before and i guess that it should be a fixed point of the magazine so, obviously, i agree Right, right the idea is to keep it fresh and understandable to everybody, profressional without being annoying. So please for god's sake no silly slang or such; people from other countries other than US might want tyo read and understand it (and i'm one of them ) OK, the idea i would like the most is this (please tell if it is possible) the rights for the articles written for the magazine are SHARED meaning that the magazine becames owner of the rights, but lets the writer use their own articles as the wish (i.e. publishing it in a web page or submitting to other magazine, but only showing where the articles was firstly published (our magazine for saying so)). The idea is as follows: we make some kind of brainstorming session, choose the topics for the issue and assign the works to a writer (or 2 if they're willing to collaborate). The writer takes responsibility for sending every week a submission of what he's being writing so far. this is for making people spellcheck and to check if the work is going smoothly. also i think we always have 3-4 articles more than we need for the issue, just for being sure that if someone misses his work we still have enough material for the issue. For coordinating the work we NEED a forum here or somewhere else is yet to be seen. and i guess we need a semi-closed one too i think that there won't be that much money to share but quite a few guys offered to send a small contribution and i'll put a mild one for sure. Nobody's will have paid positions i think, but the people that will work hard for it should have (if possible at least the issue they worked on for free). for what concerns the time... I think that for the first issue we'll take 3 months or a little more, since we have to choose a stable graphical layout and make everything work smootly, after that i think we can go both every 2 months or 3 months, i think that will be a decision to made AFTER the first issue. Using a forum will negate the dead/illness/whathever else issue if someone disappears without notice, someone else in the chain of command will take his place Hope this clarifies things a bit, Karsten
just for giving and idea of what we need and starting to consider submissions: People we need in brackets people that proposed themselves or that might be fit: *this are the people that we should have and stay for saying so, casual contribution can be accepted* Co-editor (Mairsil? Taucias? keeeeeeviiiiinnnnn) Graphic designers (KaL_YoshiKa? Juste) at least 3 game reviewers at least 2 people to correct articles (the_steadster and Alchy) at least 3 hardware Reviewers 1 to 3 people willingly to write abou history of companies, videogames, whatever mail guy (from the second issue on) someone to take care of printings and expeditions (hawanjaaaaaaa ) in case we'll have to use a private forum, someone to keep it up
Since Hawanja has direct experience in magazine production, I'd say he'd probably be useful for layout stuff. It might be worthwhile opening up a new forum now to take care of this, rather than cluttering this board up with loads of threads. As far as distributing profit, equally share it out between people. That said, if one person's clearly doing more work than the rest they should get a slightly bigger share. I think the amount of cash involved, if at all, would be next to nothing. There's no reason why there can't be both pdf and paper versions, people will still pay for the paper ones.
I've PM assembler, but i'm still waiting for news from him... Right now i'm searching for the freeware tools to be used for paging and such... so far i'm quite pleased with pageplus SE, it's a nice publisher tool and you can always get a PDF page out of it by using appropriate tools, openoffice documents might work well too... as for graphic editing, the gimp, pixia, paintstar and other 1000 tools are as good as photoshop for our use...
Something to thinkk about is to see if we can print the mag both over there in the USA and here in the UK/EU. That could make it chaper and allow us to deliver it to the members here much faster. I would have both the time and would be willing to look into printing in the UK and mailing it out from here if we did wish to take this route.
would be great, for lot of users are from uk, danmark italy etc.. thank you paulo, as usual from you, few words but useful
Sure, I'll be the send-and-pick-it-up-from-the-printer-guy. I'll check around for a local place to get it done at, there are thousands of print houses in Los Angeles. But if any of you guys comes across a good deal on the web anywhere please drop the link here. Profit: If we keep it cheap at first, then whatever profit we get can go into making more magazines for the next issue. Thus if we spend $200 to sell 100 at $5 each for the first issue, then issue #2 we can afford to make twice as many and potentially make more money, etc, you get the idea, grow the business like. So after a few issues we see how many sell consistently (like to forum members) then maybe we get people from some other forums into it, get some word of mouth going around, etc. I bet it would sell pretty quickly if we make it informative and fun without being stupid. Anyway it would hit the point were we have some consistent sales, then we could start taking some of the money for ourselves, pay off our intial investors, start paying people who work on/for it, etc. But like I said before don't expect to make your investment back right away, you have to like build a readership first. Three months (quarterly) sounds good for release dates. Gives plenty of time to get everything together, the actual formatting the pages and stuff is the easy part, gathering and editing the content is where most of the work is involved. Article rights: Karsten's got it right, the article should remian the property of the submitter, but should also be "owned" by the magazine for any future reprint. You don't have to have a submitter sign anything as long as there's a disclaimer outlining the policy on the magazine somewhere. Well I didn't do it professionally or anything. I had a 'Zine that ran for 17 issues between 1996 - 2001, plus 7 self published comics. My thing was based around music, which was pretty cool becasue occasionally promotional companies would send me free press kits, cds, etc, plus I would interview people. The last three I even started getting some advertising dollars, it was fun. I guess it got around a lot even though I never made more than 200 copies at a time. When I got the website it killed the zine though. Anyway towards the end it started looking pretty nice (at least I thought so.) So anyway I'll help with formatting too. It really doesn't matter who does it as long as the magazine has a coherent flow throughout the desgin. The ones Borman showed are very nice, although if we do the interior in B&W we'd probably want to go with something a little simpler. If we spend the cash and go color then they'd work great. Speaking of which we should make the decision for that early on. I vote for black and white myself, becasue it's a lot cheaper. I guess it depends on how much money we raise. edit - Just saw Paulo's post, which is a great idea. So I'll be the USA contact man as far as printing goes (getting them printed and sending them out to buyers/subscribers.)
Great hawanja , thinking about money investement for widening the printage we could consider to leave the back cover for sale for a sponsor that would leave the iternal of the magazine 100% free of ads, give us a little boost and find a use for the back cover that usually doesn't contain anything interesting... anyway that is to be discussed later. by the way i went on making some mockups of covers and pages trying to see how good they'll be in B/W and i'm quite pleased of the results, i think we might try to work mainly on a light and easy graphics and paging for making everything easy to read, and even if we'll find a way to print everything in color, i'd like people to be more impressed by the articles and pictures than of other matters By the way, anyone that have ideas for the layout please take it out and make some mockup like i did. try to keep things clean easy to read even in B/W and for covers or color parts let's try to use a black/white/red theme that resembles the one of this webpage anyway feel free to submit anything you think it's nice! i have the feeling we'll make something great.
I would be happy to have a go at a design for the cover or an article. If I tried some designs, how long would I have to work on them? I think I could only spend a few hours each day because of work and stuff. I only wanted to give it my best try, I don't think I could be a certain Graphic Designer at the moment because I might not be good enough.
