Rebooting PostgreSQL Magazine

[damien clochard]

Hey guys,

The PostgreSQL Magazine project (http://www.pgmag.org) started in 2011
and we’ve managed to produced two issues of the magazines, both in
English and Chinese. Issue #00 was released in 2011, Issue #01 was
released in 2012 and somehow since then Issue #02 is stuck in limbo.

I’d like to explain here why the project is moving so slow and how we
could fix this.

First let me make a quick reminder of how the magazine is produced.
Basically there’s 8 steps to go from zero to paper :

Step 1 : Content Selection
Step 2 : Page Layout
Step 3 : Content Editing
Step 4 : Reviewing
Step 5 : Layout Editing
Step 6 : Last Check
Step 7 : Release
Step 8 : Print

The project is community-driven and tries to involve PostgreSQL users at
the different steps of the process. For some steps it’s very easy and
natural ( step 1, step 4 and step 6 ) and for others it’s very difficult
because it requires some specific knowledge that is not very common in
the PostgreSQL community. Namely the Step 3 (content editing) needs to
be done by someone familiar with journalism rules and media standards,
whereas the Step 5 (layout editing) has to be done with someone with
advanced graphic skills (using mostly gimp and scribus). I’m not saying
that nobody can do this in the PostgreSQL community, but it’s hard to
get people doing it on a regular basis…

For Issue #00, I did most of the work for the step 3 and 5. For Issue
#01, I asked for a donation from SPI and PG Europe to pay a graphic
designer to do step 5 and I focused on step 3. Now the issue #02 is
stuck on step 3 because I don’t have time to do it

So basically what this means is simple : the PGMAG project needs an
economic model :)

If we want to produce the magazine on a regular basis ( twice a year
would be good ) we need to pay professionals for step 3 and 5. Based
on my experience, this would cost approx. 3000 € (without VAT) per
issue. Note that the last step (printing) is not included because the
whole printing model is a different story.
How can we gather 3000€ for each issue ? 6000€ per year if we plan to
release 2 magazines every year ? I don’t have a simple answer... Right
now I think that could be a mix of corporate sponsoring, donations,
advertising and crowdfunding. There’s a lot we can do in that area but
that’s not the main concern right now.

If we want to receive money from various sources, we need a bank account
and a legal entity. So far we’ve managed to publish this magazine
without handling any money. The free copies we gave during various
conferences were paid directly with a wire transfer from the “Printing
Sponsor” to the printer company.

If we decide to shift to a more professional approach, we need to
collect funds by ourself. Or find a non-profit entity that could do that
for us. For many reasons, I don’t want to create a new non-profit
association dedicated to the magazine. In the meantime, there’s a
handful of entities in the PostgreSQL Community that could do that job
for us : PG US, PG Europe, SPI, etc. I’m currently talking with some of
them to see if we could work together.

I’m writing all this because I want your opinion ! Writers, Readers,
Translators, Reviewers, Editors, everyone ! Whatever your relation with
the magazine : express yourself :)

How would do you like the magazine to evolve ? Keep the
“release-when-it’s-done” philosophy ? Switch to a subscription-based
model ? Ads or No Ads ?

Let’s talk about this the future of PGMAG !

--
damien

[Luca Ferrari]

Ciao Damien,

On Wed, Jan 14, 2015 at 11:02 PM, damien clochard <dam...@dalibo.info> wrote:
>
> How would do you like the magazine to evolve ? Keep the
> “release-when-it’s-done” philosophy ? Switch to a subscription-based
> model ? Ads or No Ads ?
>

first of all I have to say that I spent a few (positive) words about
pgmag on the ITPUG mailing list the past month, hoping it could bring
new writers/reviewers to the magazine.

Now, on the subject, my opinion is that a 2 issue per year is not
enough to provide it for subscription. It's not a critic, please
consider it positively, but I would not subscribe to a 2 issue per
year magazine because I know that probably the contents I'm going to
read are already obsolete (due to the 1,2,3,4,5 production phase you
described).
Therefore, if not able to provide more issues, the magazine should
probably rely on fund raising via advertisement and/or exchanging
services with PostgreSQL-interested partners. For instance, we could
find an enterprise that can provide the graphical (regulars)
assistance/service, and that would allow the magazine to produce more
issues per year having writers able to concentrate only on contents.
The magazine would advertise such company (or companies).

Another possibility could be to push the magazine to some already
publishing company (e.g., the one behind BSDMag), in the hope they can
provide all the infrastructure. Of course, I don't know exactly how
this will turn with respect to the community.

Luca

[dam...@dalibo.info]

Hi Lucas,

Thanks a lot for your insights, that's very helpful.


About the subscription model, I did a small poll 3 years ago and tried
to
figure out how many subscriber we could get and how much the
printing/Shipping would cost. It appeared that we need to reach at least
something like 2000 subscribers if we don't want to lose money. From
scratch, we could start with 200 paying subscriptions upfront but then
we'd need to find 1800+ subscribers. This is a classical scenario in for
print media : you lose money during the first 3-4 issues and then if you
reach the vital level of subscribers you can continue. But that requires
an initial investment and we don't have that. We can't afford to lose
money even for 1 single issue. So unless I missed something, the
subscription model is not possible.

Talking about BSD Mag, I've been in touch with them a few years ago. In
fact it seems they had a similar project and discovered that our
magazine was more advanced. They contacted me, but talking with it
became clear that
partnership with them would mean that the magazine would not be
community-driven anymore. Now some would argue that it's better to have
a commercially-driven magazine then nothing at all... So I'm not saying
it won't happen but I'd like to explore other options before this one...

Regards,

--
damien