Defending my magazine

This last week I have felt majorly deflated about my business. My business being, my magazine, Love from... 

I absolutely love running my own magazine. I love putting the pages together, interviewing people who deserve to be put in the spotlight, getting together with my writers and deciding who should be our cover star and, best of all, holding the finished product in my hands. Its an amazing feeling. 

But at the moment, none of that really seems...well. Worth it. 

Let's start with the first issue, the biggest issue of all; money. I don't make any money from my magazine. In fact, it cost me just shy of £400 to produce one of the issue previously, and while not all issues are that expensive to produce, you get the gist of how much I'm spending. Add in the fact that there are no adverts in the magazine as of yet and that I give away the magazine for free plus have to pay for stamps and envelopes and you can only imagine how much money I'm spending, four times a year. 

So it seems simple right? Charge for my magazine and get people to pay for ad space. Easier said than done. People wouldn't pay for advertising because there wasn't enough readers- which is understandable and totally cool, whatever. So get more readers? Oh wait, I can't because only a handful of people want to actually pay for the magazine. Originally priced at £2.50, people only wanted it when it was free. Once I made the mag free, I saw sales almost quadruple. Because everyone loves a freebie, right? 

But now, months (and thousands of pounds) down the line, I'm starting to think why should my magazine be free? Why should I be working for free? Why should my writers be working for free? Why should I be giving away my work for free, just because a handful of people on the internet want it to be free? Even Cosmo charge a £1 for their magazine (I like to think the content in my magazine is far superior to Cosmo's rubbish and that my magazine was worth £2.50 but hey ho). So then I encounter another problem; people don't want to pay for a product they don't know about. Which again, is fair enough.

Okay, so I made the magazine free. You can't go wrong, ordering a product for free to try it, can you? But do you know what? People who asked for it to be free didn't even order copies! You can only imagine how I felt, and still do. They wanted to be able to try the product but didn't want to pay, I made that an accessible option to them and they still didn't want to try it! For free! 

In addition to this problem is the problem of finding cheaper publishers. However, cheaper publishers require you to make your magazine designs in a InDesign, which I a) don't have/can't afford and b) can't use anyway! This, of course, leaves me feeling very frustrated. 

But I can fix that. I can save for InDesign and I can watch tutorials to learn how to use it. It's the money issue I can't deal with. 

However, after feeling incredibly glum about it all, on my day off yesterday I got my arse in gear and turned the doom and gloom into motivation. I researched InDesign prices, I emailed a number of professionals for advice/interviews/tips etc., I watched InDesign tutorials and I have decided; 

I will charge for my magazine. My hard work- and the work of my team- is worth something. If you don't think it's worth something- a measly £2.50, less than a frappucino at Starbucks- then clearly the magazine isn't for you. People who really love my product, really love my magazine, will be happy to pay for it. And even if I only sell three copies, okay, it's not great, but I know they'll be three people who really love it. 

Running your own business sure ain't easy, I know that too well. But I refuse to give up. I've seen too many people around me try and fail to run their own business and I refuse to be one of them. Someday soon, you will walk into your local Tesco or Smiths and see Love from... displayed on the shelves. I am sure of it, because I know I can make it happen. 

Love from,

Florence Grace