By Melinda Wenner Moyer
Few people would assume that starting a publication is easy. But the take-home message of Saturday afternoon’s session on the topic drove home just how taxing the process can be. “It will leave you nerve-wracked and reaching for sedatives,” said panelist Bobbie Johnson, co-founder of the online publication Matter, which has been publishing long-form articles about science, technology, medicine and the environment since November 2012. “The only thing that gets you through the long, dark nights, when everything is going to shit, is momentum.”
Johnson and the three other panelists — David Harris, founding editor-in-chief of Symmetry magazine; Catherine Owsik, founding editor-in-chief of Nerve magazine; and Evelyn Strauss, founding co-editor of the Science of Aging Knowledge Environment (SAGE KE) — don’t regret having started their own publications. "There’s nothing like having your own publication in the world that you’ve created,” Harris says. But individuals who want to venture out on their own need to keep some concepts in mind and prepare themselves for what’s to come.
Most importantly, Harris said, a journalist wanting to start a new publication should have a clear vision. “It’s really important that you understand what sort of thing you’re imagining and what thing you’re in the process of falling in love with,” he explained. It’s also crucial to identify the publication’s target audience and what it wants. Finally, one should be able to differentiate the new publication from others that already exist.
The panelists also emphasized the importance of developing a strong business model that details how the project will be funded. Will the publication rely on advertising? Or will it, like Matter, become a subscription-based product? Harris added that the publication should have champions, too. “It’s important that you have people in the community who can get behind your project.”
Yet while planning ahead is crucial, flexibility is, too. “Be prepared to make changes as you go along,” Harris said. And be realistic: a person who dreams only of designing and editing will be in for a rude awakening, as starting a publication involves lots of menial work. “I spend most of my time dealing with financial and legal [issues],” Johnson says. “It’s going to be boring, but it’s rewarding.”
So when is the right time to start a publication? The panelists agreed that there never is one, because no one is ever fully qualified for the task. After answering the important questions about vision and funding, one should simply dive in. Owsik, for instance, started Nerve when she was still an undergraduate at Queen’s University in Toronto. “I decided, why not? I just went for it. And it worked.”
