Let me tell you a story.
This one isn’t about a fairy princess who meets her Prince Charming. Nor, sadly, is it about the brave adventurer who went into the wilderness and discovered riches beyond his wildest dreams.
It is, however, my story: the story of how, as a one-man-band, over a period of six years, I created a magazine from scratch which is now read by thousands of people around the world in both printed and digital format.
It’s also a story which doesn’t — thank goodness — have an ending yet, because I still write for, edit and design the magazine, even though I sold the name to another publishing company almost exactly a year ago.
I’m telling this story so that I can pass on what I have learned along the way — and what I’ve learned is a lot about traditional publishing, e-publishing, design, typography, photography, illustration, print, distribution, marketing, sales, business, management, e-commerce, social media and a few more things besides.
So if you’re interests cover any of these things, I very much hope that you’ll find my story useful. I especially hope that you might be able to learn from my mistakes and avoid some of the traps I fell into and the heartaches I suffered as a result.
Do what I say, don’t do what I sometimes did.
Be warned that the subject matter of the magazine may not interest you — indeed, may not be to your taste at all — but I’m assuming that you’re that more intelligent type of reader who can take a hard-learned lesson from anyone, anywhere and apply it to their own circumstances. In most walks of life, I believe that’s known as ‘wisdom’.
Perhaps, when I’ve finished the story — and that’s going to take a while — I’ll be able to condense it into one of those marvellous “Ten Top Tips for Magazine Magnates” articles that you’ll be able to digest over your lunchtime sandwich. But for now, I feel a bit like the captain of a ship, casting off from the quayside and setting a vague course westwards, but without knowing precisely what I’ll encounter along the way.
Perhaps, then, the best place to start is at the beginning, and explain why I got started at all.
For that, look out for Part 2 shortly.