Internet Works Magazine no more!

[DanielCoe]

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I was amazed to receive my latest issue this morning and find out the magazine is no more! I am now going to be sent .net

It will be a great loss, I only discovered the magazine about a 14months ago and have been a subscriber since.

What is happening in the magazine industry now there is no decent internet magazine on the market.

Last year we said goodbye to EMAPs Internet Magazine, which was not too bad, now Internet Works, that only leaves us with .NET, and hundreds of other PC magazines like PC Zone, PC Format, PC Plus etc.

The problem with .net is that it's just not business focused enough, it appears to be more for the casual web person, or for those creating their first web pages and not for those people like me running businesses and affiliate sites.

The only other magazines I receive is the Oracle magazine for work and I receive Revenue magazine from the US.

What does everyone else think? Is .NET getting better? Is there another magazine I should look at?

Daniel

[renegade]

Hi Daniel,

As an ex-Atari magazine publisher I know a bit about Magazine publishing. It's all down to the balance between advertising revenue, subscriber revenue and how many copies are placed on shelves in newsagents and it's a cut-throat business.

It's usually the lack of placement in stores which kills magazines off because not only does this affect the overall saves but leads to a lower return for advertisers. Lack on in-store sales leads to a declining subscriber base and there's a point at which the publishing company pulls the plug.

Given the internet is such a rapidly changing industry a monthly magazine cannot hope to compete with RSS feeds and excellent online new services so they're left covering product reviews and tutorials.

Magazine tutorials written by salaried magazine staff are often written to go with an ad or CD promotion, often by a hack with little or no interest or expertise in the subject matter (I've written dozens myself!) which doesn't make for in-depth or authoritive articles, again online tutorials win hands down.

I can read all the product reviews and price comparisons I want online often in greater depth and from multiple sources so they're not as interesting as they once were.

What I'm saying is, apart from you love of paper, do you really need magazines at all?

I used to subsribe to half a dozen computer and IT related magazines now I just have Maxim - for research purposes you understand

[John]

Was just about to post the same. Shocked to read that the only Internet magazine worth subscribing to (for an affiliate/retailer) is to be discontinued

I certainly won't be transferring my subsription across to .net - It's far too "techie" for my liking, and no-where near as business focussed as Internet Works.

So long IW... you WILL be missed!

[DanielCoe]

I know the problem was getting hold of the magazine, as I could never find it, so I had to subscribe.

I do like having a magazine in print, as I look at monitors enough, and taking a magazine to read somewhere else is nice, yes I know I could print out some pages off the internet etc.

I'll try .NET for a few copies (or what's left of my subscription) and see what it's like, and see if it has improved.

But what I think I really need is a magazine that is UK based that covers affiliate marketing, general ecommerce, web pr/marketing as well as technical stuff, but the problem is that being a computer programmer already a lot of code in magazines is really basic to me, plus there are millions of other good code examples on the internet already.

Anybody want to start a UK based 'Revenue' type magazine?

[ChrisM]

Originally posted by DanielCoe

Anybody want to start a UK based 'Revenue' type magazine?

I've looked at magazines in the past (admittedly on different subjects) but the cost of getting it going has always made the gamble too big.

[Fraser]

Yeah it's a shame. It's been harder and harder to find in the shops over the last 6 months which must certainly have contributed.

It's always been a good magazine although I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much with the changes about a year ago however it always was the most relevant mainstream magazine to our industry.

.net is quite good although from a totally different angle and not so relevant. It is mostly home based web designer focussed and some of the articles on affiliate marketing have been pretty poor.

[D-Mac]

Yeah it was the best internet mag on the market, shame it was an absolute pain to find it on sales anywhere. Even major WH Smiths don't seem to have had it in stock for ages.

[renegade]

I've looked at magazines in the past (admittedly on different subjects) but the cost of getting it going has always made the gamble too big.

Getting a mag going is the easy bit. Getting it onto the shelves is very difficult and you're at the whim and mercy of other business interests - which is why the big magazine publishing houses dominate the market.

[tinytina]

'Oracle magazine'

Bet thats a riveting read

[stevenm]

Just a thought but any of you magazine types ever considered creating a mag based solely on subscriptions and marketed via the affiliate route?

Cheers.

Steven

[lowndsy]

Anybody want to start a UK based 'Revenue' type magazine?

Someone from these forums was looking into doing just that - don't know how far he has got though.

[tinytina]

I am sure there is an opportunity for a magazine that focuses on the broader subject of making money, running a business on the internet.

[webvideo4u]

Originally posted by tinytina
I am sure there is an opportunity for a magazine that focuses on the broader subject of making money, running a business on the internet.

Maybe there is but it should be an Internet based magazine rather than a paper based one.

How about an Affiliates 4 U magazine?

[renegade]

It's perfectly doable to get a 60 page black & white magazine with a print run of 1000 or more for around £1 per copy.

The hard work is getting enough regular contributions and being able to fund the articles. You just have to strike the balance of paid copy and paid ads to balance the books and make a sustainable profit.

For example:

Outgoing:

£1000 - 1000 A4 B&W 60 page magazines

£3000 - 30 pages of paid copy (30 x £100)

£1200 - 16 pages of news and regular features culled from online content by a paid editor/business owner.

£200 - 1 front page artwork

£400 postage per issue

£5800 Total out per issue


Incoming:

£2800 14 pages of ads, inc. 1/2, 1/4 & classified ads (14 x £200)

£3000 1000 subscribers at £3.00 per copy

£5800 income per issue.


That's the break even sum paying an editor who could run the mag as a small sole trader company.

It's not a very exciting proposition. Obviously if you can get 10,000 subscribers it gets more interesting but that's a helluva big if...