Investors wanted

What follows is the model we are ready to implement.

Goal

…at one-sixth the cost of a fortnightly print magazine.

Create a superior online magazine, updated daily, 365 days a year. It will target a broadly-based—but not exclusively—conservative audience. The use of the web as sole production and distribution channel allows for its creation at one-sixth the cost of a fortnightly print magazine.

First-year target

30,000 unique hits a day
5,000 registered users/profiles

General Content Description

All content will be free to read. We will serve a literate audience and will pay for quality news essays and articles of 500 to 1000 words (longer if necessary), video segments between 3 and 5 minutes in length and audio segments between 5 and 15 minutes. This magazine will cover politics but will be by no means devoted exclusively to that subject.
It will also cover culture in all its various manifestations, high, low and middle: books, movies, television, sports, business, cooking/home entertaining and high tech.

Features

The magazine will feature:

Staff

Editors—2 full time
Contributors—Freelance, 10 per week
Graphics—Freelance, 1 item per day
Bloggers—5 part time (on retainer)
Researcher—1 part time
Advertising sales—1 part time on commission
Technical support—divided among contractors

Job Descriptions

Editors—Assign, edit and post pieces (adding value with links), edit blogs, monitor forums and comments. Write one article a week. Select, purchase and post graphics (purchased through online photo services such as CP, Reuters, and Artisans or assigned to freelance photographers and illustrators). Post ads. Create and edit news highlights. Occasional blog contributors. Create contests and polls. Create and email newsletter. Pay contributors weekly and employees monthly, responsible for accounts receivable/general accounting. Two eight-hour shifts weekdays, part-time weekends, 24/7/365 emergency availability.

Contributors—Freelance. The magazine will post two originals items (written, video, audio) on weekdays, 1 on weekend, @ $200 per item, 365 days a year (minus other employee contributions).

Bloggers—Five bloggers/writers, minimum 20 original items from each every month.

Researcher—News aggregation and other data gathering.

Ad salesperson—Ad sales and billing. Assign material to freelance ad designers if necessary (with the charge paid by the customer to the artist).

Technical Support – This is distributed and incorporated in other budget items; for instance, rental of a dedicated managed server will include all options to provide for server software upgrades, maintenance and monthly backups, etc. Software development of the site itself is covered through the payment of a license fee to the company providing the publishing platform.

NOTE: This magazine will pay no expenses. Each employee will maintain his own home office (full-time start-up employees will receive a $2,500 one time only equipment bonus). All employees and contributors will be paid through electronic banking exclusively. Employees will be paid monthly; contributors weekly on Mondays (experience has shown that writers will work for less if paid quickly).

Website design

The main page of the website will be designed along the lines of award-winning/popular news sites such as businessweek.com, washingtonpost.com, or wsj.com. The back pages will follow the model of the Daily Mail. Prior to launch the magazine will be tested on a variety of devices (desktop, laptop and handheld) and all popular web browsers.

The magazine’s website will be built on a customizable out-of-the-box publishing platform such as Movable Type Community Solution (MTCS) to limit web development costs and provide ongoing flexibility, control and the use of plugins in the creation and maintenance of all areas of the site; the magazine, blogs, forums and newsletters, and the database central to all four. Examples of sites using this type of customized platform are seriouseats.com and radaronline.com. Back pages will be published as static rather than dynamic to ensure the highest possible rankings in search engine order (SEO) and to handle sudden and large unexpected traffic increases without service interruption. Our platform will include integration with ad rotator software such as Adpeeps.

Our platform will allow different levels of user privileges to be assigned; user registration forms will have customized fields. This will create added value for readers and advertisers.

The magazine will reside on dedicated Linux server with Apache hosting for security. All necessary server options will be secured including upgrades, firewall and regular backup. Bandwidth will probably not exceed 200 GB a month for the first year (but could increase depending upon the use of multi-media content).

Budget

Employees and content (yearly)
$100,000—Two full-time editors at $50,000 each per year
$93,600—Freelance contributors working at $200 per story
$30,000—Five bloggers on $500 monthly retainer.
$12,000—Part-time researcher at $1,000 a month
$36,500—Freelance graphics, at $100 a day
$20,000—Part-time ad salesperson at $1,666 a month base salary plus percentage of sales

Ongoing capital costs (yearly)
$6,000—Website designer fees budget at $500 per month
$4,000—Web hosting on a dedicated, managed server with full package including monthly backups
$1,000—Software license fees
$5,000—Professional services, year end accounting

One-time start up capital costs
$5,000—Website customization
$5,000—Software purchases
$5,000—Equipment. Each editor receives a one-time $2,500 equipment bonus one month prior to launch with the stipulation that a portion of this goes towards a laptop computer.
$5,000—Promotional costs
$5,000—Legal services

$333,100—Total cost first-year

Revenue sources

Investment capital
Donations from readers
Donations from foundations and businesses
Advertising

Steps to be taken leading to launch (in order)

1. Incorporation and banking
2. Investment
3. Brand creation (domain registration and logo)
4. Server rental
5. Software purchases and installation
6. Software customization
7. Site testing
8. Editorial content assignment
9. Editing, posting of content
10. Launch by select email campaign targeting news agencies, news aggregators and bloggers

Credits
The above was researched, compiled and created by Kevin Steel and Kevin Michael Grace.

Kevin Michael Grace is a writer, editor and broadcast producer with over 20 years media experience. He was a Senior Editor at Alberta Report and managing editor of BC Report. His work has appeared in National Review, The American Spectator, Chronicles, Brainwash, Taki’s Top Drawer, VDARE, the Vancouver Sun, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette and on CBC Radio.

Kevin Steel is a writer with ten years experience working on staff at publications like the Western Standard and Alberta Report. His work has appeared in the National Post, The American Spectator, Alberta Views and The Canadian Encyclopedia. He has also worked as a magazine art director.

Contact
Ph: 1.250.558.3370
Email: magazine@kevinsteel.org