Making a horse magazine is fun and we ought to know!
Firstly, decide how many pages you want to make your horse magazine. When you have magazines professionally printed, you need to have pages in multiples of eight but to start, you can photocopy your magazine to give away to friends which is a LOT cheaper than having it professionally printed. Since you'll be photocopying your magazine, keep it to A4 sheets which will make collating the sheets in numbered pages easy.
You might have enough material to fill only four pages...or 24! It's up to you. You also need to decide if you're going to print your paper front and back, which will take some fiddling at the photocopying stage, but is do-able.
Content
Next, you need to decide what you're going include in the pages. You might want to make your magazine's content about whatever you're especially interested in, eg. Arabians, showjumping, eventing etc. or keep it general, in which case you should include a wide variety of articles. Avoid the temptation of making it all about your horse (if you have one) as this would be boring for readers.
First is the cover, which is very important for any magazine. You can use photos you've taken, or even drawings. Here at Horsewyse we usually purchase photos to use on our covers...there's lots of places on the internet where you can buy great horse photos fairly cheaply, do a Google search on 'stock photos' and you'll find lots of sites. DO NOT steal photos from any website, magazine or book as they are protected by copyright. If you have permission to download photos from websites, keep in mind they will probably be low resolution, 72dpi (which stands for 'dots per inch'). This is fine for the internet and computer-only use but you will find 72dpi images print very poor quality, or 'pixelated'. The minimum we use here is 150dpi, 300dpi is better.
You need to decide on a name of your magazine...at first we were going to call Horsewyse 'The Horse Connection' but it was a bit long (and boring). Once you've got a name, pick a nice font for your banner but don't make it too fancy! Check out magazine covers on-line or in newsagents and see what catches your eye.
Now you can work out what you're going to include inside. On the inside front cover you can do a little contents page which is where you list details such as the editor (you!), other contributors and your contact details. For the other pages you can include:
• Articles that you've written...don't copy articles, try and write them yourself (it's actually fun!) Or if you see an article you'd like to use, write and ask if you can have permission to re-print it. Most people don't mind provided they are credited.
• Activities...puzzles, jokes, cartoons etc. Peta Taylor does all the illustrations for Horsewyse, we couldn't do it without her! You might be good at drawing, or have a friend who is.
• Short stories...fiction is always entertaining to read and fun to write.
• News...visit some horse sites for news snippets.
• Breed features.
• Features on a horse and rider like our 'Hall of Fame' section.
• Features on famous horses and riders, like Andrew Hoy, Makybe Diva etc.
Design
Working and designing your magazine's content will take the longest. Don't rush it, take your time, especially for your first issue. At Horsewyse we use professional graphic design and photographic editing software but that's pretty expensive (about $2,500) so use whatever software you have. If you don't have access to a computer, then lay out each page by hand, using words, photos and graphics. Avoid the temptation to fill every spare space as this will make your magazine hard to read. Also avoid using lots and lots of different typefaces, as this just looks blah (in our option). Make sure you leave some space (margins) around the outside of your designed pages.
When your magazine's content is in place, proof-read everything carefully for spelling errors, then you're ready to publish! Or photocopy.
Print one copy of the first 'edition' then check the pages again. Can you see anything you'd like to change? This is called the proofing stage as once you've started printing multiple copies, there's no turning back!
Once all the pages are printed, collate them and staple along one side. If you have too many pages for a stapler to pierce, visit the newsagents or Officeworks and check out their range of paper fasteners. And you're done!
Distribution
You can distribute your magazine among family and horsey friends, even at Pony Club. You can also form a horsey club and charge a small subscription fee to cover production costs. Try producing a few issues first before you start charging, to give you an idea of the work and dedication involved. Maybe your horsey friends will help by contributing articles etc. You also need to decide how often you come out...monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly, and whether to go black and white or colour. Black and white limits your design a bit but is cheaper to print. You can even do a colour cover and black and white contents.
If you do want to get your magazine professionally printed some day, check with a few local printers and get quotes...start with short-run printers like SNAP printing, who will be able to advise you on what kind of files they require.
HOW HORSEWYSE IS MADE
If we sold every copy printed, we'd be rich! But it doesn't work like that. After printing costs, you also need to factor in distributor fees. The distributor charges a certain amount for each magazine they distribute. They then keep a record of magazines sold...this is why magazines are barcoded...it makes computer records much easier.
