E magazine .... Online Flashlight Magazine

Anyone interested in publishing - taking part in - the publishing - of a E magazine dedicated to flashlights ?

I thought a few articles to get things of the ground .

Something on buying your first light ? batteries ? charger ?

Possibly a Product review or two ..

I thought some of you guys may be interested ?

Could be a lot of fun ?

To start of with , I thought , maybe we just take some content from BLF [ published works ] or if folks are interested in submitting work for publishing ?

E magazines are taking off ! and Im getting old , and publishing could be a new skill worth something .

Since Im currently doing a IT course , I thought why not ...

ATM Im looking into software , and will start doing some tests to see what software will be more suitable for the task , as well as hosting options ..

This could be as simple as an annual magazine , quarterly magazine !

Monthly could be a little exhaustive [ full time job ] , but it is something to consider ?

So I put to you guys , are you interested ?

I really like the idea , as it is the future [ E magazines ] , its Green , and the start up costs are minor when compared to publishing a real magazine made from a tree !

There are several free hosts out there [ for E publications ]

And its does not require contributors to be on the same continent ..

Any how , feedback most welcome .

in time with luck you could end up with a lil money maker there with sponsors avdertising

I was thinking more about increased skills base -

Also giving folks an opertunity to be published

Be a little more proffesional [ more skills ]

and browny points ...

And yes , if it were to become commericial - there could be money involved - Maybe ? - possibly even pay cheques to contributors . Who would not like to make some flashight money from writting about there latest purchase , heck - if the lights pay for themselves - and then maybe - product reviews ..

There are possibilities ...

I commend your aspirations but have some advice, sorry if it's not all good news. I have worked as an editor on three different automotive-related print magazines that also have websites. I also used to hang out over on Flashlightnews.net's forums, which was a sort of an E-magazine, though today it is more of just a forum from what I can tell.

Based off of my experience you could create a great E-magazine fairly easily but it will be very hard to make it profitable (but if you start it as a "hobby" then I guess any profit is just a bonus). I say that because of forums like this. We get current flashlight news instantly here, or on CPF or FN.net or the other forums out there. To get a lot of readers to your E-magazine you would have to have an advantage that the forums don't have. For instance, convince MFGs to let you review a light two weeks before anyone else has one. That's hard to do for a small and new E-magazine. Certainly not impossible but you would have to convince them that your website has the readership and credibility to make it worth their investment.

I mentioned readership. That's the BIG thing. If you have a few hundred people reading the site every day it will be hard to convince the MFGs to take you seriously. So you would have to do "something" to get the readership into the several thousand mark before anyone would take you seriously. And that includes advertising. In the print media if a magazine has 30,000 readers that is considered a very small magazine. A magazine of that size has a difficult time attracting advertisers with serious dollars.

The good news is you would probably get a boat load of free flashlights. That alone makes your plan a "bright" idea. :D

And my personal suggestion should you undertake this adventure is...

Bring real-world beam shots to EVERY review. I don't care what a beam looks like on a white wall. I don't shine my lights at white walls (although you should still include these for people that like them). I have seen some reviews on here where the beam shots were great! Like including multiple targets in the picture and a distance to each target, that sort of beam shot REALLY shows how well a light works in the real world.

Good luck with your E-magazine if you decide to do it. I honestly hope you can make it work and I didn't mean to sound negative, I just wanted to give you an honest opinion.

Doug

Not a bad idea at all Old, thanks for suggesting it! I might be able to contribute some articles. I also have a pretty good eye for spelling and grammar. I hardly evr maek mistakes. :) So I could do proofreading.

I have created several near-professional quality PDF publications with the free, open source software LibreOffice Writer. Or LibreOffice Draw could be used for shorter articles that have a more controlled layout. LibreOffice is my area of expertise.

Another near-professional grade free open source desktop publishing software is Scribus. I don't have much experience with it, but those who do recommend it.

Software links most welcome and needed ...

To be specific - Im talking about - http://cde.cerosmedia.com/1J4dee3ccf46d30650.cde - something like this .

Its a Electronic Magazine - or E magazine - Hopefully haven't confused anyone .

It would be very much a niche magazine , but by flashaholics for flashaholics and not just advertising for expensive flashlights , we could talk about budget flashlights ! And to start it does not need to be a 100 page publication , 4 , 5 , 6 pages to get of the ground , just to give folks an idea of what to expect .

Plenty of scope for padding the old CV [ resume ] and a bit of fun .

Anyhow , I will be looking into this seriously this second half of the year , and hopefully have a Christmas issue out ! [ Maybe = the goal ]

I think in terms of sharing knowledge , and if there are any rewards from it , then thats ok . [ I dont mind ]