Want help starting a magazine?

I’m always happy to answer questions! Post them in the comment section or contact me directly.

This is the last article in a four-part series on starting a college magazine, written by the former Chairman of the Yale Record, America’s oldest humor magazine. There’s a lot of information here; pick and choose whatever seems helpful. 

In the first three parts of this series, I gave advice about starting a publication, recruiting writers and other staff, and putting together your first few issues.

This is the cleanup post, where I talk about everything else. It will make more sense if you read the other posts first. Topics covered include:

• Publicizing your work
• Funding the publication
• Selling advertisements
• Staying out of trouble
• Preserving your history

Find Readers, Get Famous

You’ve published an issue! Congratulations.

Now what?

Continue reading →

Want help starting a magazine?

I’m always happy to answer questions! Post them in the comment section or contact me directly.

This is the third article in a four-part series on starting a college magazine, written by the Chairman of the Yale Record, America’s oldest humor magazine. There’s a lot of information here; pick and choose whatever seems helpful. 

Click here to start with the first article.

Hello again, and welcome to the third part of the Guide!

This article tells you how to go from:

“Okay, we have people interested, now what?”

To:

“Omigod look at our first issue hot off the presses/internet, it’s BEAUTIFUL!

I’ve written this in three parts: The “how to write an issue” checklist, a sample timeline for a monthly magazine, and an extremely long and non-mandatory special feature: “One year in the publishing life of the Yale Record“.

In the final section, I explain what we do during the year, and when. Whether you’re starting a magazine in the summertime or the middle of the school year, you should be able to pick up a similar rhythm.

Continue reading →

Want help starting a magazine?

I’m always happy to answer questions! Post them in the comment section or contact me directly.

Welcome to the second article in a four-part series on starting a college magazine. There’s a lot of information here; pick and choose whatever seems helpful. Click here to read the first article.

Hello again! This time, I’m going to talk about finding people to work with you on your new publication.

If you think you already have enough people to get going, you can skip this article and read the next one. But I’d recommend recruiting even if you have friends working with you. Staffing can be unpredictable: people graduate, people leave school, and people move on. Having extra writers and editors rarely hurts, as long as you can keep your standards high.

How to Recruit Writers

And, of course, all the people who aren’t writers. Every publication’s needs will be different. However, I’ll explain the setup of the Yale Record, since we have a large staff, work in many different styles, and publish a lot of art.

Continue reading →

Want help starting a magazine?

I might be able to answer some questions or provide specific guidance. Feel free to contact me directly.

This is the first article in a four-part series on starting a college magazine, written by the Chairman of the Yale Record, America’s oldest humor magazine. There’s a lot of information here; pick and choose whatever seems helpful. 

As the chairman of the Yale Record, and the person whose email is connected to this web page, I get requests from students around the world to advise them on college magazine projects.

I looked around the internet to find resources on this, but most of them were written at least a decade ago, or applied only to newspapers, rather than the humor magazines/fashion blogs/scholarly journals people were asking me about. So I decided to write a series of posts explaining most of what I know about college publications.

This is part one of the guide, which deals with “ground rules”: things you should do, or think about, before you start writing and recruiting.

For part two, which deals with building a staff, click here. For part three, which deals with creating content, click here. For part four, which discusses growing your publication after you start producing material, click here.

Continue reading →