Is there a market for magazines in SL?

I was going to make a photo album studio/marketing firm, so I was tinkering around in Photoshop to make up some things for my portfolio. I came up with a pretty nice magazine cover. Having previously been a reporter for Stratics for 2 years, I was hoping that maybe there is a market for this sort of thing? Cosmopolitan was my model for this design. Comments and criticism are welcome.

Oh! Also, if I posted this in the wrong forum, I sincerely apologize.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69878-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_4

There's definitely a market. I'm sure Bonnie Ruberg would have prefered to write about something more tasteful, but I guess you take what you can get..

I'd be more tolerant of this sort of stuff in SL if you included some that had plus-size and super-size women. I play SL partly as a means of ignoring our fatphobic society in RL. Now it comes to our newsstands. Good thing we don't have much for newsstands.

Yeah. Slustler was the only magazine publication I've seen that uses THiNC books. I'm embarassed to say that I purchased one to see what the book was capable of. This will have professional layouts for each page, plus an allowance for tasteful ads.

I have so much work to do! I'm going to need writers, models, horoscopes, etc etc.

As far as newstands go, you have yet to see my marketing talents and flair for networking. If you'd like, I could do a writeup on players that break the mold.

I think the Metaverse Messenger is a good model for this kind of thing. If they can do it for a newspaper, you can do it for a magazine. Strive for the highest quality in EVERYTHING and you will get the ad revenue to keep going.

I am looking forward to whatever you come up with!

My upcoming magazine, Digital Traveler, uses the THiNC book platform. We had some family "craziness" happen when I went to release it and I decided to put it on hold until February.

It's a magazine dedicated to cool places in SL that aren't on the Most Popular list. My plan is to have the first issue out by the end of this month, in a smaller form than I was originally planning, as I don't have the time or manpower to create the size of magazine I had wanted in the past.

Tsk, you should be paying attention to the class!

HAHAHAHAH
DAMN YOU!!!

(I think I may be a bit advanced for the class)

Hi SinnedForYou,

I know how attached people can get to their projects so I'm hoping you won't get offended at my constructive criticism here:

I find the cover, at first glance, makes me think of SLHustler or a virtual porno mag. I think it's the combination of the model, who really isn't my cup of tea, and the vibrant colour combination. If your project ISN'T a porno, I'd choose colours that were less clashing... Perhaps a softer, pastel colour contrasted with a darker or more vibrant tone. I find the red/blue makes my eyes vibrate. It says "cheap" to me.

The articles themselves look really interesting, actually, but since at first glance the cover makes me think it's a magazine about underdressed women, I might not stop to check it out.

Maybe for the cover model, do a photo of someone present in the magazine? If you're doing an article on exotic dancers, maybe a (well shot and retouched) photo of one who is popular in SL with her name on the cover. Then you'd have everyone she knows buying it 'cos their friend's on the cover. Still sexy, but no longer an arbitrary "sex sells" cover that might miss your female market.

I wouldn't charge 100L for it. If you're getting advertising, I'd give it out for free or charge a minimal price like 5L or 10L. Other magazines/newspapers in world are free.

Umm... that's all. I hope I wasn't harsh (I know how criticism can feel) and that you find my advice helpful. I am merely making suggestions, not attacking your magazine at all. My background is in advertising and graphic design, I'd ask some people not in my industry what they think as well.
I think it could take off as a concept. You should put in a gossip column.

I would buy it, or subscribe, especially if you can keep up with the top designers and feature new stuff from them in every issue. Not just clothing, but skins, shoes, furniture, hairstyles, jewelry, gadgets, animations, etc. It's hard to keep up with what's new, esp. when new stuff comes out every few days, and many do not post in forums.

Yeah, I agree with Alaska that the sample cover colors are jarring, but the articles look interesting. Would be great to create a whole new echelon of SL models who can be seen everywhere in SL via the cover of your magazine--both women AND men on the cover if possible, maybe alternating between or featuring both on the cover? Also agree with Bertha that it would be interesting to see all body types and yes, even furries, elves, aliens, etc. make the cover also. That's what's great about SL--the diversity

Good luck! Looking forward to reading this

the red background is taking away the focus from the models boobs! please make the cover less bold thankyou

The blossoming of publications run by Resis in SL reminds me, kinda, of the desktop publishing evolution that came out of early Macintoshes. Not just in a DIY way, but sort of, "Well, here's a new platform, we're starting over, but taking the best of what we love from the existing 'world' with us." And that does reflect.

I like reading Resident publications.

