Evaluation (Q3 What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?)

When publishing my magazine I have 3 options. I can either go to a major publishing house, an independent publishing house or I could take the route of self-publishing. All of these options have benefits and limitations.

Major publishing houses such as EMAP who publish The Architects' Journal, Construction News and Community Nurse have many departments that are dedicated to different areas e.g. marketing. Because of their wide range of resources they specialize in magazines that are aimed at a mainstream audience. This means they already have a wide range of information about different demographics. They could also put a large amount of money into promoting my magazine, however I cannot ensure my magazine would do well and if it didn’t a lot of money would be wasted. In reference to my magazine, they don’t own a magazine aimed at young girls so will not be able to help me.

Independent/ Boutique publishing houses e.g. Dennis Publishing  generally focus on niche audiences and publish many high end magazines aimed at niche audiences.  They put a lot of passion into driving their magazines to do well and gain a large audience. If the magazine starts to become competition for a mainstream magazine major publishing houses may ask to buy the magazine. Although not all magazines are successful, an independent publishing house would be helpful in pushing my magazine to do well and may help it go to the mainstream.

Self-Publishing as an option, may be considered as a risk as without the help of a publishing house as I may not be able to reach a large audience due to my lack of resources. However, many self-published magazines do well e.g. Sniffing glue which was one of the first examples of a self-published magazine. Also, due to the impact of the internet I could possibly publish an E-zine which would be read online and I could gain a profit from advertisement if my magazine does well. Also I could promote my magazine using social media which would be relatively cheap and probably free.

I have decided to go with a major publishing house as they already know a great deal about my target demographic and could help it gain a wide readership. Although a self-published online magazine may be more suited as magazine sales are declining, my target demographic is young and may not always have access to the internet.

However i would like for my magazine to have some sort of online presence which is necessary due to audience fragmentation. This would mean that my audience would be able to access content online as well as in the magazine. A recent study showed that since the release of web 2.0 and 3G phone internet more and more people are spending their leisure time online rather than watching t.v. or reading.

I would like to have a website for my magazine as well as a Facebook page and a twitter address these would work in synergy with my magazine meaning my magazine would promote my website and my website would promote my magazine. I would also like to encourage the idea of exchange allowing my readers to share content with the magazine through the website or Facebook page e.g. with competitions of readers with the best drawing of a particular pop star then an online voting poll for readers to choose their favorite.