Creating a Handbook/Magazine

Brendan Flowers

I have an information website. I'm looking to branch off this by creating a yearly handbook for my targeted audience. I havent yet decided if I should distribute it for free or for a small charge. If there was a fee I'd expect to reach approx 35,000 people and if its free 54,000.

I already have 4 large organisations would have expressed an interest in taking out full page adverts should I go ahead with the handbook. I also see the handbook as a means for driving new traffic to my website so it'll be very much a means for promoting my site.

I already have a lot of top quality content. Without giving too much away it'll based on the information on my website, but still presented in a way the interested readers would still be enticed to visit my website for further information.

Is there anyone here with experience in this area that could offer some advice? I'm open to any feedback people have. And along with equipment and printing what other costs would I face? Based on the audience I intend to reach what sort of fee could I expect to charge advertisers?

Gloomtastic!

First thing you need to do is get your costs sorted.

Design/compilation
Print and paper
Distribution - how are you going to get the yearbook into the readers' hands?

Get three quotes for everything. (Hint: include Walsh Colour Print for your print quote - although they might quote for everything!)

Can you get enough revenue from the ads to easily cover your costs and make a profit?

Brendan Flowers

Yes, it's still very early days regarding this idea so I haven't many figures in terms of costs.

I would hope that revenue from ads will cover the costs at least. But this is one area I'm unsure of, what price I'd get for a full or half page ad in a handbook that will reach 35,000+ people with an interest in the area being advertised.

jmcc

Think that there's a Peter Dalkey thread here on something similar. It might be worth searching for it as it involved publishing a kind of guide/brochure or asking Peter for some advice on it.

Regards...jmcc

Gloomtastic!

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

Yes, it's still very early days regarding this idea so I haven't many figures in terms of costs.

I would hope that revenue from ads will cover the costs at least. But this is one area I'm unsure of, what price I'd get for a full or half page ad in a handbook that will reach 35,000+ people with an interest in the area being advertised.

Are there any other publications catering to this market? What's their circulation? What do they charge per page?
Say they publish 10,000 magazines and a full page costs €1000 then they have a Cost Per Thousand (CPT) of €10.
You are publishing 35,000 so a page rate of €3,500 should be acceptable if you are reaching the same decision makers as the magazine (only more of them).

You have to remember that any money you get from advertisers is probably going to come from a set marketing budget. Any money they spend with you will have to come from some other publication. How are you better than the competition? Why should they spend it with you and not them?

A yearbook takes a year to sell. Months to compile and weeks to produce. You'll need to add a couple of months of planning to get your rate card and ad pack right so you're probably looking at a 2018 edition. So you may not see any money in the bank until March 2018 but it will start costing you money the minute you commit to it. Can your cashflow afford it?

Start with your costs first......

Brendan Flowers

jmcc wrote: »

Think that there's a Peter Dalkey thread here on something similar. It might be worth searching for it as it involved publishing a kind of guide/brochure or asking Peter for some advice on it.

Regards...jmcc

I've tried searching and while I have found some useful comments by Peterdalkey, I dont think I've found the thread you are referring to. Would anyone here have a link to it?

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Are there any other publications catering to this market? What's their circulation? What do they charge per page?
Say they publish 10,000 magazines and a full page costs €1000 then they have a Cost Per Thousand (CPT) of €10.
You are publishing 35,000 so a page rate of €3,500 should be acceptable if you are reaching the same decision makers as the magazine (only more of them).

You have to remember that any money you get from advertisers is probably going to come from a set marketing budget. Any money they spend with you will have to come from some other publication. How are you better than the competition? Why should they spend it with you and not them?

A yearbook takes a year to sell. Months to compile and weeks to produce. You'll need to add a couple of months of planning to get your rate card and ad pack right so you're probably looking at a 2018 edition. So you may not see any money in the bank until March 2018 but it will start costing you money the minute you commit to it. Can your cashflow afford it?

Start with your costs first......

There is no other competitor out there providing this information in a handbook. There are some online resources, one of which is my website. But the idea for these handbooks wouldnt be in direct competition with the websites, rather its more of a high level overview a point that will help drive users to the online resources.

In terms of attracting advertisers, what would enough them to use my handbook rather than some of the online resources is the fact that those websites are catering more so for existing customers, wheres my handbook would be specifically for attacting new customers.

In terms of cashflow, right now I couldnt afford to do this on my own. Hence I would initially need to rely heavily on revenue from advertisers.

Gloomtastic!

"Brendan wrote:

In terms of cashflow, right now I couldnt afford to do this on my own. Hence I would initially need to rely heavily on revenue from advertisers.

But you'd need the advertisers to pay you up front, as they book. Never going to happen.

You could approach one of the bigger publishing houses and do a Contract Publishing deal. They'd have all the expertise on board and also the cashflow necessary. They'd pay you a commission and/or a percentage of the profits.

A couple that come to mind are Ashville Media (very tough operators, be careful) and Harmonia (might be too big to bother with it).

If you don't ask, you don't get!

pedroeibar1

Gloomtastic has given very valid info/advice, but IMO you are nowhere near ready for those steps yet.

The lack of capital (essentially a small amount) kills this project at the outset. Apart from that, maybe I’m missing something but I do not understand this proposition, nor do I see it working as outlined. Your secrecy does not help.

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

I have an information website. I'm looking to branch off this by creating a yearly handbook for my targeted audience. I havent yet decided if I should distribute it for free or for a small charge. If there was a fee I'd expect to reach approx 35,000 people and if its free 54,000.

