bizarreRide

I'd be glad to contribute, but the fact is printing a magazine takes money. Someone will have to go around to targeted businesses and try and convince them to give us advertising money based on our projected reader base, which will be a pretty small number. Or someone here who has too much money (not me) could front the printing costs and charge $25 per issue (or more) to try and recoup the expenses. And without anyone dedicated to it full time, you would probably only squeeze out 4 quality issues per year max, probably more like 2.

I think it's a great idea, but whoever takes it on needs to know what they're getting into.

A friend of mine publishes a skate zine every once in a while, and he gets a lot of the printing done for free from friends who work at Kinko's. If anybody has a hook up for printing or other aspects (royalty free photos, potential sponsors) that could make things easier to get started.

Maybe someone could talk some dealerships into being major sponsors, could be a good sales tool...

Later,
bR

Biggers

Hopefully I can offer some insight, as I work for PRIMEDIA, publishers of titles I'm sure you used to reading such as:

Sport Compact Car
Import Tuner
Turbo & High-Tech Performance
Super Street
Honda Tuning
European Car

(and a host of other automotive non-import based enthusiast magazines)

Printing a magazine itself is no problem. Obviously you could have moderators and tech-heavy posters give you enough content to provide a solid magazine. You might have to run their final outputs through a English major, but you could get the editorial content necessary.

But realistically you would never see the magazine on a newsstand. Trust me when I tell you we go to great lengths to develop relationships to acquire newsstand positioning. Even for us, if a magazine doesn't perform, it will lose it's spot. Magazine newsstands are there to make money, and they expect a certain sell-through to keep that coveted spot.

So what you're dealing with is purely the costs of actually producing the number of copies you were looking for, and possibly buying lists through the DMV or Lexus dealers to send copies too, in hopes that the Lexus owners will see enough value to subscribe.

Either that or establish a repore with Lexus directly which would allow sales (or them to cover your costs) of developing a performance-based magazine which would be available at dealerships, and possibly speed shops.

There are entire companies (PRIMEDIA owns their own) whose sole job is managing and acquiring newsstand positioning, and other companies whose sole job is handling the subscription end.

Hopefully that gives some more info, if not, ask away and I'll find out the answers you need.

Josh

bizarreRide

Maybe the right focus would be to create a clubLexus magazine...then you have an instant reader base, a website to distribute from (with Static911's OK) and a bunch of interested people willing to contributer articles and stuff. Plus a good pool of potential advertisers.

I think it would be cool, but it would probably be more out of novelty value than anything...I think if someone put a bunch of money into this, it would be tough to get much of it back.

Later,
bR

Biggers

The key would be advertising revenue. If you could generate enough revenue from advertisers to pay for it, even if your reach was targeted and small, you could continue to produce magazines.

But yes, as far as making a ton of money with the magazine itself, it would be difficult.

I don't know what ClubLexus' relationship is with parts suppliers, but that would almost be key to produce the amount of revenue needed to keep it running.

LexRX

Biggers is right, the majority of the revenue from a magazine will come from advertisements. I think the Lexus Tuner magazine is an excellent idea and when/if executed can be a great success. Execution, however, is the difficult part

projectsc

Want to know something strange....Yesterday I was at a Barnes & Noble and I actually looked for a Lexus Magazine! <I'm new to lexus's and looking to purchase an SC300 this winter or coming spring> I saw BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Mustang, etc... But no Lexus. I live in the NY(about 2 hours from the city) and I RARELY see SC300/400. I see tons of ES and quite a few GS. But I honestly was looking for a Lexus magazine, and was actually going to post in off topic today to see if there was one. But here are a few locations you could try...

Authorized Lexus Dealers
Shops that specialized with Lexus
Barnes & Noble
Internet
Internet Shops

But I would first try to see if any shops would sponsor it or even if lexus would, and then try to sell it on the internet and see how sales go.

Once I finally get my car audio/performance hobby more into a business I would be glad to advertise for the magazine. And I will advertise for Club Lexus if it is ok with the admins.

LeXusBoy

Hey guys back from Vacation. I think we should try to do this, not for the money (unless we are going to lose tons of it then forget it) but just to have it and to do it.
My $0.02

bizarreRide

Biggers, can you get an idea of what it would cost to produce an issue of, say, Import Tuner, but figuring on a run of only 50 or 100? Even up to 1000? (Printing & assembly costs only...I don't think anyone is figuring on getting paid for their articles.) Granted, IT is a high-print quality magazine, but I think that LT will have to be as well, to keep with the brand identity. Which brings up an interesting point...I wonder if any part of the mag would have to be approved by Lexus? Biggers - does Honda have any say-so or approval process in the printing of Honda Tuner? Or do you guys have a license agreement or something with them to be able to use all their copyrights and trademarks? This is probably not a problem, but might be more of an issue with Lexus than Honda, because Lexus is so protective of & dependant on their image.

Anyway, 4 color glossy printing is not cheap. Printing costs get cheaper the more you print (50,000 copies is a hell of a lot cheaper per copy than 500). The problem here is that our potential audience for Lexus Tuner is not super huge, mainly because the majority of Lexus owners, if I'm not mistaken, are probably not interested in tuning their Lexus. It's probably a percentage of the combined membership of CL and IS300.net.

