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How to Make a Simple Magazine

Magazines have been one of the most basic forms of entertainment since the publication of the "Gentleman's Magazine," first published in London in 1731. There are magazines that cover just about any topic you can imagine. Magazines, which are typically published on a regular schedule, make money through advertising and customer subscriptions. Magazines are often started by people who have an interest in the topic the magazine covers. Many magazines are general and feature a broad spectrum of topics, while others specialize on a single topic. Some small press publishers may publish simple magazines solely for the love of the topic the magazine covers.

Instructions

    • 1

      Do the writing and any illustrating yourself. If you're making a simple magazine, you need to limit the expense of putting the magazine together. Hiring writers, artists and photographers will raise the cost of producing your magazine, and it won't be long before your simple magazine starts to become complex.

    • 2

      Choose a software product to help you design and prepare your magazine for publication. You can use Microsoft Word if you already own it. You might also try a desktop publishing program like Microsoft Publisher or the free PagePlus software from Serif (see Resources).

    • 3

      Write the articles you will include in your magazine. The articles will depend upon the type of magazine you want to publish. If your magazine is a writing magazine, a couple of how-to writing articles on the subject would be good. Consider including a fiction piece as well. Include a short editor's column at the beginning of the magazine and include a subscription page at the end.

    • 4

      Illustrate your first issue with photographs you take yourself or drawings done by you. You don't need a lot of photos or illustrations, but use enough to break up the text of the magazine and to help keep reader interest.

    • 5

      Publish your magazine as an electronic version at first. This is the simplest and cheapest method. Once the magazine is formatted the way you want it, save it as an Adobe PDF file. This is an electronic format anyone using any computer can read with Adobe's free PDF reader. If you use Word 2003 or 2007, you can save your file as a PDF with the same program you used to create your magazine. You can also save your magazine as a PDF online for free (see Resources).

    • 6

      Distribute your magazine on a disc. Get a website host and a PayPal account. PayPal allows you to set up an account to take payments for your magazine sales easily and without the need to run special payment processing scripts. Look for a web host that will register a domain name for you as part of your plan. Make the domain something like www.mymagazine.com with the name of your publication in place of "mymagazine." There are a number of web hosting services available (see Resources), and a website is one of the best ways to market your new magazine.

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