A New Magazine? In 2008? Really?

I just received a press release for a new magazine for multi-player videogames called Massive Gamer. it's being published by Jodie McIntyre, owner of an MMORPG fansite called mpogd.com.

I don't know Ms. McIntyre, but as a long-time veteran of the magazine industry, I just have three words for her:

DON'T DO IT!

I don't want you to get the impression that I don't like the idea of an MMORPG magazine. I love nearly all magazines. (I can't stand that dang Bassmaster, but I have my own reasons for that.)

Seriously, I have been in and out of the magazine industry for more than 20 years, as the executive editor of titles including Lost Treasure, Total Fitness, BASSIN' and Income Opportunities. Some of those mags had hundreds of thousands of readers. They were slick, full-color publications distributed from Hawaii to Maine.

That was in the good, ol' days of magazine publishing when photographers were professionals and knew a few things about depth-of-field and F-stops. That was in the good, ol' days of magazine publishing when the writers were grizzled old newspaper hacks who knew their way around a past-participle. That was in the good, ol' days of magazine publishing when potential advertisers called you about buying space in your publication because it was the only way they could get their products in front of their audience.

As Susie Hinton would say, that was then. This is now.

Don't do it, Jodie. Don't start a magazine in 2008. It'll make you yell at your kids, divorce your husband and kick the dog.

Businesswise, starting up a magazine is a disaster. It'll be half a year before you see dime one. Here's why:

Let's say your first issue is a February cover date. February magazines actually come out in January. Why is that? Because if you see two similar magazines on the newsstand and one has a January cover date and the other has a February cover date, you'll buy the February one, thinking it has newer stuff inside.

To actually get the February issue to the stands in time for January, you have to put things into motion much earlier -- four months earlier. That's right. Monthly magazines are pretty much set in stone four months before they hit your mailbox. The stories have to be in place four months before the distribution date because most of the ads inside are based upon the stories that are written for the magazine.

This is the dirty, little secret of the magazine business. Ads are sold based on editorial. While the ad department goes out begging potential advertisers to buy space, the editorial folks scrape together photos and graphics and ship the whole business to the art department to start putting it together. The ad people fashion together a layout of advertising and the whole thing comes together around the first of November -- eight weeks before distribution.

You see, magazine companies don't have their own presses, like newspapers do. They depend upon a very few companies to print the things. And those companies are on a very tight schedule. If your magazine doesn't get on the press at exactly the time the printer has set, it might not get printed at all. And the printing companies don't mind telling you that.

My magazine Total Fitness was printed on the same press that they printed Rolling Stone. In fact, when they completed the run for Rolling Stone, they didn't even make a physical break in the paper web. They just took the Rolling Stone plates out and substituted the Total Fitness plates. For the first few dozen copies, out came a composite magazine that looked like it was called Rolling Fitness.

Once printed, half the copies went to the newsstand distributor and the other half went to the company that attached labels for issues to be mailed to subscribers.

Newsstand distributors -- there used to be dozens of those guys. Now there are very few. Most convenience stores have stopped selling magazines. Old-fashioned newsstands are closing up. Wal-Mart doesn't even let a magazine distributor in the door, choosing instead to deal directly with the magazine publisher -- and it's very hard for anyone to get in that door.

Remember Publisher's Clearing House? That used to be a great way to get a magazine out there. There was just one little catch: PCH took all of the subscription money for any magazine they sold. The publisher was relegated to begging the subscriber to resubscribe for the following year. That's right -- they gave away the magazine for free for the first year.

Not that subscriptions pay much of the cost of the magazine. Subscriptions are there for only one reason: to pay the postage to send the magazine to each subscriber. That's all.

A magazine publishing company makes money almost solely through advertising. Why do you think there are so many ads in a magazine? Have you ever tried to pick up a copy of Vogue? In order to maintain its cheap Periodical rate to mail a magazine, it can have up to 80 percent advertising in it. Of course, most magazines don't have that much advertising. You see, regular people don't really like that much advertising. Most magazine companies prefer to keep advertising down to the 50-60 percent range.

So half the printed magazines go to the newsstand distributor and the other half go to get labeled and mailed. For an issue marked "February," this happens during the last half of December. One frequent complaint about this process is that the issue usually hits the stands before subscribers get it in the mail.

So, once the issue is out, the advertisers pay the magazine company, right? Not so fast. Once the issue has been printed, the advertising department sends "tear sheets" to the advertisers, along with an invoice.

These invoices give a discount to the advertiser if they pay within the first 30 or 60 days. Most magazine companies give the advertiser up to four months to pay the bill. As a result, a "February" issue that was printed in November will likely not see any advertising money at all until the end of April. In the meantime, the magazine company has had to pay everyone else along the way: employees, freelance writers, artists and photographers, printers, distribution companies and the U.S. Postal Service.

And consider that, in the space of the four months you have allowed the advertiser to slide on his payment, you have had to print and distribute issues for March, April and May. You won't collect the first penny from any advertiser until you are putting the fifth issue of your magazine on the stands.

And it couldn't be a worse time for the magazine business. Massive layoffs in the magazine industry have already occurred at such venerable publishers as Ziff-Davis Enterprise (eWeek, Baseline and Publish) and F&W Publications (Writer's Digest, How and Comics Buyer's Guide) and a hiring freeze at vertical publisher Penton Media. Dozens of magazines are going to die this year (already closed are Games for Windows, House and Garden, American Heritage, Talk, Success, PiQ, Golf for Women, Shoot, Quick & Simple, Elite VIP, Skope, Media Week, Imaging Retail News, Apply, Harp, Mass Appeal, BLU, Amusement Business (closing after 111 years), Spokesmen, Disciple, No Depression, Orange, Kitchen Sink, Pioneering, Resonance, Blueprint, Index and a Los Angeles magazine called Tu Ciudad). The entire industry is in a downturn that's never coming back.

Does the world need a massively multi-player online gaming magazine? Probably. Is this the right time to start one? I'm afraid not.

I wish you all the luck in the world, Jodie. I hope you can buck the odds and turn it into a success. Well, "success" is probably not the right word to use. After all, Success magazine has recently restarted publishing after closing a year ago -- for the third time.