As for advertising revenue...the price someone will pay for advertising is based on how effective they think the ad will be at getting their message to current or potential future customers. If a company was going to advertise in Import Tuner, they would know that their message was going out to an established subscriber base of probably 10,000+ people (it could be a lot more or somewhat less than this...I have no idea, but its a lot more than we will have) who want to buy **** to make their car faster, cooler looking, whatever. I'm sure Biggers' company has a ton of statistics on how many subscribers they have, what the demographic is, etc.

If you go to potential advertisers and try to sell them advertising based on 50 or 100 people reading your magazine, and producing 2 - 4 magazines per year, they will laugh at you, or say, "Sure, I'll give you 20 bucks for an ad. Oh, the ads cost $500?" Then they will laugh.

I'm not saying "Don't do this because you won't make money." I'm saying "Do this. It would be awesome. I would love to do some of the writing, design, photography, etc. But be prepared to spend and possibly lose a LOT of money to make it happen."

I don't mean to be the downer/reality guy, but we're going to do this, we should do it right, and everybody should know what they're getting into.

Biggers, if I'm off base on any of this stuff, please let me know...this is the knowledge I have gleaned from my limited involvement with the print/publishing industry.

Later,
bR

Biggers

To my knowledge, there is no licensing agreements we have to go through to publish Honda Tuning. Originally Honda Tuning was a newsstand-only special off Sport Compact Car. Originally we did one special a year, which jumped to two per year, last year jumped to 4, and finally now it is it's own 6-time magazine taking subscriptions.

You don't have to credit Honda to put editorial in print about Honda's, I would assume that Lexus would fall in the same category.

Some magazines are print with both 4-color and black and white pages, and some are all 4-color even though we offer black and white ads.

Import Tuner is printed entirely in 4-color, which makes production easier (you wouldn't imagine the logistical nightmare of working with both b&w & color pages, due to the way a magazine is bound), but it also makes the magazine more expensive to print.

Depending on the size of the magazine, which obviously starting a Lexus one would be small would be "saddle-stiched" ie the staples from the middle of the book. Larger magazines prefer a "perfect bound" which wraps the cover around glued pages. Perfect bound are much more durable, and a magazine roughly over 100 pages has the option of doing that, at an additional cost.

Printing 50 or a 100 would definitely not be cost-effective at all. You would need to start thinking about runs of 10,000 or more to make it work, unless you're expecting someone to pay $15 or more per issue. I do not know specifics on printing costs because I am not in that area of the magazine.

I do however know, let's just take Import Tuner for example, that the current circulation of the magazine is around 150,000 copies per month. Those are paid sales, both newsstand and subscription. To attain that number, we print roughly 3-times as many. Issues not sold on the newsstand will not be paid for by the vendor. They simply tear off and send back the cover for credit. (Which by the way you should never buy a magazine without a cover, same as a book, it's been reported as unsaleable.)

Sport Compact Car and Super Street have circulation numbers approaching 200,000 per month.

To give you an example on page rates for these magazines, all agency discounts out, giving you net rates:

Full-page 4-color (general advertiser is basically a manufacturer, like a wheel company or someone who doesn't sell direct, mail-order is just that, someone selling parts)

These are also 12-time rates, meaning they sign a contract binding them to run 12 consecutive issues. 1-time rates are significanly more.

Import Tuner - General $5,475/mo - Mail Order $3,506/mo
Sport Compact - General $9,605/mo - Mail Order $5,155.25/mo
Honda Tuning - Mail Order (no general card) $2,201.50/mo

Covers (Cover 2 - inside page opposite front cover; Cover 3 - last page opposite rear cover; and Cover 4 - back cover) are sold as a significan premium, as they get more exposure.

Most of our magazines try to do better than a 50/50 mix on ad/edit ratio. Meaning you would ideally want to have the magazine be 60% editorial pages, and 40% ads. Sometimes that's tough, because for every 8 pages you ad to the magazine, there is a pricing increase. It's all a game.

If you're interested on seeing stats and demographics for our magazines, to get some trends into the import market, buying habits, installing habits, etc. I have a website with this info based upon reader surveys and what not.

My hands are tired from typing so I'll stop now.. but feel free to ask more questions.. =) (I will be at the Street Rod Nationals in Kentucky until Monday..)

Josh

GSTRANCE

remeber it was MY idea.....

LeXusBoy

actually i was the one who said why don't we (do this) but yah it was your idea

GSTRANCE

im kidding I wouldnt have posted MY idea for a mag. if i wanted to actually do it, i was just dreaming, it would be nice though if it could get done though

LunaR

I think the mag idea is phat. I'd luv to help out with it. I've taken classes for this kind of thing. I'll even start working on articles now just in case Lexus Tuner does come to life.
I think it will even help strenghten CL by attracting more people i.e. adds for CL in the mag.
Oh yeah almost forgot. My friend owns the Rogers Stereo chain in the Carolina's. I think if I talked to her and her husband they would love to have an advertisment in LT.

LexusRules

i can gather some people and do the tech articles if u want

futuregs

What if...some of us CL people actually did come together to chip in for a magazine. What if
GSTRANCE and I did the graphics and page layout,
LunaR and Sasha, and other took care of articles,
and someone could obtain some advertising for the actual magazine.

Honestly I think it would be a tremendous hit. We could have everything from DIY projects, to upcoming future Lexus ideas. We could do Ride of the Month, witha little interview of the person. DO media coverage of Lexus throughout the car scene such as at car shows. FOr some reason i think it's a fantastic idea. If anyone knows a business that could actually print this magazine, please let me know, I'll get into it myself if I have too. =]