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Post by CHRISTIAN BINNIE on May 18, 2010 8:34:55 GMT -5
I'm sure most of the people who are members of this board are like me and can't get enough of armwrestling. I love reading or watching whatever I can get my hands on, but there really isn't much besides ArmTV. I know there has been an attempt at producing an armwrestling magazine in the past. Does anyone know much about previous magazines? The one I remember was Quarterly and all black and white I think. I'm just dreaming and wondering if it would be possible to do something like a magazine for a living. I think Arm TV has something like 400 members at any given time. I wonder how many people would be willing to shell out about $15 every 3 months for a 20-30 page magazine? I know that I could supplement my costs with advertisements, I probably couldn't charge very much if my membership was fewer than 500 people. Also, would it be necessary to have glossy color photos or would you be just happy to have articles and results? PM Karen Bean, OR better yet, e-mail her, she rarely comes on the board anymore...I wonder why?..... She will be able to tell you how " The AAA ARMBENDER" worked out. OR better yet, didn't......
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Post by John Wilson on Jun 3, 2010 10:27:39 GMT -5
I wish you the very best of luck.
My advice-
Do not spend any real money on this project until you can create a single copy of a single issue for yourself. (By 'real money' I mean don't buy-ahead on infrastructure planning to make it back.) Only then will you truly understand what the real costs are, and I mean TOTAL costs. Do not get confused by thinking in economy of scale. That has nothing to do with costs. Economy of Scale is how you increase your profit after the fact, not how you determine the cost of one piece (issue).
Remember that you are selling a magazine people will want to buy. You need to cover the events people care about. Nobody's buying a magazine to see who won Skeeter's BBQ Hut Novice Showdown in Holebucket, Kansas.
Make one copy - a finished copy, just like you plan to sell. Then add up what it cost you in time and money to produce it. That is your real cost. Only then will economy of scale mean anything to you. It will also give you a clear understanding of what you can do yourself and what must be outsourced.
If it costs you $200 to make a single copy then that is cheap. It won't happen. You'll spend that on materials. Dollars to Donuts you are looking at $500 to $1000 per issue if you DON'T pay yourself. You can save money on materials with economy of scale, but everything else is fixed. (Hotel, airfare to events, photo gear, computers, software, car rental, TIME.) Printing costs are the cheapest part of it, no matter how much you pay for a single issue.
It can be done. But until you make a copy you have no idea what your real costs are. Your costs will determine the final product. When the costs seem crazy is when advertising begins to make sense.
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Post by Karen Bean on Jun 3, 2010 10:51:35 GMT -5
Anthony ~ I wish you all the luck in the world with this venture.
The Armbender ~ Official Journal of the WAF ~ was put to sleep, laid to rest, etc 2 years ago after 30+ years of publication. It was the first armwrestling magazine and only WAF magazine.
Let me tell you, you will spend thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to do this. You MUST travel to events in order to cover them, you MUST travel to get interviews, you MUST travel to get photos, etc. Your travel expenses alone will become ridiculous.
This is also not a venture you can do "in your spare time". It requires way too many hours.
You will find people that will tell you they'll be more than happy to help. When the smoke clears, you'll be standing by yourself, doing it yourself. People are willing to help out when they can, but cost and time will prohibit them from working as much as you will need.
Everything costs money! Travel, hotel, meals, cameras, memory sticks/photo printing, computer programs, printer, etc. You have to find a professional printer to actually print and bind the magazine. That's a fun project. And be prepared - sit down when they give you a price.
I "acquired" the Armbender in 2000. Not having a clue as to how to put together a magazine, having to learn it on my own, finding a printer, etc. It was fun, challenging, and a nightmare. I wouldn't trade my experience with it for anything and truthfully I hated to stop. Cost alone will stop you from being able to maintain a magazine for any length of time.
People want news and they want it to be current. The day of the internet was a great thing and a bad thing. No one wants to read a magazine after they already know the news. Time plays a huge factor.
I know I sound discouraging and I don't mean to. Just basically letting you know what you're looking at. Get a quote for printing, get a price on computer programs that you'll need because a printer will only take it camera ready/print ready, put together a plan on obtaining news coverage, i.e. split the country in 4 sections and find someone willing to spend their own time/money to cover all the events that you know you can depend on, and then the investigate the fun part ~ mailing! Envelopes and postage. Oh my the postage! You cannot send bulk mail because if an address is no longer valid, the post office simply throws your magazine in the trash so you never know about it. You have to use regular mail and envelopes. And then, figure out how you're going to get the word out to everyone and how they're going to pay for their subscriptions.
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Post by Joey "TANTRUM" on Jun 3, 2010 11:14:17 GMT -5
Id like one
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Post by Bill Arnold on Jun 3, 2010 13:25:58 GMT -5
Anthony, have you considered a lemonade stand? I think Karen's input has been the most valuable post. I assume you have followed the decline in sales of newspapers as they've all moved to internet subscribers. Maybe you should think about trying an internet magazine first... at the least, you'll get a better handle on the effort to pull material together. If it goes well, you can make your money from on-line subscriptions and/or sponsors. And if you still choose to go the printed route, you'll at least understand the effort a little better.
