Reef Tank Magazines

[bklynreef]

Hello and I would like to introduce myself to this forum of which I am subscribed and enjoy intimatley. My name is Jack and my question is regarding the three magazine out there that are aquarium related. None of these three magazine devote enough to reef keeping or reef fish or even non reef saltwater fish. I and im sure the majority of people in reef keeping skip all other articles and go straight to the reefing scetion which is very skimpy. Coral magazine is the only one that gives a whole magazine to corals and our hobby. I know if there someone out there smart enough to capture this market and introduce a NEW magazine specifically for Reef Tanks, Reef Fish, Non Reef Fish, Corals ect ( Things ONLY pertaing to our specific hobby) then they would have hundredes of subscribers and dump all the other magazines they get. Since you guys have Talking Reef, How about "Reading Reef" as well, delivered to our homes every month. I would like to know how many others agree with me and lets also have a Tank of the Month in every magazine. Thanks for listening and all the best.

Your fellow aquarist,
Jack

[bbl_nk]

Jack,

I think on post, it sounds like a great idea, but the economics of it is probably prohibitive. As a professional working with media on a daily basis and even creating publications in the past, I can tell you its easeir said than done. With the way the internet has come about, most people are getting used to free content and being able to have their information on demand. Most newspapers are struggling and many well-read publications are fighting to stay alive in this shifting market.

Laying out a magazine has its own problems, the economy of scale in printing is the cost goes down as more units are printed. Example, a short run of say 200 80-page magazines would run $8 apiece where a run of 2000 may cost $3. Now you have to worry about artwork and content writers and editors. It takes a lot to take a full color picture and adjust it to the 4-color printing process, now you are dealing with having to have adequate photographers and graphic artists to retouch the photos. Also with writing to a confined space, laying it out, editing the copy and all that it entails takes a lot of time.

Another consideration is advertising to supplement the cost. With the mass variety of reef sites and forums and the other major magazines in the market, you have to compete for advertising dollars. How do you get ads? You have to show who's reading it and convince the vendor to pay for the service and its worth their money.

Finally, once you have this all ready, printed and ready to ship, conservatively i think you would have to charge $10-12 an issue jsut to stay afloat. While many people in the hobby will fork out for the latest Tunze equipmenent or deal with the $300 electric bills, a magazine at this price range would probably have a hard time gaining readership and committed subscribers. I think that is why you don't see many of these magazines last in the market.

As an alternative, i could see an electonic newsletter that is subscriber only with information and articles written by folks from the site that is not online as an option.

Don't mean to dampen your spirits but just trying to shed some light on the scenes behind the scenes in the media biz.

[bklynreef]

Mabe an online magazine would be a great alternative. This way we can print it all out and enjoy reading it at home like the other mags.
Thanks for the insight.

[rroselavy]

Coral Magazine seems great, and its good to see several LFS in my area no selling this periodical.

I agree with Brian. The Publication thing must be really tough/proibitive. Electronic distribution is less costly, environmentally friendly and probably requires less work/people to publish.

AdvancedAquarist.com installments can now be downloaded as PDF files. This seems to be a great way to archive (since images are embedded into the file), read while offline, and print out if desired. If reefreader.com ever starts up again, perhaps RR installments can be offered this way.

Between Advanced Aquarist, Reef Keeping, Wet Web Media, and various forum sites (sometimes with articles), there is so much info (and miss-info) on line that I think most hobbyists are generally satiated.

One tricky part is that industry experts, those authors/speakers who stand out in the hobby and offer invaluable information to beginning and advanced hobbyists alike need to be rewarded for their helpful efforts by giving them the respect (and compensation when arranged) to make it worthwhile for them. I read a semi-recent thread where several notable authors were complaining that they weren't receiving promised compensation for their submissions to RK in a timely manner, if ever. Several of these same authors refuse to publish on RK anymore for this reason. If this is accurate, such oversight is a real tragedy.

Marc Levenson (melev) is the chief editor of RK now, so perhaps this tendency will change for the better.

[CarmieJo]

I read that same RK thread and thought it was a real shame.

There are a couple of other alternatives Jack. C the Journal by Anthony Calfo is a beautiful publication. There is also Ron Shimek's Website... AHABS This is a really great ezine for those of us who are scientifically oriented.

We found that we were just spread too thin with www.reefreaders.com. Even a small ezine is a big commitment and the few of us who were doing the editing and writing just could not keep it at the standard we wanted. I can't imagine how much more difficult a print publication must be.

[Rob]

yes.. everyone is right one.. physical publications are not an options.. paying people, facilities, distribution.. i woudl be lucky to break even.

as for the online version we have tried.. but we can not keep enough quality articles flowing on a regular basis. Besides there are already quite a few (many already mentioned) online magazines fo the hobby. we decided to pull the plug on that project..

but we are always looking for NEW and inovative ways to deliver quality information and content to the community

[CarmieJo]

I would like to let you all know of James Fatherree's new ezine www.Liquid-Meduim.com. I am impressed with what I have read so far.

[Reef Newb]

Welcome to Reef Hobbyist Magazine

There is a link to a small magazine published and in part written by a worker at my LFS. It is a good magazine and is usually pretty small. They put it out for free and deliver it to other LFS in the area. They do it for the love of the hobby and dont make any profit from it.

[CarmieJo]

Originally Posted by Reef Newb

Welcome to Reef Hobbyist Magazine

There is a link to a small magazine published and in part written by a worker at my LFS. It is a good magazine and is usually pretty small. They put it out for free and deliver it to other LFS in the area. They do it for the love of the hobby and dont make any profit from it.

I pick this up all the time at my LFS but I didn't realize that they had an online publication too,

[Reef Newb]

Yeah I didnt realize they did either until I was talking to Jim about it and he said that he needed help with the site so it looks like I will be doing some work on their site pretty soon. Jim is a really nice guy and I enjoy going into the LFS that he works at even though I know that I will be in there for hours just talking.