Ats members: new magazine idea

I like that everyone is coming up with ideas!!

Keep them rolling and we will get this idea going!

sillinous (and everyone else, too): I still think that going for a magazine -- as opposed to, say, a line of books (think DK's eyewitness series, time-life books, or some other "chain/franchise" of books) -- is not a good way to get this ATS-related business off the ground. Here's why:

a) (low-circulation) Magazines have a lower revenue rate than books once the books have been published, and a higher ongoing expense:

Unless you're talking about something to be priced like an academic journal, most magazines are sold at only a couple dollars an issue, tops; books, on the other hand, sell for $15-20 on average, of which we could probably arrange with the publisher to keep a couple dollars or more per sale. So, the per-unit revenues are about the same. But, a magazine's something that you need to keep working on issue after issue, and unless the magazine's super-hi-quality and in-depth the back issues lose their value really fast, unlike books which usually keep selling for the same price for quite some time. Moreover, the effort -- and thus cost -- of setting out to do the layout for a typical book and a typical magazine often works out to be about the same, because magazines tend to be flashier and have more unique layout per page, so you're putting as much or more work in to do the magazine instead of the book, and for less $$$ in return.

Don't get me wrong -- there is a certain amount of circulation (and associated advertising revenue) that reverses this equation and makes a magazine more profitable than working on a book, but when you're just getting started a magazine's a lot more work for a lot less money.

b) the magazine market for conspiracy stuff's already pretty crowded -- standing out would be hard

If you're going to do UFO/AncientMysteries/SecretProjects kind of stuff, there's already UFO Magazine, Fortean Times, and a whole bunch of pseudo-newagey magazines out there; I don't think any of them are that good, but you'd be competing with them and even if your magazine was better I'm not sure how easy it would be to convince the broader marketplace that that was right.

If you're going to do more politics / agitate for change, then you're in even more trouble: at least in the US people don't like to read politics that's too different from their current political views. Just look how it is here -- even when people basically agree that things ain't right, they still tend to flamewar the "other side" -- the left if they're righties, and the right if they're lefties -- instead of banding together to focus on the things we all agree to be messed up. If you're publishing a magazine of politics, you'll either wind up preaching to a pretty small choir and alienating a lot of people, and that'll really cut into your subscription base.

Either way, you'll wind up with some serious competition and circulation issues almost right out the gate with a magazine; with books you get the chance to be more objective, which should help the political issues to be less divisive, and you get the chance to fill a relatively untapped market niche: the even-handed, serious investigation into a "fringe"-type topic. Most of the books out there on anything conspiratorial aren't very good -- typically some mix of wild speculation, complete disinformation, or some profiteering, unquestioning repetition of facts gathered from earlier books -- but even that kind of junk sells well; becoming the name to beat in that market wouldn't be that hard, and would bring in a lot of money if it went well.

So, I definitely think that starting a magazine isn't the way to get this thing off the ground; I'd say starting a coop to fund authors to research and write a branded series of books will have a better chance at becoming financially stable, at which point launching a magazine becomes much more feasible. The coop part of that is partially to make sure the books meet the needs of their target audience -- us ATSers -- and mainly to make sure that the initial funding problems are overcome (since everyone chipping in 20-30 dollars will go a long ways).

That being said, other fundraising ideas are always good: i think hats/tshirts etc., are all good ideas. I undertand that part of the goal here is to change the political climate and that publishing some books in a year or so isn't gonna get any kind of immediate results; a shorter-term idea that'd both be less expensive than magazines and useful to boot would be a targeted wiki, to sort of shore up and formalize ATS's collective knowledge.

sisonek, That makes alot of sense, sillinous is apparantly working with other people that aren't on ats, he has apparantly has a group that would contribute lot's of money to the magazine Idea, he's writing a business plan for that, ect..

Your book idea sounds really smart, u2u me and we'll talk about that.... I'm more interested in that idea now then the other thing... sorry sillinous,good luck.

[edit on 24-7-2004 by TrueLies]

To be honest, I have been working on an idea similar to this for a while. As I have said, I had even messaged the Mods on multiple occassions to see their thoughts, but got no response.

Locally I helped to create a group of business owners and other educated people that are interested in making changes in the community and throughout the world. I had presented the idea of creating a national, or international, organization that would help people see past the propaganda of the government and politicians. This idea had received a very good response.

I have had little motivation before now to actually organize my thoughts along with others' thoughts. I figure that if this concept has the backing of a large group, such as ATS, it would be successful.

Yes I have begun writing a business plan, but I wanted the business plan to be a group effort, giving the credit to all of the people who help contribute ideas. I suppose that a consensus of the group on what this should be would be a requisite, though.

And as far as the book idea, I have nothing against that as opposed to a magazine. The main reason why I was pushing for a magazine was that it could potentially have the monetary backing of primary advertisers. Generally the cost of magazines don't even get back to those who create them. Often times, subscriptions of magazines are given away free to those who show interest in the subject to get more eyes on the advertisements (you wouldn't believe how many magazines I get in the mail that I have never subscribed to, just because of my business).

If the general consensus is writing a series of books, that sounds good and I will be all for it.

My thoughts/proposal->

I think that a Non-Profit organization, with similar interests to those of ATS (Ignorance Denial, and seeking the Truth, etc.) should be created. "You can't build a house without a foundation...." This organization would sponsor fundraising, help collect donations, etc. to further these causes. It would eventually gain a base of supporters and volunteers that would create products such as books, and later have a full-time staff that does nothing but this.

Eventually I forsee the organization exploring areas such as the media. Creating a news agency similar to Reuters, except non-profit, would be an ultimate goal.

Those are my thoughts. I would like to hear everyone else's thoughts as well.