History of American Magazines

Since I started high school I knew I wanted to be involved with magazines or books, so I was excited to have a project with an opportunity to learn how the magazines I love today came to be. If I were to create a business in early America it would be certainly be a magazine with internal speculation; which features a variety of articles for readers with different interests (Cooper, 2006).

The title of my magazine would be Reflections; a magazine dedicated to all women. It allows them to reflect on their lives by focusing on home life/housekeeping, the budding work life for women, recipes, relationships, children, art, and any other topics that target women. Since the segment of the population that buys the most consumer products were women during early American times, making a woman's magazine would seem to be the most profitable and also a topic I feel comfortable writing about from week to week or month to month (Cyber College, 2009).

More specifically, Reflections magazine starts in 1915, a time when illustrations and text were affordable and there was a large audience for the type of magazine I would like to portray. However, before I can venture out and start Reflections, I must first know the history, have a plan, an organizational structure, available resources, initial capital to start up the business, and a target consumer. The aforementioned topics, as well as others that relate to the start and functioning of Reflections magazine, will be presented through the rest of this essay.

Before Reflections, or any other popular magazine, was the first really successful magazine in the United States, the Saturday Evening Post, which was first published in 1821. By 1825 fewer than 100 magazines existed for Americas reading pleasure (Cyber College, 2009). Continuing to 1900, there were over 5,000 magazines in circulation in the United States; this was a huge increase considering that in 1850 there were only 600 (Cyber College, 2009). Bearing in mind the boom in magazine production around this time and the fact that a lot of publishers were opening for business, 1915 seemed like a good time to launch Reflections. The ideal places to start a magazine during this time (and even in 2009) would be in Boston, Philadelphia or New York; so it is obvious that I would want to start my venture in one of the three hot spots; my choice, New York!

Although I am determined to get this business off the ground, I cannot run a magazine business all by myself; this calls for organizational structure, employees and resources. I would start off with an editorial person, one that understands the industry and market that we are striving for. I would also need someone to handle sales and advertising. I would also need a circulation director who knows about our woman audience and the distribution of our magazine. They need to be able to find, attract and retain our readers. Lastly, I would need a financial person to take care of loans, money coming in and out, and any other accounting purposes (Cooper, 2006). Each of these positions would also require them to be good writers and editors; that way I have all the necessary positions filled and still have writers and editor for the various articles and sections covered in the magazine. With only a few areas to cover the business would be pretty small in the beginning, but hopefully as soon as we start to see money back I could hire on additional writers, and make teams.

In today's research for 2010, says that it takes approximately $15,000 to start a magazine; also keeping in mind that it can take at least six months to a year for cash flow and any cash returns. Putting this amount in 1912-1915 would be about $600 to start Reflections magazine (Cooper, 2006). The next obstacle is obtaining the money and resources to necessary start and run my magazine. The best way to get the money would be through saving I have already and a loan through the bank. I would have to employ others that are as passionate about Reflections as I am, because their incomes would not be much for a while.

Due to limited funds, my business would start off from home; all writing, editing, printing, sales and distribution would be done here. An additional resource/expense would be the printer necessary to press our own magazines. Until I can find a publishing company Hopefully after a year or so, not only could I provide wages, but add more people to the team.

In terms of distribution and getting my magazine to consumers would be done through selling them to retail stores, newspaper stands and rely heavily on direct sales. The establishment of the Parcel Post in 1913 not only had a large impact on Americas economy, but also made it possible for me to distribute my magazine to consumers home through the United States Postal Service (Gobie, 1979).

After much research I discovered the creating a magazine in early America or in 2010 is a lot of hard work and requires dedication. I also realized that as a black woman creating any magazine, let alone Reflections, during this time would be nearly impossible. At the same time everyone has to go through struggles in order to accomplish their dreams. I would hope that in any year if I wanted to accomplish something I could. Reflections magazine would be a great addition to any year in history.

References

Cooper, S. (June 2006). Start your own magazine. Retrieved December 21, 2009 from

http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/businessideas/article160238.html

Cyber College (July 8, 2009). Magazines- The Early History. Retrieved December 21, 2009

from http://www.cybercollege.com/frtv/mag1.htm

Gobie, H. (1979). U.S. Parcel Post, A Postal History. Postal Publications. Retrieved December 23, 2009 from http://www.sil.si.edu/ondisplay/parcelpost/cf/view.cfm