WHAT IS A COMMUNITY MAGAZINE?

If you have been considering the idea of publishing your own community magazine for some time then I have no doubt you will have seen several advertisements around the Internet which claim to help you establish your own community magazine. Generally they revolve around publishing booklets of local business advertisements which you distribute free of charge around your designated area - earning revenue directly from the advertisements placed.

I do not intend to assess the merits or otherwise, of such schemes or of any similar schemes, because to all intents and purposes there is no justification in applying the term 'community magazine' to any such publications. A community magazine can encompass far more than local business advertising and if you fail to understand that you are missing out on the greatest opportunity you will ever encounter.

A 'true' community magazine portrays what we will learn in the following chapter - 'the spirit of community'

It is not the purpose of this web site to show you how to publish a community magazine where revenue is earned from local business advertising alone, but one which in itself is highly saleable and which can contain local advertisements as a supplementary source of additional income should you desire.

You may be wondering how we can publish a community magazine that people will want to purchase from you and you may even have reservations about attempting to do so.

Well, through this website I will attempt to show you exactly how I began to do that and explain why such a publication will become so highly desirable.

To be able to produce a community magazine that offers the potential for it to be in great demand you have to provide your readers with something that isn't otherwise available to them.

In fact, your community magazine will combine two currently unavailable services to your readers into a marketable product that you will simply have to compile into an attractive and well-presented publication.

• You give your readers what they want to see and read
• Your readers provide you with the content for you to publish

You don't need to be an author yourself because your readers supply the content for each issue of your magazine.

Now, if we recall those booklets of local business advertisements mentioned earlier in this chapter, which are described as 'community magazines', what happens in your own household to those free publications which are delivered through your letterbox? How many such offerings do you receive each week?

In my particular area I receive no less than three 'free' papers every week and to be honest, sometimes I do take a quick glance through the odd one, before I resign them all to the recycle bin.

On the other hand, if you compile a community magazine following the methods outlined on this website, you will have a community magazine that will be of great interest and historical value, and something that will be collected and saved for generations to come.

In the words of one of my own readers, they will be: "...something that I will keep for my grandchildren."

A true community magazine will be something that is treasured for generations and it is these community magazines that form the focus of our intention here.

Michael Norfolk.

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