My entrance into magazine publishing was purely coincidental. Back in 1996, my good friend and future partner Leon Thompson came up with an idea to create a military magazine geared toward African Americans. Leon and I first met while we were stationed overseas in Japan. Since we were both military veterans, Leon with 10 years in the Air Force and me with 4 years in the Navy, I thought it was a great idea. So, together we decided to pursue it further. After much research on the subject, we opted to broaden the scope of our publication to include Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans due to the diversity that exists in the armed forces. It was Leon who eventually coined the name of our magazine: Color of Service: The First Multicultural Military Magazine www.colorofservice.com Needless to say, we were quite excited with our concept and were anxious to get it off the ground. Unfortunately, we had only one big problem: neither of us had any experience publishing a magazine! To make matters worse, at the time there were no books available on the subject that we could use to guide us on our quest to bring Color of Service to reality. Worse still, individuals who had publishing experience who we tried to consult with were of little help since many viewed us as possible competition, and therefore were quite reluctant to divulge any information of substance.
As you can imagine, we both suffered through a lot of trials, errors and tribulations; not least of which was a considerable amount of our startup capital due to a number of mistakes! However, somehow, through grit, determination and utter intestinal fortitude, we managed to launch Color of Service in 2000 and we’ve never looked back. I wish I could say that it’s been smooth sailing ever since but that would be painting too rosy of a picture. Starting and running a magazine is a lot of hard work, as it requires a serious level of commitment from everyone involved, and anyone thinking about starting one better make sure that it is indeed something that you want to do. However, despite all the hard work, long days and sleepless nights, it has been a very rewarding endeavor and neither of us has any regrets.
In a nutshell, I opted to create magazinestartup.com as venue to assist others who want to know how to get their concept off the ground. Even more than a decade later, there is still relatively little information on magazine publishing, despite the fact that there has been a steady increase in the number of new magazine launches in the US each year. The goal of this site is simple: give you the information that you need about starting a magazine so you’ll understand the process and reduce the number of unnecessary mistakes that can cost you thousands of dollars! In my opinion, there’s no need for a bunch of hype or bogus claims. I’m confident that the information contained here is exactly what you’ve been looking for and if for some reason it’s not or you need information on some other aspect of magazine publishing, then send me a message and let me know what it is and I’ll do my best to assist you. That’s a promise!
Shawn Lindsey
magazinestartup@aol.com
