25 replies to this topic

[APsit190]

All,
On and off for some time I've been about starting up an e-Sword User e-magazine, as in a pdf file. I don't know if its a good idea or not, and I'm interested in your thoughts about it.

Things this magazine will do is run the latest news about e-Sword, and what is happening on the e-Sword frontier.

Things I'd like to include are Resource/Module news, as in whats hot, and whats not, whats in, whats out sort of thing.
I'd like to have the Module/Resource of the month, Book reviews, and a few other things in it.

I dunno if this should be free, but if its to be paid for by subscription, I think the some of the money could go into this site and to Rick Meyer's ministry.. So if its to be paid for, what should the price of the Magazine be??? I was thinking about NZ$3.00 a month, and about NZ$24 a year, or something like that.

Ok, lets see your thoughts about it, and also lets see what you would like in it too.

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21).

P.S. I've never done anything like this before, so its a bit scary for me.

[James Rice]

Its a good idea, but thinking free would be a good first start.

[exscentric]

I would also suggest for free - might get volunteers easier if you need articles written. If you are doing it all yourself, then your choice though I for one probably would not subscribe. You could pick up advertisers I would think with the circulation a free one could get with e-sword folks.

www.ccmag.com might give you some ideas - they were a printed mag by subscription and converted to free online a few years ago. Links to their mags are just under the main title.

[Josh Bond]

Blogging platforms have (and will continue to) largely replace the modern magazine, Wordpress in particular. There are magazine templates for Wordpress that make it full fledged electronic magazine. For content, you may have to go beyond the "what's new" and into "how to" and tutorial types of articles, otherwise you might run out of things to say? I haven't thought it through, that's just thinking out loud.

Tell ya what, if you start your magazine here in the blogs, I'll display the entries on the front page and re-arrange the blogs section to make your e-Sword magazine stand out from the other entries, including a tag cloud of your entries. If you wanted a stand-alone site, I would personally choose Wordpress if it were my project.

Josh

[APsit190]

Tell ya what, if you start your magazine here in the blogs, I'll display the entries on the front page and re-arrange the blogs section to make your e-Sword magazine stand out from the other entries, including a tag cloud of your entries.

Well Josh, That is really big of you, mate... Fair dinkum... you know how to make a grown man have a leaky eye syndrome.

[attachment=72:Big_Hug.gif]

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21).

[jonathon]

On and off for some time I've been about starting up an e-Sword User e-magazine,

I like the idea.

Publishing a magazine is a risky business. The usual results are akin to how Japan fares in rugby world cup play.

I dunno if this should be free, but if its to be paid for by subscription,

I suspect that Rick will consider charging for a magazine about e-Sword, to be monetizing it. Talk to him about it.

I've never done anything like this before, so its a bit scary for me.

Breaking the process into little steps.

• Print or electronic delivery;
• Gratis or non-gratis;
• Frequency: Weekly, monthly, quarterly;

Starting a print magazine requires a lot of capital. By way of example:

• CreateSpace: 100 pages B&W: US$3.66 each;
• CreateSpace: 100 pages: Colour: US$13.27 each;
• Lulu: 100 pages: B&W: US$9.52 each;
• Lulu: 100 pages: Colour: US$34.16 each;
• LSI: 100 pages: B&W: A4: US$5.46 each;
• Snowfall Press: 100 pages: B&W: A4: US$4.05 each;

Those are all book publishers. Costs may be slightly higher than going with a traditional magazine format.


Electronic delivery is usually less expensive:

• Smashwords;

I think Smashwords still has no charge to the publisher, if distribution is gratis. If that is the case, then I'd strongly suggest using their service. That way, you can get into the Nook and Kindle bookstores. They also automatically convert content into all of the major ebook file format.s (I'll grant that their bookgrinder doesn't do a great job of conversion. With a carefully designed word document, the output looks acceptable in all ebook formats.) One potential issue with Smashwords, is that all content must be in English.


With electronic distribution, gratis distribution is possible. With print copies, for gratis distribution, you either need number of advertisers, or somebody willing to sink a lot of money into the product.

Frequency:

• How many pages will each issue contain;
• How much good content can you write each week:
  
  • Regardless of publication frequency, you need to generate "x" pages of usable content each week;
• What does the content consist of:
  
  • Documentation;
  • Resource Reviews;
  • Bible Study Methods;
    
    • I'm aware of of roughly 200 different points of departure, in studying the Bible. Most of them fall into one of the following major categories;
      
    • Book, chapter, verse orientated;
    • Chronologically orientated;
    • Creed/Catechism orientated;
    • Original Language orientated;
    • Topically orientated;
    • Who/where orientated;
  • The methods that don't fall into those categories usually require fairly specialised tools, functions, and components:
    
    • Gematria Analysis;
    • ESL;
• What is happening elsewhere in the Biblical Software World;
  
  • Accordance is giving away a Mac laptop this month;
  • Logos gave away an iPad three or four months ago;

Regardless of frequency, you'll need to have enough content for at least three issues, prior to distributing the first issue. Ideally, you'll have enough content for six issues.


