HOW
TO PUBLISH YOUR OWN
COMMUNITY MAGAZINE
WHAT YOU
NEED TO BEGIN PUBLISHING
By
now you should have seen the potential for publishing your own community
magazine and understand that a community magazine does not have to focus
primarily on local business advertisements. Of course, your own
community magazine will attract local businesses keen to advertise with
you and that will supplement your income from publishing but it need not
be your primary source of monetisation.
Publishing
a saleable product is what we are focusing on here and it is our
intention to publish a community magazine that people will want to keep,
collect, and save for their future generations. The simple fact
that your magazines will become highly prized is another asset to you
when it comes to attracting local business advertisements. Any
business will much prefer to advertise in a magazine that has a long
shelf life so extending the promotion of their product or services long
after the many free magazines have lost theirs.
So
what exactly do we need to produce a community magazine?
Surprisingly,
very little specialised software is required and most people will
already possess everything they need to begin publishing a community
magazine but here is a brief list of the minimum requirements:
- Word
Processor or Desktop Publishing package
- Graphics
Program
- Scanner
and associated software
WORD
PROCESSOR / DESK TOP PUBLISHING PACKAGE
While
obviously not 100% ideal, it is quite possible to utilise a word
processor such as Microsoft Word to compile a magazine and in fact I
have used Microsoft Word for almost three years to publish my own
community magazines.
Microsoft
Word comes with several templates which are designed to be used to
compile small newsletters but it is a simple matter to increase the
number of pages to publish a magazine.
My
own experience with Desktop Publishing packages up to fairly recently
has been minimal and only my decision to enter the world of full-colour
has caused me to look elsewhere. On the advice of my local printer
I have now commenced using Quark v6.1 which offers greater control but
uses many methods similar to those I experienced in Microsoft Word.
GRAPHICS
PROGRAM
Once
again, even the very basic and widely available programs are more than
adequate for the manipulation of photographs and other graphics for use
in your magazine. There is no need to spend a fortune on the latest
graphics software and so long as you can resize, retouch and save images
in tiff format then you have just about everything you will possibly
require for publishing a local community magazine.
SCANNER
Almost
everyone will own a scanner these days and even if you do not they are
widely available for relatively little expense. Every photograph I use
in my own community magazines is scanned to a resolution of 300dpi and
output at around ten inches wide giving me all the detail I require for
exceptional reproduction on the glossy A4 paper that my magazines are
printed on.
I
have very limited knowledge regarding the technicalities of scanning but
I receive many compliments on the clarity of the photographs published
in my magazines and so I have adopted the above settings as the standard
for all future images.
Michael Norfolk.
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