Quote Originally Posted by Marco View Post
First and foremost, the magazines should fill their pages with what their target audience want to read, thus ensuring good sales, then worry about the rest later!
Most of those on here seem to have run their own businesses so it should make sense that even if you start with the best intentions and a good business model, as soon as you become successful the whispering parasites start on you and tell you that by making a few changes you can double turnover, triple profits and all that crap. Suddenly, as the founder you find you are "retiring" and that the baby you watched grow is turning into a monster.

Most, if not all, publications start as someones good idea but then over time are taken over by one or other of the large publishers and that's it.

Doing otherwise is like opening up a new restaurant and spending all your budget on telling people where you are and what you've got (advertising) and forgetting about the most important thing of all - the food itself!!
It's not the magazines advertising themselves, like you suggest above. It's selling space on your restaurant menus and wall for adverts. People might still come eat the food, but passing trade (ala McDonalds) is more likely than regular diners.

And that's the point I think. Once the circulation is up, and hence the brand name of your mag is well known then new readers will just buy a copy when they want to buy hifi and so the ads are as important as the editorial. There are now so many consumers that this single purchase model work on an ongoing basis. No loyalty, no subscriptions.