I think there are a lot of holes left to be filled in this field too. That's not only obvious, it's true, and I've stated it repeatedly on numerous occasions because to me, it's like that Skittles ad where there's a rainfall of skittles, and they fill up a well. Just all those colors bursting forth at the seams.

If there's something you'd like to express, and package it well and publish it forth--BANG GO FOR IT!!! That's another fave thing of mine here in SL, if you make the cover art, you prolly also had some role in what goes inside of the pages too.

In some ways in SL, we're starting over.

I realize that the colors are shocking, but I modelled it after Cosmopolitan magazine, which is known for doing that. It's going to have tasteful photographs that push the envelope, but do not involve nudity. I used myself as the model because I was just playing around with it. Anyone that reads Cosmo will recognize the layout right away.

As for the things I will be featuring, I plan to include highlights AND ads from each category that you mentioned. It's important to know what's out there. I plan to include the alternative lifestyle groups in my magazine as well. I'll tone down the colors a bit after this month because that single image took me hours to do. Thanks for the advice, you two!

I can't believe people haven't done this much before! I guess it's because it's going to take forever and a day to complete. Everyone wants to make a quick buck. This is going to take DAYS to do.

Yup... and eh, sounds like you got a drive! After those DAYS are done, I hope you'll be looking back and smiling, proud of your work. And then more days, more things to do. Patience wins a lot out.

It's definitely a daunting task, but SL needs some female magazines! Now I'm just trying to figure out how many pages I should make it. I'm also curious as to how much I should sell ad space for. I'm fairly new to the Linden economy. Based on showing people the picture in SL, I've had very favorable reactions.

Is there a market for magazines in SL?

Yup I'm sure there is.

Yes what we need is more girly magazines. You just go for it and please make it really trashy ppl love that. I think 100 pages or so would be good. Charge 500 L$ per ad until you get famous then jack that sucker up to 5k have you thought about a selling price yet? Start out with 50L$ and again when it gets real popular jack that sucker to the sky and don't accept anything but 500 per copy. Your gonna be a star!

Hugz kisses kk bye now.



roflmfao

Whoa. Whoa. Calm down! I'm not in this to make a huge profit. I'm doing this because I get bored easily. Would you rather I stripped or escorted? I have no building skills so I'm doing what I love, writing, using my background in online gaming journalism. It won't be trashy. I'm not catering to the sex community. I'm catering to females of all shapes/sizes/race/creed, etc.

don't take me seriously here anymore k. I was kidding with ya. Escort? depends how much would you charge me per hour

Sorry. I'm just stressing about how I'm going to implement all of this. I think I'll stick with the journalism business. I lack the enthusiasm to escort.

Is there a market for porn?

Yes, there is porn on the Internet.

No worries ok I'm always so serious here I probably caught ya off guard. Try your magazine if ppl like it they will buy it.

Cat

Great, Martin. Jump down her throat and then add a little sexual harassment to the mix. So much for championing the woman's cause.

Anyway, SinnedForYou, all you have to do is find a means to grab eyeballs. Once you've done that, selling the ads is pretty easy. To that end, you need to make it as easy as possible to read this magazine. I guess I'd recommend against charging per copy, as I think selling content to read inside SL isn't a very winning proposition. Metaverse Messenger does a pretty good job at making the paper easily accessible as a PDF file and I definitely endorse that means of distribution for easy consumption.

As for the design, I understand you're taking some inspiration from Cosmopolitan and other magazines, but I don't read those and my comment is much, much more technical. The red you're using is highly saturated -- I'd guess from eyeballing it's a 100%, fully luminous red. That's kind of a bad idea for the background for something that's going to be displayed digitally. You see, on my LCD, the red quite literally hurts my eyes. The overlaid blue text, especially "Sex and the Second Lifer" is very, very difficult to read as the combination of blue and red makes my eyes feel like they're tracing over a moire pattern. I emphasize that there is literally discomfort in my eyes until I look away.

I'm not sure what the science is behind that particular phenomenon, but I imagine for people viewing the image on a CRT, the issue is vastly worse (I often got painful moire from certain images back when I used a CRT)

Finally, from eyeballing it, it looks like you're using something from the Arial family for the text. This is nitpicky, but Arial is a wildly ugly font, without even getting into the purism associated with Arial vs. Helvetica (basically, the former is a ripoff of the latter). For a cover like that, assuming you can tone down the background, Helvetica Neue Light might look very nice. Also try Futura, or even Myriad, if the Apple look is your thing. In general, though, avoid Microsoft's typographic abominations like the plague. There is much nicer stuff available out there.

(And sorry if this is much more than you want to hear. I know I'm a whore for criticism, but not everyone else is. )