You are selling information - that is a service, an intangible, which means 'paper' is the most difficult means of selling it. Your website has traffic, so that traffic can be monetized if you do it correctly. What analysis have you done on the site visits/visitors? New/repeat?How many pages do they look at? Time spent on site? What is the purpose of leaving electronic and moving to print media? The print product you describe sounds much more like a catalogue than a ‘yearly handbook’. If 35k issues of the ‘paper’ product are marketed properly they should be seen by a multiple of 35k. There is a huge disparity IMO between the numbers you quote -- 35k if paying and 54k if it’s free. It seems unreal – look at the ‘best-seller’ lists for Ireland and see just how (in)frequently sales hit 35k copies! How do you arrive at your figures? I agree that some few people like ‘books’ – e.g. automotive sector, car parts book on the trade counter, but 35k prepared to pay for a book on your ‘information’??

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

I already have 4 large organisations would have expressed an interest in taking out full page adverts should I go ahead with the handbook.

Everyone will say that to you, it comes to reality when they pay you on time and in full for the space they have ordered. That might/will happen long after you have proven that the print copies are ‘out there’.

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

I also see the handbook as a means for driving new traffic to my website so it'll be very much a means for promoting my site. ………..Without giving too much away it'll based on the information on my website, but still presented in a way the interested readers would still be enticed to visit my website for further information.

So you are going to take electronic communication and transfer it to paper? (In the last century it took me two decades to convert my business the other way around, at the end of which time I would not do business with customers ‘offline’!!) Is a print medium the most efficient way to drive traffic to a website? How many people use ‘paper’ research and then go online to buy? (Very few IMO.) What are search engines/online advertising / SEO for?

I get brochures/catalogues all the time and I just dump them. Every time I buy something online the brochure that comes with it goes in the bin with the wrapping/carton. If somebody offered me a ‘yearly handbook’ I’d decline unless it was very very special; if they tried to sell it to me they would be told to go away. I don’t even accept nice embossed, gilt-edged diaries anymore.

A former colleague used to say information is like milk, it has a short shelf life because it goes 'off' very quickly. The printed material would probably be out of date when it hit th estreet.

Gloomtastic!

You may be right Pedro but some of his better clients were willing to back the OP's idea. It may have legs.

An alternative, on the cashflow front, is to talk to those same clients as sponsors/partners, as opposed to advertisers. Then you can rightly demand some money up front and the remainder throughout the project.

OP, find out your costs.

Brendan Flowers

Yes, the main priority for me now is identifying my costs. The majority of the content will be put together by my partner and I. And a lot of that is already available on my website, it's just a case of adapting what's relevant for the handbook.

I've also sourced a company from overseas who'd be able to handle the design and editing of the handbook. The cost of this is low and their work that I've seen is of high quality. I will be easily able to finance this part of the project.

The huge expense for me will be the printing of the handbook. I haven't yet spoken to any company. I was hoping that I would be able to use revenue generated from adverts to help pay for that. But that would be dependent on getting a percentage of fee upfront. Which might not be possible. And if not I consider sourcing a company to do contract publishing, as suggested by Gloomtastic.

I understand I haven't been able to provide a lot of information about the actual project. Once I move further along with my planning I will give more details. The idea has come about from a lot of research with online users. I know a lot of people doubt print media these days but this is one area that I do believe can work. The figures I mentioned previously were also based on my online market and from the research carried out. The audience I'm going for will be specifically targeted.

power101

For a yearly handbook I think the only way to go is to contract it out. I'm not sure about what financing you have available but I would estimate based on volume the cost of producing this amount could be 2-3 euro a copy max.(Obviously depends on size of your publication and amount of color) Total costs for printing 35000 could be anywhere from 70-105k.

The options I can see for financing this getting your publication up and running as as follows but not limited to:

1) Bank financing
2) Getting customers to pay up front for the magazine. If everything else is ready it should only take a couple of weeks to print and have the magazine in their hands. (I pay up front yearly for the phoenix magazine so it's not abnormal)
3) Printing in batches - Benefit is it could be done small and hopefully financed by yourself, receive money from customers from that batch to fund the next one. Issue is it increases cost of magazine due to loosing volume discounts and may be difficult with advertisers as its being sent at different times
4) Relationship with advertisers. If you had a strong enough relationship with advertisers and showed them the digital finished product would they pay for advertising up front in order to get first publication running. Maybe give them extra incentive or discount for this going forward.

Trojan

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

What analysis have you done on the site visits/visitors? New/repeat?How many pages do they look at? Time spent on site? What is the purpose of leaving electronic and moving to print media? The print product you describe sounds much more like a catalogue than a ‘yearly handbook’. If 35k issues of the ‘paper’ product are marketed properly they should be seen by a multiple of 35k. There is a huge disparity IMO between the numbers you quote -- 35k if paying and 54k if it’s free.

I'd be doing more validation on it, surveys, interviews, maybe do some pre-orders to see if people are actually putting their money where their mouth is.

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Everyone will say that to you, it comes to reality when they pay you on time and in full for the space they have ordered. That might/will happen long after you have proven that the print copies are ‘out there’.

+1

Have you tried getting pre-orders from the advertisers on a 100% money back basis if the project doesn't go ahead? There's nothing like cash in the bank to validate an idea.

IRE60

In my experience you wont get an advertiser to pay up front and they can be very slow in paying.

So you will most likely have to shoulder prepress, printing and distribution on you own.

Im usure how you are getting the cash for the cover price but you will have to look at that and how quickly you can get your hands on it. Dont forget the VAT on the cover price!

Printing can be a ballbreaker and it depends on a huge amount of variables.

I'd consult printers before you do the prepress to make sure your configuration is correct. Once you've decision on a size in terms of dimension and pages you'll get a price. Get a spec for the printer which you can pass to the people doing the design.

50K of books isn't huge - Sweden and Poland had huge plants but I'm not sure if 50K is worth it for them or you