3 - What kind of institution would distribute your magazine?

From researching I found there are three main types of magazine publishing options music institutions these being major publishing, independent publishing and self publishing.  When choosing what type I would choose to distribute my magazine I had to find out about each one and see what the positives and negatives of each one are, this then would allow me to see which one would be best to choose.

Major publishers are big publishers who distribute their magazines at a mass audience; they publish more than one magazine and have a lot resources and access to horizontal and vertical integration allowing greater synergy. One of the major publishing groups I will talk about is IPC which is the UK’s leading consumer

magazine publisher and is well known for its creation of the magazine NME. They are publishers of 60 brands, which are of different categories and publish to males
and females. They are a major group as they don’t just own one magazine they own different types and have different people working on each brand. IPC can be seen as a good institution to pick as they have a good reputation from the makings of the NME.

The other major publishing company is Bauer, known for its publishing magazines’ such as Q and Mojo. It is a worldwide company with multimedia platforms. This company aim their products at a massive audience of both women and men again and mainly at adults. Other idea would be to pick Bauer as they are seen to be successful with publishing loads of different magazines not only one.

Both major companies are well known for the products they publish as they don’t just publish one type. There are advantages and disadvantages however of using major publishers and these are: they have good access to horizontal and vertical integration which means they can publishes their products better and quicker as they have other companies which work with them or they own or have access to companies which can

promote the titles.  This is an advantage as it allows synergy, which is an interaction between companies which is mutually beneficial. Bauer owns a radio station they can use this to create synergy between both the radio station and the magazine to promote each other so that they can try creating a bigger audience. Another advantage of major publishing is that they create different categories of magazines which don’t just cater to a certain demographic. This makes them successful everyone is able to find something they like and able to relate to it, the Bauer cater for mainstream however they have a niche audience which is a small audience. However major publishers may not put a lot of time and effort into a magazine as they have so many to publish, the creation will take a long time and some may not be as great as others. But major publishers have an advantage of having a lot of funding to make magazines look good and to be distributed widely. This helps them in the point of sale as they’ll have the money to have the magazines in places which will attract the audience they want to, being a prime shot. This is also good for the retailers who are selling the magazine as the magazine company can give them retail discount so that they company who are selling the magazine will get more profit as they can have sell more magazine and the retail company can earn more money as they are getting a discounted price for selling the magazine for the real price.

Independent publishers also known as boutique publishers, which are small companies that publish one or two magazines that are aimed at niche audiences. They focus on creating high quality magazines and use mainly social media and the internet to distribute their titles. A magazine which is published by an independent publisher is Little White Lies. It is distributed by The Church of London who also publishes ‘huck’. The Church of London publishers are well known for their creativity in magazine making. Independent publishers publish high quality magazines because they only focus on one or two; this gives the readers a better look of what they are reading because the magazine is more professional and is a good quality as the publishers have spent more time on it. Also, as they only are only responsible for a few titles, they tend to focus on the quality of design as well as content. However independent publishers can have a disadvantage as they don’t have enough money to distribute their magazines widely. They distribute their magazines using the internet and

social media. However, this can work well for their magazines as social media use has increased, making more people see the advertisements and increasing the audiences. Also as independent publishers use the internet a lot they can use websites such as social media because this can be a lot cheaper and easier for them to reach their target demographic. This works  by the company adding FaceBook adds or twitter trends to make more of an audience read there magazine as they can go worldwide with this.

Self publishing this is one magazine which is published by one person working on it and the magazine is usually aimed at a really small audience. Two examples of independent magazines are ‘Rebel’ and ‘Sniffin Glue’. Rebel is a fashion and lifestyle magazine made by university students, and ‘Sniffin glue’ was a magazine published by hand and distributed to local record shops during the punk era. They were both published by one person at the start who wished to create a magazine on what they thought was a good idea and what others liked. Today, self-publishers mainly publish their magazines online on blogs and this puts them as a disadvantage as they don’t have the money to market and distribute the magazines widely in traditional ways.  They have to advertise and distribute them online. This, to an extent, can be an advantage as they can send out the magazine to a lot of people because a big population the internet so that the independent publishers already have readers.

This is a good advantage because people now consume magazines more online rather than go to the shops and purchase them which have deceased. To some extent some consumers still buy magazine but they have had a massive decrease. Self – publishers are at a disadvantage because they have less funding on the creation of their magazine, so their magazines can look less attractive to the audience which can make them not want to view the product.

From my research and all that I found out about the magazine institutions I made a choice that I would choose a major publisher to distribute my magazine. I would use Bauer to publish my magazine. This is due to the fact they have a lot of experience of the magazine industry and have success with their magazines, also they are likely to publish magazines at the demographic I have aimed my magazine at and Bauer have good vertical horizontal this is when one company can have many different companies to work together to create the magazine and horizontal integration which is when one company uses different firms in the production of their magazine to make the magazine more viral for example the magazine company using a radio station. I will use synergy within the publishing of my magazine from the use of creating a website, this will allow the magazine to promote the website so that readers can find out more information and I will use the website to make people aware that there is a magazine which a purchasable. I will also use social media websites such as FaceBook and Twitter to grow the audience for my magazine so that I can have a bigger audience for my magazine and a wider group of readers can find my magazine. With using Bauer to publish my magazine this will be good because the people who have bigger ownership will be able to make a magazine more successful this is supported by Karl Marx, who says “power resides with those who have ownership and control of the means of productions and distribution. Bauer have a good source of selling their products as seen with their successful products, you are also able to see magazines which have been well published and distributed.  So in Conclusion I feel major publishers is the right decision to make when distributing my magazine.