How to Launch the Right Magazine(s)

In the past, I’ve retired a personal blog over at LiveJournal, in addition to a “professional” one that never seemed to find its focus. More recently, I decided that my 10-month-old self-help blog at hit a wall…run its course. You’d think I would settle into my work here…my work over at Nerve.com…let all the rest of my thoughts comes out in my personal blog…but the call of the blog world is seductive, and I’m already at work planning a new blog that I can call my very own.

Over at Wooden Horse Publishing — a directory of existing magazines accompanied by information helpful to writers hoping to pitch to them — you can read daily a list of launching magazines.

On the other side of the coin, there are the many magazines that never make it to launch, or those that gasp out a few issues, fading into oblivion soon after. Even the more well-established magazines aren’t exempt from folding. A few years ago, Jane magazine went the way of Sassy and, more recently, Tango became web-only.

Similarly, as quick as blogs are started up, more are abandoned, only to be found years later with obsolete posts.

As uncertain as things are out there, how can one be certain that they’ve picked the right blog to focus they’re energies on?

1. What else is out there? I’ve mentioned this before, but scoping out the competition can do more than show you, well, what your competition is. It can also give you a sense of what Internet surfers are searching for, and what they’re reading. Sites such as Google Blog Search and Technorati allow you to search for specific blogs and blog posts, while Google Trends lets you search for keywords in order to see how popular such search terms have been over the past few years.
2. What gets your motor running? Of course, a blog cannot be built on good business-minded intentions alone. You shouldn’t be choosing a blog topic based solely upon potential audience or ad bucks. Your topic should be something you’re passionate about, something that excites you. Your excitement will excite your readers. Plus, keeping regular with your posting frequency won’t be as likely to burn you out if you’re working with a subject matter that you can’t stop talking about anyway.
3. No, really. You can’t stop talking about it. Which is why you’ll never, ever run out of content ideas, right? Right?? Before you decide to go ahead with this whole blog thing, it might be a good idea to first sit down and write a list of possible post topics. If it’s a struggle to make an extensive list, it’s going to an even bigger struggle to keep the blog itself going. In masterminding my next blog, I recently drew up a list of possible blog posts over at TaDa List. In the future, I’ll be able to use it as a checklist, referring to it when I need a post idea, checking things off as they’re used.

Okay, I’m convinced. I’m ready. You’re ready. Let’s blog already!