How to Make a Magazine Online
Sad as it may be for collectors of printed magazines, the future of the medium is online. It is far cheaper to produce a magazine online because there is no printing involved, and the Internet offers new, exciting possibilities for magazines like sound and video. Creating a magazine online takes some effort for sure, but less so than for a traditional print magazine.
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Instructions
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Select your theme. Most magazines have one focus, whether it's celebrities (as with People) or news features (such as Time) or fiction (Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact). First choosing the theme will then determine how to start the magazine. If the theme is very narrow, such as making wooden clocks, one or two people may be able to write the whole thing. If it is a broader topic, you will need to gather writers.
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Do some rough sketches about how you want the magazine to flow. Most nonfiction magazines have editorials, main stories, columns and departments. Most fiction magazines have editorials, longer stories, shorter stories, columns and sometimes departments. They also tend to have letter sections--in this case, online letters. Think about how you would hold the magazine in your hands and how you would navigate it online. For a fiction magazine, for example, there would be cover art, usually relating to the featured story; the contents page, sometimes with art work; the editorial and/or column; the featured article; then a mix of the shorter stories and departments or columns. Most fiction pieces work better, especially longer ones, with some form of artwork accompanying them.
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Search for writers and artists. Since you're starting the magazine, you probably will be the editor, but you can search for editors, too, if your magazine grows. Searching for writers and artists can be done through personal contacts or online at forums or through classified ads on other Web sites. Many, many writers are out there looking for a chance to write for any online publications, so you probably will get many queries. If you are posting an advertisement, be specific about what kind of writing you want. Otherwise, you will get a lot of queries that don't meet your needs. Photographers are also out there looking for work. Some will work for free just for the exposure.
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Design the Web site. You can do this with site design software or even with some of the available online pre-made sites. If you are good with high-level software, use Dreamweaver. For the rest of the world, simpler, template-based software such as Apple's iWeb are fine. For a front page, use the cover art and a logo, usually the title of the magazine. The logo probably won't change often, unless it is in different colors, because you want the reader to instantly identify your magazine. One possible design example would be to have the logo top and center with the cover art beneath it, both of which are visible from the moment the page opens. To the left, you can have buttons to take readers to the stories they want to read, the editorial, the columns and the departments. To the right, you can place advertisements if this is a for-profit venture.
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Set each main element of your magazine on a different page. Each story should begin its own page. If you have multiple book reviews, all of those can go on the same page. Don't forget to have a button available to go back to the main page. You also can have the same button panel that allows navigation back to the Home page on each subsequent page.
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Tips & Warnings
If you have a paper version of the magazine, don't put everything in the paper version online because you want to give people an incentive to buy the paper version in addition to seeing your site. If you have a paper version, make it easy to reconstruct on the Web site.