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Post by Bill Arnold on Jun 3, 2010 14:39:45 GMT -5
Anthony, the newspaper analogy is not as irrelevant as you might think. It leans heavily toward accessibility and convenience. I used to buy Time magazine - but now I can get it downloaded to my Kindle. I won't buy one at the newsstand anymore. People have many avenues on the internet to hear about armwrestling too - easier than waiting for a magazine, no matter how good the magazine might be. I know what you're saying about the grocery store - but take fashion magazines or health magazines - and look at the numbers. How many people want to be fashionable and/or healthy? Almost everyone - and they are willing to buy a magazine in hopes of finding that magic article that will make them happy, i.e., get their fix. In any one day, there are probably 200,000,000 Americans who think about their health or looks. Compare that to how many people really aspire to be great armwrestlers. The point is that there is money in producing a health or fashion magazine, because there is still a big pool of potential customers - enough to make it profitable enough to publish it. If 1% of Americans who thought about health daily would buy one magazine a month, that's 2 million sales. If 25% of the armwrestling community bought a magazine, would that be enough? (And I would think that the fashion, health, gun magazines have taken a huge hit since the internet.) Like Karen said, none of us want to discourage you from doing this, but we're all just trying to help spitball ideas that will give you as many thoughts to consider. We all wish you well. And in fact, if you ever wanted help, I could offer to interview people by phone - maybe one every couple of months, and write an article about them.
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Post by John Wilson on Jun 3, 2010 14:46:14 GMT -5
What people are missing is that that those magazines are full of advertisements. It is the ad that pays for the magazine to exist. The only person who makes a dime at the point-of-sale of the actual printed magazine is the grocery store with part going to the distributor.
I'm not trying to dissuade you. I really do wish you the best.
Getting a store-quality magazine put together starts at $1Million. (ten years ago) There is a giant spectrum between a 15 page magazine and a store quality magazine.
A 15 page magazine will have ZERO Ad revenue. That means your cost has to be controlled because sales are the only income generator.
*Karen said the single most important thing so far: Everyone wants to help you until it counts. People have great intentions and even greater enthusiasm. Everyone promises to get your content, but what if they don't? What do you do then?
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Post by Bill Arnold on Jun 3, 2010 15:01:33 GMT -5
I totally agree. And as I said earlier, I've published an armwrestling newsletter - not even a nice looking one... and everyone was going to help. But I ended up doing all the interviews, writing all the articles, buying software to make a newsletter, learning that software, begging people to even tell me the results of tournaments, printing, folding, addressing, and buying the stamps. I think I kept it up for 4 quarterly issues then gave up and went to Disneyland! It's not an easy feat...
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Post by Karen Bean on Jun 3, 2010 16:11:54 GMT -5
John has excellent points as to advertising. The Armbender had some ads back when GNC was promoting a new product line, Yukon Jack was promoting their product line, etc. But, overall, advertising was basically nil and void. Reason ~ circulation did not warrant major companies advertisement costs.
Here's a story for you. A number of years ago Travis Bagent was on me telling me how I needed to "delegate" in order to take some of the load off of me. I told him over and over how people "really" won't help and you can't "really" depend on them. Travis felt he could prove me wrong and help me out in the process.
Travis put together a team. This team was made up of nothing but armwrestlers. Every single one of them came to the Nationals that year, were assigned ONE weight class to cover. JUST ONE CLASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were to watch the competition ~ and they had front row seating ~ go home and put together a write up for their particular class. You know how many write ups Travis got? After tons and tons of phone calls.....................................drum roll please............................he received TWO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Two classes were covered by these volunteers that sat on the very front row and watched their particular class they were to cover.
Needless to say, Travis didn't try to get another team together after that. LOL
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Post by simon on Jun 4, 2010 7:57:41 GMT -5
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Post by jamesretarides on Jun 4, 2010 8:09:41 GMT -5
Here is the bottom line (and I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade): As someone that has been a journalist (and editor) for the better part of a decade I have seen the decrease in circulation (like a rapidly deflating balloon), the amount of cuts to staff (some publications are closing their doors after more than 100 years in print) the incredibly shrinking budgets due to advertisers pulling out and how some very educated, accomplished writers now work as insurance salesmen (not that there's anything wrong with that).
Linear media (print) is dying. There is no doubt about it. Sorry
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Bicio
Bronze Member
Italy
Posts: 116
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Post by Bicio on Jun 4, 2010 10:37:09 GMT -5
Excuse me maybe i'm wrong (and correct me if I am) you're talking about a magazine within US that talks about US tournaments and something related to armwrestling in general... This is what Igor Mazurenzo does on his site... www.armpower.net/images/magazyn/pdf/032010tarlfjparwekqa.pdfI think is a damn good Starting Point.... What do you think??
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Post by John Wilson on Jun 4, 2010 11:24:12 GMT -5
Bicio,
That is VERY WELL DONE. Very professional.
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Post by Bill Arnold on Jun 4, 2010 12:06:37 GMT -5
NICE!!!!!
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Post by Scott STB Mathews on Jun 4, 2010 12:46:08 GMT -5
I agree with Alan, You just have to jump in and try. People told Thomas Edison he was crazy but he never gave up and became somewhat sucessful..lol. Alan said he would be your first customer and I will be your first advertizer.
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