Overland Motorcycle Magazine
 

Hi All

Just been sitting here looking at some old magazines which got me thinking, which is always dangerous.

Does anyone think that there will ever be sufficient demand for an Overland Motorcycle Travel Magazine in the UK which could be successful, as I do miss reading them. I know that we have the internet etc but I still like to thumb through a good mag.

I suppose that the increased popularity of overlanding could now make it more viable as we have seen Motorcycle Travel magazines come and go (Motorcycle Voyager most recently).

There are also a number of the mainstream magazines that are now trying to feature more travel articles in them. I would say that TBM is probably the most interesting of them.

What do you think would be a successful formula for a magazine and what lessons could be learnt from the ones that have failed.

Thought that this might be an interesting discussion as a number of the members here have written articles for various mags.

Thanks

Julio

i loved motorcycle voyager, while it lasted! the thing is , motorcycle voyager went under while still being an excellent read ,so maybe there just are not enough of us out there to make such a mag viable ? why mv went under i still do not know ? the bugger,s took my subsciption money just as they stopped publishing.

Yeah, they've got my money too and mine was an overseas subscription for extra cash! http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/frown.gif

Picked up MV in Gibralter after having been on the road for about seven months. The first english magazine I had seen in ages!

Maybe an overlanding magazine needs to start in a country where people do a lot of overlanding? Then branch out to other countries. My guess would be that Germany has some overlanding magazines (Tourenfahrer maybe?) and perhaps there is an opportunity to get an English version.

I used to own a successful web shop, started out by selling products directed at a really small niche and expanded later on. The problem with niche products (such as an overland magasine) is that there are too few customers in any one area that any stores can afford to spend any shelf space on it. But in a national market there may very well be a big enough market, perfect for mail and internet orders.

I would not be surprised if there is a large enough market world wide to make subscriptions sustainable, but it will require some smart marketing. But, I seriously doubt that enough stores would carry it.

I would for instance set up a really nice home page that gave a short resume of all articles in every edition. This way people can purchase previously printed editions. I would allow for an easy interface for subscriptions and ordering single editions (new or old). Don't accept checques, cash or money orders... credit cards or Pay Pal only (easier logistics).

Allow for an easy interface for submitting articles, pictures, information, etc. Set up a page for submitting advertising material (commercial and private). Make sure that all advertising will be both published on the web sight and the net. Allow people to subscribe to a full internet version of the magasine, giving access to old and new articles (not just summaries of articles).

I would advertise the magasine on sights like these, maybe offering free advertising in your own magasine in return. You could use something called "trade doubler". This allows sights like these to publish links and adds to your sight. You can set it up in such a way that whenever somebody for instance click on a link/banner on Horizons Unlimited to your sight, and end up purchasing something, Horisons Unlimited get some money out of it. Don't underestimate this opportunity... I have experienced that web sights have sendt e-mails to all their contacts, reccomending to purchase from me, through their web sight. There arfe ofcourse tons of other things you can do to increase sales, many of which are free. But, setting up a really good web sight is key!

Hi Wheelie

Do you think if you expanded the magazine to also feature some 4x4 overland travel and some other more exotic travel e.g bicycle, camel for the odd feature that this would dilute the product?

Cheers

Julio

Don't think it would work. The 4x4 section would probably sell the magazine and demand would mean that, eventually, that section would become bigger and take over the magazine.

I bought a years subscription to Motorcycle Voyager at the bike show last year and got one poxy mag fr my £32!! LB.

>But, setting up a really good web sight is key!

And that is what we have here, it's free, up to date and global ;-) No magazine could have that reach, although I do agree a well produced mag is much nicer to read. Tourenfahrer is one such magazine - an English edition would be great but although it may mean a lot to us, it is a tiny (albeit growing) niche of motorbiking.

Originally TBM was to have more overland content, but apart from the odd story - readers want to read about the latest bike, tech, races and all sorts.

IMHO mixing camels, bikes, pushbikes etc in one mag would not work; the mode of travel is of central interest, the travelling/destinations are secondary.

Chris S

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Author of Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 5 and Sahara Overland II

http://www.sahara-overland.com and http://www.adventure-motorcycling.com

No, I don't think it would have to, in fact, I think it might even give it a broader appeal. Much of the things you could write about would have universal appeal. A focus on general overlanding, a bit of everything, and full feature articles.

If it was my magasines I would have some reagular feature collumns/sections in every edition. Typically: product testst(gps, tents, water filters, etc), itineraries, packing lists for different vehicles/seasons/areas, country feature information, etc... Maybe you could find some experts on different fields to write regular articles for you for free or cheaply? You could for instance use profit sharing models with yournalists to reduce financial risks. I am sure there are lots of people out there who would just love to write for you (overlander geeks, yournalist students, etc).

What competing magasines are there?

If you have much time on your hand and don't want to risk much money, you could always start out with a pure internet magazine and expand into paper later. When in paper, you could start out with a quarterly magasine and increase to monthly if the demand is great enough. One benefit of an internet magasine is that you could for instance publish 1-3 articles a day, or every third day or something. This way you wouldn't need a "fully featured magasine" with every release/update. A drawback is figuring out how to get paid.

You have to ask yourself why you want to do this. Extreme wealth? Something nice to do with a bit of money? Does it have to be your baby alone or would you think it okay to share control with someone? How comitted are you to do the work?

What most people who start up businesses seem to forget (unless they have shit loads of venture capital), is that they get all the job descriptions they would never apply for in other circumstances. Maybe what you want to do is write articles and share the wonders of overlanding, but after the articles are written, someone has to fill the shoes of the following: the janitor, the secretary, the marketer, the foot in the door sales man, the phone marketeer, the erand boy, the mail boy, the financial officer, the programmer, the project leader, and all the other jobs that need to be done in order to get a business running... the problem, if you are alone, all these functions are YOU! Once production is done with (writing articles), you have to try to get businesses to advertise with you, get people to pay up what the owe you, convince people to buy your product, convince people to invest their time or money into your business, get other businesses and people to promote you, clean the toilet, brew the coffee, deliver the mail, pay the bills, fix the broken computer, satisfy the wife, and what not.

Your initial dream might have been freedom while you end up becoming a slave of your own business 24/7/365. If you are going it alone, don't be over ambitious in the begining. Maybe start out by having it as a hobby, expanding on it as you gain experience and accquire a solid customer base.

Check out how much it would cost to print 1.000, 5.000, 10.000 mags. Figure out how much time it would take to make it (aqcuiering the journalistic content, making the layot, etc)... Lets say you sold it for 5-7 Euros. How many would you need to sell in order to be satisfied??? If you did everything yourself and had no one else on the pay roll?

Maybe you could do it next to your day job for a while, just to see if it is worth while? Spend a year or so to make your first edition and see how many you can sell? If you know your way around computers and software, or are willing and able to teach yourself, this dosn't need to be a big risk project... I'd say start tomorrow (sometimes it is both cheaper and easier just to test things out than to analyse the hell out of things)... If you plan to just be the boss of things and invest large sums of money, I'd do some serious research and planning.

Over all, if you are willing to do all the shitty jobs, and money is not the really big issue here, go for it now!