The Publishing Industry

Jarad Tansley Cambridge Technicals Media

Unit 30/31: Photography for Media Products

The Process of Publishing

•  There are three main areas people have to take into consideration when publishing a newspaper or magazine: – Production – Ownership – Distribution

The Production Process

•  There are many job roles in production of newspapers and magazines.

•  The first set of roles involve creative jobs in the industry, such as: – Editor-in-Chief – Managing Director – Creative Director – Section Editor – Sub-Editor – Writer/Contributor

The Production Process

•  The administrative job roles handle the newspaper’s or magazine’s production company, with roles like: – Marketing Director – Circulation Director – Account Executives – Administrative and Ancillary Staff

•  The publisher leads the direction and production of the print.

Publisher

•  Publishers are seen as the leaders of a magazine or newspaper.

•  They are also seen as responsible for making their publications a commercial and editorial success.

•  They handle the direction, market position, content and advertising for a magazine.

Editor-in-Chief

•  The editor-in-chief is the main editor of a publication. •  They will make all of the final

decisions before the finished product is reviewed by the publisher.

Managing Editor

•  The managing editor oversees all of the editors of a newspaper or magazine.

•  They act as a supervisor, mentor and guide, working mostly with the section editors.

•  They set and enforce policies that other editors, reporters and photographers have to abide by.

•  They often assign certain stories to news departments or directly to reporters, and can approve or deny news or feature stories.

•  They often serve as the communicator between creative staff and the publisher & editor in chief.

Creative Director

•  The creative director of a magazine or newspaper manages all of the layout and design of a magazine or newspaper.

•  They are above the art and design department of the company creating the magazine.

Section Editor

•  Section editors often work on certain topics of a magazine or newspaper.

•  For a newspaper like The Sun, which has multiple sections of varying subjects, the most common sections are film, television, opinion, politics and sport.

•  Sometimes, there section editors may focus on one certain subject instead of one general subject.

•  This is the case with many sports magazines and newspaper sections, where they commonly have editors for football, rugby and dog/horse-racing.

Sub-Editor

•  The sub-editor checks any written text before it is published in newspapers and magazines (and in many cases, their corresponding websites).

•  They make sure the articles they check don’t break any laws or policies set by the managing editor, don’t have any mistakes and aren’t too long/short. They also make sure the article is clear about what they are trying to talk about.

•  They also make sure the article is following the style of the newspaper or magazine.

Writer / Contributor

•  A writer of a magazine or newspaper is a type of journalist that writes exclusively for the publication.

•  Some may be seen as contributors, for instance they may not be a “permanent” part of the publishing company.

Marketing Director

•  Marketing is how a form of media is delivered to the audience.

•  A marketing director is responsible for the marketing operations of a magazine or newspaper.

•  They are responsible for dealing with the marketing of the magazine or newspaper.

Circulation Director

•  Circulation directors oversee the distribution process of the magazines or newspapers they are part of, with assistance from the marketing departments of the publications.

•  They usually handle where the publication is being distributed.

Account Executives

•  Account executives, also known as “advertising account executives”, are people who sell advertising space for the magazine or newspaper.

•  They do not design any of the advertisements; they only sell the space and deliver the advertisements to the design team to apply onto the publication.

Administration and Ancillary Staff •  Administration and ancillary staff are people who don’t

have any job role relating to publishing or journalism, however if they were not part of the publishing company, the company could possibly be running its business ineffectively, therefore being just as important as journalism and publishing employees.

•  IT technicians and network managers are a good example of this type of job. This is because they operate and control the computers that are required for many of the processes of a publishing company.

•  IT technicians and network managers may be responsible for the installation of programs required for planning, editing and publishing (e.g. office software, photo editors, design applications)

Ownership of a Magazine

•  Magazines are typically owned and published by specialised publishing companies.

•  In this section, I will write about GamesTM

Magazine.

Ownership of a Magazine

•  GamesTM is a gaming magazine. Its audience is people who play video games, mainly males aged 16 and over.

•  It markets and advertises itself by showing the current issue’s cover on their website. It also uses social networking websites to get to and communicate with its audience.

•  It currently being published by Bournemouth-based company Imagine Publishing.

Ownership of a Magazine

•  Other gaming magazines Imagine Publishing publishes include Play, X-ONE (dedicated to Microsoft’s Xbox One) and Retro Gamer.

•  They publish several photographer-oriented magazines, such as Photography for Beginners, Photoshop Creative and Digital Photographer.

Ownership of a Magazine

•  They also publish several specialised technology magazines, like Android Magazine (specialising in Google Android) and Linux User and Developer (specialising in the Linux operating system)

•  Not all of Imagine Publishing’s magazines are dedicated to gaming or technology; other magazines include All About Space and SciFiNow (dedicated to the sci-fi genre).

Ownership of a Magazine

•  Imagine Publishing publishes magazines worldwide focusing on technology, photography, knowledge/science and video games.

•  They are currently not part of a larger organisation.

Ownership of a Magazine

•  The company was formed by Damian Butt, Steven Boyd and Mark Kendrick, who were all former directors in other publishing companies.

•  They launched the 360 Magazine, which specialised in the Xbox 360 games console and Mac Creative magazine that specialised in creativity software on Apple computers (which was later changed to iCreate).

Ownership of a Magazine

•  They acquired Retro Gamer in October 2005 and acquired 24 magazines from Paragon Publishing in 2006, when its owner Highbury House Communications was going into liquidation.

•  They released a range of “bookazines”, which combines elements of books and magazines, in May 2006, with its millionth bookazine sale in November 2011.

Publishing

•  This section describes how the magazine gets to its audience.

•  I will be using GamesTM and magazines published by Imagine Publishing for this section, as well.

Publishing

•  GamesTM and several over Imagine Publishing magazines can be viewed on a physical printed copy or digitally on smartphones and tablets.

•  GamesTM can be purchased in shops. It may be sold with other gaming-related print publications in gaming stores like GAME in the UK.

•  The print and digital versions of magazine can be subscribed to, usually for a discount compared to the advertised price on the cover. The digital version can be purchased for about £15.

Publishing

•  GamesTM also has a website covering news reports different to what is on the magazine. It does not have a paywall, however it does advertise the magazine across the website.

•  The magazines can be purchased on online book stores or newsstand stores, like Apple’s iOS Newsstand, Google Play and Amazon Kindle.