Magfest #05 took place in Edinburgh on Friday 16 September 2016 at the Central Hall Edinburgh. Organised by PPA Scotland the organisation which supports Scottish magazine publishers through events, training, lobbying and research the event attracted people from across the magazine and publishing industry,.
They are all dying to know how to get their magazine out there, how to make it a success and how to build an audience. (much the same in the online world, but with a difference as there are real costs involved in producing something on paper).
Things we learned:
The venue is a really good one for a conference like this as it allows for main room talks with a great sense of space. There are also break out rooms on both levels.
There are too many magazines being published in Scotland to tell you about!
Catering by Appetite is absolutely delicious and it all fits in a tin…. (and thank you Nigel for the coffee I really needed just when you had cleared the coffee away!)
The talks were impressive and well received by the audience:
Excellent point from @ejpfauth of @decorrespondent #magfest16 pic.twitter.com/rWNHkAwJgb
— Susan Smith (@susanblethers) September 16, 2016
Ernst-Jan Pfauth of @DeCorrespondent explained that they make everyone pay the Dutch equivalent of £67 per year for their publication thus allowing an ad free publication. He put forward the proposition that advertorial is just a way of fooling your audience and that by making them pay the readers become the only stakeholders in a publication. He also said that the journalists on the staff (there are 43 of them) are only the conversation leaders but the readers are contributing experts and ambassadors for their publication. They are quite open about the way the income is distributed and publish accounts each autumn showing how the money has been used.
Although we can understand only some of the publication’s website which runs alongside the daily paper, it is here for you to have a look at!
Sadly we could not be there all day but hope that we might return next year.
The Edinburgh Reporter had a chat with PPA Scotland Business Manager Nikki Simpson and Fraser Allen of White Line Media which you can watch below:
Magfest #05 from Phyllis Stephen on Vimeo.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
