Pricing and Subscriptions

My target audience ranges from people who probably can't afford to spend much on magazines or other leisure items, to people who could spare a few pounds for a magazine if they really enjoyed it. With this in mind, I think that my jazz magazine should be priced at around £1.75. I have looked at the prices of other music magazines, and they range from roughly £1 (it was $1) to £2.20, with some more expensive ones having prices of £6.60! I want my magazine to be available to all, but not seem as though I am offering a low-quality magazine just because it is at the lower end of the price range. If people think that my magazine is too cheap, then they are not the type of people who should be reading a jazz magazine anyway, they would be more suited to spending over £5 on a magazine and feeling that they have bought a high-quality magazine just because of its price tag.

I would like my magazine to be fortnightly. I don't want it to be weekly because I feel that weekly magazines don't give the readers long enough to fully enjoy the magazine before the next issue comes out, especially if they lead a busy lifestyle. They would read a magazine to take a break from their working lives, so churning them out every week and not giving them the opportunity to enjoy the magazine to its fullest isn't what would be best for them.

However, monthly magazines, to me, feel as though they come out too rarely, unless the magazine is really packed with lots of information to keep you going until the next issue. From my experience of monthly magazines, I have learnt that not all of them get the formula right and don't have enough information in them to keep you reading for the whole month. I have finished them in a week or so, and felt that I didn't have much to keep me entertained until the next issue came out. It is true that they keep the reader hooked - they want to find out more and are usually willing to wait a month for the next issue - but I feel as though it isn't kind to do that to your reader.

I came to the conclusion that a fortnightly magazine would be between this, and it would mean that I wouldn't have to make my magazine extremely long to last viewers a whole month, which could limit the quality of the content. They would finish the magazine in perhaps just over a week, giving them a little time to wonder what could be in store for them in the next issue, but not tempting them and making them wait a long time for it.

I would rather have a small/medium magazine with high-quality content than a long magazine with hundreds of pages of lower-quality information. I want the best for my readers, and I feel that giving them a fortnightly magazine that is a little smaller than some of the other magazines for around £1.75 would be appealing to them and make them want to keep on buying the magazine. It isn't "cheap", but it isn't exactly way out of my audiences price range either.