Many professional writers think of online publication as second class and are unaware of the specific requirements. But, in the same way that good writing demands we consider our audience, we also need to consider the medium. Firstly, the web is not homogeneous; there are three main areas to consider: These are relatively informal communications between friends and professional colleagues. Obviously you can write whatever you want in a personal email, and use whatever style you want. However, we’re so used to chatty emails that it’s easy to forget that communicating with an editor or colleague is actually business correspondence: even email needs to convey a professional impression. There will be time enough for informality when you have established a rapport. Typos and emoticons may not matter in an email to a friend. Used in the wrong place in a business email, they may lose you a sale.

Mailing lists & special-interest groups: Unless copied and redistributed, articles published on limited-circulation lists will only be read by registered users. The information is often only of temporary relevance and therefore inappropriate for a print publication with a long lead time. In general, you can assume that most subscribers to the list share your interests, so relative informality is fine. The main thing to aim for is to be brief and informative or entertaining. Not everyone will share your exact view point, though, so you should be wary of offending people unintentionally. Websites, web pages, blogs & online forums: Most of these texts are available to the general public and will be archived semi-permanently. Although you have a lot of control over what you publish (and “unpublish”) on your blog, and you can cancel your own messages on the Google groups, for example, once information has appeared anywhere online, however briefly, it is likely to have been copied and saved away somewhere.

As well as all the standard offline considerations of readers’ interests, logical construction, coherence, proof-reading etc., when it comes to web-writing style, there are certain guidelines to bear in mind. In general, readers don’t usually spend as long reading online as they do reading printed publications. You might leave a magazine open half-way through an article and pick it up again at your next coffee break. But once an online reader moves on, he probably won’t come back. So the writer needs to get the message across as quickly as possible. If you summarise the most important information at the beginning, the reader can see immediately if he’s in the right place; if he is, he’ll read on to where you expand your ideas.

People scan web pages rather than reading sequentially. Sub-headings, lists and bold texts are useful as they help readers find the information they are looking for. Do be careful, though, not to make your texts too “busy”. In the same way that long texts are off-putting, pages with lots of different type-faces and links look difficult and most readers just won’t bother. Web writing tends to use a more informal style than print. But remember that the readership is international: if you use puns and “clever” humour, they may misunderstand. Or they may be offended. This explains the popularity of emoticons: they are an attempt to clarify subtleties of tone which may not be understood by the reader in a hurry. Of course, emoticons aren’t always appropriate, so you need to craft your writing to avoid potential ambiguity.

The success of your magazine publication will depend greatly on the content. If you are doing something similar to what Cosmopolitan or Vogue is doing, chances are you won’t even make a dent in the market because you don’t have anything new to offer. In order to sell your magazine off the stands, you must feature something different. For instance instead of focusing on clothes, you can create a magazine that caters to parenting or cooking. This all boils down to doing some market research. If you can’t do it, hire a market research firm to do it. Should their study prove that there is potential in going a certain direction, it is time for you now to develop a plan that will make the magazine profitable.

The biggest question that a lot of people have a problem with is that what if you don’t have enough money to start it up? The best thing to do will be to invite investors by showing them your business plan which includes the start up capital needed and when can they expect to get a return of their investment.The other option will be to start a magazine publication through the web. Unlike those that hit the stands, you don’t have to invest a lot of money since the cost of making a website and looking for a webhost will not cost you a fortune. To know other things you may need to make this work, you can visit the website of the small business association which may provide you with a lot of useful input.

A few important things you have to work on will be the name of the magazine. The shorter the name the better so people will be able to remember it and the only way that can happen is if it is able to grab the people’s attention. Magazines come out monthly or quarterly. To ensure the quality of your content, make sure you hire the right people to work as editors, writers and photographers. If you can’t afford yet to hire these people on a full time basis, make sure you can buy the rights from them and then be able to edit the materials yourself and pay them accordingly.

Don’t forget to promote your online magazine. You can do this by paying for pop up ads that will appear in various websites especially the search engines.
Starting a magazine publication is not easy in the beginning since you are entering an industry that has already been around for a very long time. Again, if someone else has already made a magazine that is similar to what you plan, try to see what they lack and then use it to your advantage. This hasn’t stopped others from launching their own which just goes to show there is room for everyone in this business.