Roughly three years ago, Logos started a quarterly 48 page print magazine Bible Study Magazine. The content is orientated towards Logos. Nonetheless, it is a pretty good magazine. Perusing back issues might give you some ideas on what an e-Sword orientated magazine could cover.

###

Josh's statement that magazines are going all digital, using Wordpress, or similar CMS, is accurate. If you want to skip the PDF, ePub, Mobi, LIT, Kindle, Nook, etc "wars", then Wordpress is the way to go. This also allows you to have four colour screenshots, without having to worry about bleed through, picture misplacement, and other printing related issues.

###

Ideally, an ISSN will be obtained for the magazine. Depending upon magazine content, each issue may also warrant its own ISBN. I don't know who handles ISBNs for New Zealand. In the United States, they are handled by Bowker. If you decide to give each individual copy of the magazine its own ISBN, I'd suggest buying them in blocks of 1,000. You'll need a different ISBN for each ebook format.

jonathon

[APsit190]

Hi Jonathon,
Thanks a big heap for your input and thoughts. You certainly have given me a great deal of thought.

First off, I don't want this to be a one man thing. My preference is that it should be a team thing. The vision I have for the magazine is that its to be informative and instructive, so things like reviews, helps (tips), news (what's happening on the e-Sword scene) and different articles about e-Sword in relation to how its being used in the wider community, e.g., Bible Colleges, seminaries, and etc.

I'd like to have a bunch of regular and guest writers (contributors) to the magazine who would write on e-Sword. News from Rick Meyers and eStudySource would be great to be added into the magazine. Stuff like on whats happening on the resource/module development side.

There are many aspects to e-Sword itself which in many ways makes the program pretty unique. These would make very interesting articles to put in the magazine that would further enhance the user's experience with the program. Articles as to the reason(s) why people use e-Sword. So testimonial type articles would make interesting reading.

Another interesting type article that could be added, can that of a technical nature. Stuff on what makes e-Sword work. Things like, "under the hood" type articles which could give a user an appreciation of what actually takes place to make the program do what you want it to do. And here, people like you can add your geeky things.

The scope for this magazine can be as wide or as narrow as one may wish it to be, and to where the reader will enjoy it.

In conclusion, my reason for wanting to do something crazy as this, is because e-Sword is a very popular Bible study tool. I think that for a very basic piece Bible software, which has very little in the way of bells and whistles, that has a very large user population, and one which seems to be continually growing, that a magazine of this nature is needed.

BTW, if you want to do it, and I help you or if you want to help me... either way, I would dearly love to work with you. And if anyone else wants to jump on the bandwagon, you're more than welcome.

Oh yeah, the magazine is gonna be gratis (free).

Blessings,
Stephen (Php 1:21).

[jonathon]

if you want to do it, and I help you or if you want to help me.

The only contribution I might be able to provide, is to write a response, such as my earlier one.

jonathon

[jonathon]

My preference is that it should be a team thing.

That lets somebody else proofread, copy edit, and perform general editing functions.

The vision I have for the magazine is that its to be informative and instructive,

Something to consider, is having all of the articles in the same issue relate to a single theme.
The most successful way to do this, is select which article type will be the focus of the magazine, and revolve everything around that article type.

By way of explanation. "Resource Reviews" can be the focus of the magazine. All of the articles in the issue would be about the theme of the resource(s) being reviewed.

Let's say the theme for January 2012 is "The church of Christ e-Sword":

• The resource reviews can be resources created from the writings of Alexander Campbell;
• I've forgotten the name of the church of Christ minister that uses e-Sword in his sermons, and blog posts. He has an extensive set of sermons, ready for anybody to use. Some of them are in e-Sword format. Have an interview with him. I can't find his website
• Bible study using CENI and e-Sword. (CENI: Command, Example, Necessary Inference.);

There are many aspects to e-Sword itself which in many ways makes the program pretty unique.

I'm not convinced about its uniqueness. A pioneer, yes.

The scope for this magazine can be as wide or as narrow as one may wish it to be, and to where the reader will enjoy it.

This needs to be nailed down with great specificity. Otherwise you end with article content and quality all over the place.

jonathon]

[SpreadTheWord]

I suspect that Rick will consider charging for a magazine about e-Sword, to be monetizing it. Talk to him about it.
jonathon

I know this is a non-issue here but just to avoid a myth like this from continuing. You would not need anyone's approval to start a commercial magazine for esword. Anyone is free to write a magazine (or run an advertisement supported website) about Macintosh, despite Apple owning the platform. Anyone can start a commercial magazine for Windows or Office without paying Microsoft. I could have began a company called Video Professor without needing Microsoft's approval. A third party seminary graduate runs a company that makes and sells unofficial Logos training materials without paying Logos (not talking about Mike Morris). I could list thousands of examples of printed or online material that profits from discussing property belong to others. It falls under freedom of speech. Trademarks and copyrights and patents are an exception to free speech, and they are very narrowly protected. Its hard to stop even commercial speech related to them. Somewhere in your work, you have to acknowledge the trademark(s) of others just as all the examples above do.