Announcing: Professionally Speaking Magazine

Professionally Speaking Summer 2008 Cover

I’m delighted to have helped publish a new magazine from the Northern California Chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA/NC). This full-color magazine is a first for an NSA chapter.

The inaugural edition features articles by prominent members of NSA/NC. Our Chapter members are experts in many areas, from performance skills coaching to negotiation tactics, speechwriting, life balance, teambuilding and more.

Why Professionally Speaking?

First, let me say I did *not* name the magazine after my own blog! The name was taken from the last printed newsletter the chapter produced in 2003.

The intended purpose of the magazine is to showcase our chapter as an association of experts. It gives members a professionally produced vehicle in which to publish. The magazine helps us to build connections to key decision makers in the meetings industry and our affiliate associations.

Buy your copy today

We plan to make Professionally Speaking a quarterly publication. It will be distributed free of charge to chapter members. Costs will be covered by sales to non-members and by advertising. Copies are available for purchase at $4.50 + postage. Go to www.nsanc.org and buy a copy right now!

Publishing your own magazine

The opportunity to produce and print this magazine arose unexpectedly in mid-May when we were approached by Hewlett-Packard (HP). They were interested in finding a small association to help test their new “MagCloud” technology for print-on-demand. HP offered us support to help produce the magazine, but we had to go to press by early June when they announced MagCloud to the world (www.magcloud.com.)

Print on demand will revolutionize the magazine industry

MagCloud opens up the ‘long tail’ of magazine publishing for small associations like NSA/NC (we have 120 members) or even individuals. It represents an interesting new business opportunity. The MagCloud system from HP allows anyone to create and publish a high-quality color magazine with very little in the way of up-front costs.

HP’s innovative MagCloud system makes magazine publishing available to anyone with a message to share. This describes most of the members of the National Speakers Association. Until now many color magazines have been printed on traditional offset litho presses which, like books, require costly set-up and a large minimum print run. HP’s commercial digital printing technology makes it economical to print a single copy of a magazine whenever a subscriber orders one.

This means people who currently produce ezines or online newsletters can now consider offering content to their audience in the form of a printed magazine. Many of us are finding it increasingly difficult to grab people’s attention online. There’s value in a color magazine delivered to the door.

Make money with your own magazine

MagCloud allows you to focus on creating the content for your own magazine. All you have to do is upload a PDF and MagCloud takes care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more. There’s none of the hassles with distribution, bulk mailing and minimum print runs. Charge subscribers a mark-up above the production cost to earn a profit on each copy sold. Carry advertising for yet another source of income.

(Full disclosure: I work as a speechwriter in the executive communications department at HP and support the director of HP’s research labs, where MagCloud was developed.)

MagCloud is currently open to publishers by invitation only.

4 Comments so far
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Your magazine is very professional and impressive. Thanks for sharing it. Can you tell me which software did you use to create it?

Thanks

Patrick –

Thanks for the compliment. We used Adobe InDesign to create the layout. Then MagCloud to print and distribute.

Ian

HP Labs researcher Derek Powazek blogs about MagCloud as the future of magazine publishing.

Wow, Ian, congratulations! MagCloud sounds like a great new technology.



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