5 Compelling Reasons You Need an Online Magazine and 5 Reasons to Keep Blogging

At the end of April this year, I quit my job to work for myself.

Like so many others, I had set up my own website, written articles, and interviewed experts. Like so many others, I had built up a following, established an email list, and created premium products for those readers. Like so many others, I had followed the classic freemium path to blogging success.

With one exception: I didn’t have a blog.

Instead, unlike so many others, I had done all of the above with an online magazine.

All You Need to Know

I’ll keep the background brief: in June 2010, I published the first edition of In Treehouses under the supremely un-catchy tagline of “how to build valuable, profitable niche communities”. One month after launch, I had a mere 49 subscribers.

After a few evolutions and eighteen months of work, In Treehouses now boasts nearly 2,000 subscribers and a hefty list of well-known interviewees and contributors (including our gracious host, Annabel), all under the new tagline: a free online magazine that inspires lifestyle businesses.

What are the Results of Running a Magazine?

I’m fortunate to have enjoyed a decent amount of success with In Treehouses. Email open rates are consistently above 55% (against an industry average of closer to 20%) and the conversion rate of new site visitors to subscribers is a whopping 17.1% as I write this (when most bloggers are delighted with 5%). I’m hugely grateful for this support.

But it’s not all wine and roses.

Below, I’ve laid out the pitfalls of running In Treehouses as well as the benefits. Should you decide to take up the challenge and start your own magazine, you’ll be pleased to read that many of the downsides can actually be alleviated by running a blog alongside your magazine.

The Ups and Downs of an Online Magazine

1. You’re a Pioneer

Brilliant // Simply put, there aren’t too many online magazines around. Interviewees and subscribers are drawn to you because you’re different, you’re unique. You also get to be a pioneer and explore new territory because there’s no map, no list of rules to follow or expectations to uphold.

Not Brilliant // I’ll repeat myself: there’s no map. Unlike the blogosphere where you can gather dozens of articles about how to become a blogging star, there are few guideposts to help you with your magazine. Being unique means you stand alone; where there’s more opportunity, there’s also less certainty.

The Solution // By way of an entirely shameless plug, I run a blog about how to run a magazine. It’s an attempt to redress the balance, to show what I’ve done and experienced and learned along the way. Plenty of places will show you how to design, publish, and upload a magazine; far fewer will show you how to run one as a day-to-day solo business. That’s my aim.

2. You Control Your Design

Brilliant // Fed up with WordPress themes and screens filled with text? With a magazine, you get total control over how your work is published and enjoyed. Remember, it’s all online – there’s no need to worry about print or image sizes or any of that stuff – free your imagination and get visual. Be beautiful.

Not Brilliant // Not everyone is a designer, nor does everyone want to be. WordPress might be limiting, but at least it gives you a framework with which to work; going rogue might lead to a visual disaster if you’re not experienced. And then there’s the time it takes to learn InDesign, or how to design in PowerPoint. If you’re just interested in getting your work read quickly and simply, keeping it simple with a blog might be best.

The Solution // Looking back on old editions of In Treehouses, I see hideous design errors, things that just didn’t work, and the hours spent experimenting along the way.

I’ve learned to accept my limitations and follow one golden rule: keep it simple. The more minimal you can keep things, the less there is to go wrong; you can always step things up as you learn new skills.

3. You Can Take Breaks

Brilliant // With a monthly magazine, you have plenty of flexibility in your publishing schedule. One common complaint I hear from bloggers is of burnout, when the stresses of writing regular posts just grinds you down. With a magazine, you can take a two-week break should you so wish, then dive back in when you’re refreshed – and still have a couple of weeks before publication.

Not Brilliant // Working in batches also means publishing in batches. Your magazine only comes out every once in a while, unlike blog posts that bring in a constant stream of traffic. You might see hundreds of visitors on publication day, only to face a wasteland the next week. And remember, it’s easy for a two-week break from your magazine to become a two-month break. Stepping away makes staying away all the more tempting.

The Solution // If you haven’t already, go and read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and convince yourself of the value of turning up regularly to do the work. The best promotion and the best chance of success you can give yourself is to publish quality work on a regular basis, whether it’s with your blog or a magazine. As Pressfield says, “It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write”.

4. You’re Creating ‘Forever Content’

Brilliant // Like it or not, blog posts disappear quickly. Each day, readers are on to the next new thing. Creating a monthly magazine is more permanent, and provides a back catalogue that’s enticing to new readers. Magazines feel more collectible and offer a timelessness that’s often absent from blogging.

Not Brilliant // You’re going to miss out on some Google love – all your magazine content is tucked away in a PDF rather than on easily searchable web pages. Blog posts, on

the other hand, can be found easily enough by the search bots.

The Solution // I’ve never once worried about SEO with In Treehouses, beyond adding some simple metatags to the website. Why? Because I believe in people, not search engines. It’s people who’ll share my work, who’ll shout about the magazine, who’ll become fans and customers – so it’s them on whom I focus. Spend your time delighting your readers, rather than trying to delight Google.

5. You Learn to Publish

Brilliant // When you publish a magazine, you’re orchestrating something very similar to a product or a book release. You’re notifying readers, promoting, interviewing, being interviewed, and all the other publishing-side work that will stand you in good stead when the time comes to sell something for real.

Not Brilliant // Sometimes, people miss you. When only one or two emails are going out each month, announcing the magazine release, it’s easy for them to be gobbled up by spam filters and for readers to miss out on your work. The regularity of an RSS feed or blog posts dropping in readers’ inboxes every few days keeps you in constant contact with your audience.

The Solution // Take your publishing role seriously. Engaging with people on Google+, on Twitter, via email, through interviews and guest posts – it all adds up. You’re not just writing anymore, we’re all publishers now. And it’s the publishing part of you that has to ensure the writer part of you gets the attention she deserves.

Should You Start a Magazine?

Charles Dickens ran two magazines in his lifetime. Gustav Flaubert, Henry James, Tom Wolfe, Arthur Conan Doyle, Hemingway, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kipling – they all had novels that were seralised in magazines before they were published as books. There are legends who go before you, should you choose to start a magazine. You’re walking in the footsteps of giants.

And the great thing is that you needn’t ditch your blog. You can run a magazine hand-in-hand with your blog, have one support the other, use as them as complementary publications, or keep them completely separate. You can publish a magazine weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually. Again, there are no rules – you get to be a pioneer.

So ask yourself, should you consider starting a magazine?

Guest post by Thom Chambers

Thom Chambers runs Mountain & Pacific, a micropublishing house that creates online magazines for the restless.

To discover more about In Treehouses or his blog on how to run a magazine, visit the Mountain & Pacific website.

You can also find Thom on Twitter and Google+.