Then we have to pay postal costs for subscriptions, plus a mailing company to package each issue, so it really doesn't make much difference whether an issue gets distributed to newsagents, or we post it out...it all costs about the same. The main benefit with subscriptions is that they are pre-paid.
We have to pay contributors like Peta Taylor and we also purchase lots of photos to use in each issue. We also have to pay for office supplies...you'd be surprised how these mount up. Postage is another huge cost for us as is our computer and camera equipment. We use Macintosh computers, which are pretty much standard for graphic design...I love my Mac! We've also bought a few digital SLR cameras which ain't cheap, but necessary for quality, high-resolution photos.
Of course, printing is by far the biggest outlay any magazine has. It costs extra to have glossy magazine covers. I bet you thought it was ultra-shiny paper but it's actually a finish called UV coating which is sprayed and this costs extra again.
Magazines are printed on big sheets of paper which are then folded, trimmed and bound. There's eight pages to a sheet so most mags have page numbers that are multiples of 8. If Horsewyse wanted to add extra pages, we'd have to add eight pages.
The actual print is done using a four colour printing process called CMYK which stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and the K stands for Black. Every photo and colour you see comprises these colours mixed together during the printing process. Sometimes on the cover we'll add a fifth fluorescant colour, which could be a hot pink, orange or lime. Next time you're at the newsagents, have a look at some covers and you'll see fluorescant writing on the covers, which really helps make them stand out. Of course...this costs extra too!
PUTTING THE MAGAZINE TOGETHER
The pages are put together using graphic design programs like QuarkXPress and In Design. Horsewyse is done using QuarkXpress and another image program called Photoshop (which you've probably heard of). You need to be fairly artistic to design magazine pages so they're visually appealling yet contain all the info on them. Sometimes it's tricky making everything fit!
As editor, I also have to make sure articles read fluently, and have correct spelling and grammar. Many have commented I have their dream job. Well, yes...it's interesting but very hard work like any other occupation.
Front covers are important and we'll often pay a fair bit for good ones, anything between $300-$600. Being quarterly, we can afford to generate a lot of material ourselves, which helps keep overheads down.
ADVERTISING
Advertising is VERY important to any publication as it helps pay for everything, so you will rarely see any magazine that doesn't contain some form of advertising. Yes, it clutters up the pages but we can't survive without it! Plus some of it is very informative.
Most major advertisers work out an advertising budget 12 months in advance and then stick to it. They may request special pricing for multiple ads and it also pays to be competitive by matching prices in other similar magazines. If you ask too much you'll be pricing yourself out of business.
WHAT ELSE?
Many believe you can start a magazine up and it will automatically sell but it doesn't work like that. Horsewyse has been going for nine years now yet I am still being told, "I've only just found you at the newsagent". So it takes a looong time to get established! Added to that is the fact many new magazines flounder and fall by the wayside after a short time, which makes potential advertisers very wary about investing money in new ones.
OFFICEWORK
I do most of the design and a lot of the writing of Horsewyse, but I also handle all the office stuff too, like processing subscriptions, Totally Horses memberships, send out gift shop items, do banking, etc. In fact, I estimate about half my time is spent doing these mundane but necessary tasks. I also do all of the website.
THE DOWN SIDE
Deadlines...I sometimes have to work nights, weekends and public holidays to meet deadlines. Even though we're only quarterly and no matter now well I try to plan everything, the last two weeks are usually bedlam. If we get a last-minute ad in I have to shuffle everything around to accommodate it. Proof-reading is a hassle too–we try our darndest but a few always slip through and boy, do readers love to write and let you know!
HOW DO I GET INTO EQUESTRIAN PUBLISHING?
Unfortunately it's really limited...most Australian horse magazines (with the exception of Horse Deals) are published by the people who also produce them as this helps keep costs down and is the only way you can hope to make any kind of profit. You can write articles and submit them and hope to get in that way, or ask to do work experience. Unfortunately Horsewyse isn't set up for work experience as there's only enough room in my office for me and my three dogs (and the occasional cat). Nowadays you'll need a tertiary qualification to break into any kind of journalism, get a job with a (non-horsey) magazine or newspaper and hope you can use your equestrian knowledge down the track if there's an opening.
You could always start up your own magazine but it would need to fulfil a 'niche' in the equestrian market and most of these are already well catered for and the publications well established.
Anyway, I hope this helps answer some questions for you!
Vicki Sach (founding Editor)
