Try a Hewlett-Packard. They have many models to choose from.

IronBelly

May be a little confusion here - do you want to publish your own newsletter or to be the editor of a magazine and have a printing company print the magazine for you? If the latter, I would search for someone with some expertise in that area. Some companies will print the magazine, add mailing lables and mail. There are LOTS of variables to consider in putting out a magazine like writers, photos, topics, advertisements, floor space, web site, subscriptions.....

Yes, I should clarify. I'm not sure how to find a printing company to make the actual magazine. That would be great if they did the mailing labels too!

The first issue would probably be a freebie, but I'd plan to start small and local. Fortunately I have writing, editing, photo, layout and web design experience! So I figure printing will be the most uncertain and expensive piece of the puzzle.

How good is your Cantonese? Everybody I've worked with recently has things printed in wither Hong Kong, southern China, or Singapore. (Though I hear south Korea may also be in the running.)

Really?? Have any specific company names/ Web sites??

Sorry. No specifics. I just hear it discussed at company lunches. But I'm afraid I haven't listened all that well since I'll never want to run a magazine of my own. (I'm content with being a writer.)

Perhaps contact a small regional magazine (one that does not compete with your topic) and ask them who they use and if they are happy. Most major universities publish quarterly magazines, so you could contact them. My university published theirs from the Department of Annual Support (as it was a vehicle used to inspire alumni/community enthusiasm).

In Dan Poynter's book on self-publishing he lists many printers in the US. Most of them print anything and everything, and the price varies widely. Visit his website to see info about the book...
(www.parapublishing.com) and call or email the various printers to get estimates. Talk to local printers as well, just to get their perspective on what you are doing, from the printer's point of view. Google "magazine printers." Finally, contact the editors of regional magazines to ask where their publications are printed.
CLF

I publish a local gardening newsletter that started out as a newsprint tabloid, then morphed into a photocopied booklet. In addition I publish a gardening calendar to sell and give to my subscribers - it is very popular. I do everything myself. I write, edit, take the photos, draw the illustrations, manage the computer files, ready everything for press, send via the internet to press and handle the mailing - but my subsciber list is tiny so this isn't as impressive as it sounds. And I have worked in Graphic Arts and Publishing my whole adult life so I already had the equipment, talents and skills.

Getting stuff printed can be difficult when dealing in small numbers. I can send out a plea for price quotes to all the local printers for each project, and NONE of them will respond. My run numbers are too small (I guess). Finally a friend in another city got some connections of hers to bid on one of my jobs and the price was extreme. The only way I can keep going forward is to use the internet and send files out that way (this gets technical so be prepared to learn a lot, it's time consuming and tedious). The company I used for my calendars prints slick glossy booklets which would work as a magazine (a page would be 8.5 by 11 inches). All color pages, all glossy, in any number of page configurations. I believe their name is PCPrint. Their website has a calculator which will compute your total cost as well as cost per item and will even add in the shipping charges. No one so far has been able to beat their prices. If you know graphic programs they are easy to use. You can do it. I do it every month as a part time job and people love my product - they think I have an entire staff working with me. With digital cameras getting cheaper and the internet small publishing can be done. There are also some great books out there on starting your own magazine - my only advice would be that they don't have accurate numbers. Their stats are inflated to make this look more lucrative than it really is.

TriangleJohn,

I can definitely agree with you on that one! For a very small publication run there isn't anybody out there that is going to be able to do anything for you.

It took $35 just to set up the press run in 1985 at a print shop. That didn't count the paper, the paste up and layout or the photography that was just getting the press ready to print.

I did my own newsletter back in '95. It was a free subscription newsletter for people in recovery. I started out with about a dozen copies and passed them out. This was all done at Office Depot for 4 cents a copy per side. It cost me 32 cents for my eight page newsletter plus postage if I mailed it.

I did about a years worth, I believe, and by six months into the thing I had subscribers from four or five states without placing a single ad. It was all word of mouth.

I quit purely for the reason that I got tired of doing it by myself.

Trying to solicite articles from others got tedious. They were good articles but their grammar was worse than mine and I'm learning disabled!

Try pressuring friends to meet deadlines! They have more important things to do like watch a movie or go fishing, LOL!

It was a great experience that I wouldn't trade for the world and I have thought many times about starting it back up again but I was in FL when I did it before and now I'm in the boonies up in VA. There is nothing cheap up here.

One other thing that I just thought of. Kinko's, check out Kinko's.

Steph

By the way John, what's this newsletter? Subscription?

My newsletter is called Raleigh Garden because it is focused on the Raleigh NC area (hence the Triangle in my web name). This area is a goldmine of gardening goings-on and the "who's who" horti-list just keeps getting bigger and bigger everyday. I wanted a way to tap into all that but in a low key manner. So I designed a tabloid that was intended to be mix of Southern Living meets The National Enquirer. It flew, people loved it, people CALLED ME to place ads in it, people with credentials wanted to submit articles. I turned them down for the moment because my subscription list was soooo small I didn't want to waste anything good on my first wobbly baby steps. The problems are not designing a winning product (at least for me), the problems are not production (expensive but do-able), the BIG HUGE monster problem is distribution. Garden Centers don't care to add one more product to their inventory unless they are dealing with a fancy schmantsy sales rep - or - we are talking about a product that is gonna make everybody stinking rich. To my face they were thrilled to see someone doing what I was (am) doing, but very few of them bought in to the project. Faced with tiny sales I downsized the publication to a simple Kinko's photocopied newsletter and focused on putting out a calendar instead. Store managers will tell you they would love to carry your product until you show up with a box full - then suddenly they are less than interested. I've heard everything from "we already have an in-store newsletter and don't want the competition" to "it's not a magazine or a book, so I wouldn't know where to stock it" (this from the bookstore that previously stated they would love something local). The best was the downtown garden center that said they would carry it but that they doubted it would sell. I hand delivered and set up a small display and explained that they would be on consignment and that I would be back in one week to restock. Upon returning the buyer met me at the door and gushed "we've sold out! I can't believe it!". I explained that I had plenty on hand in the car; how many did she want? She acted confused and then said, Five, bring me five. She had just sold 24 in about 7 days, they are on consignment and have so far cost her nothing, and she only wants five. They are still my best customer but I realy have to babysit them every month.

The company on the internet that I use currently as my printer is PSPrint. They will print in small runs and the price is realistic. I will probably stick with them forever and just give up on the local printers. It takes too much time to chase them down only to be turned down in the end.

Thanks TriangleJohn for a true picture of some of the problems you run into while publishing a newsletter. I made a small attempt at it myself once and bombed. As I look back, that was a blessing. John,are you writing most of your own material? You should take some of those writers up on their offers. I imagine they are always willing to help out a kindred soul. I once wrote for a publication that paid me by advertising my website. I didn't notice any increase in my web counter though.

John, I wouldn't really know how to solve your problem. Distribution through local stores sounds like the most obvious choice but maybe they just don't get it.

I did it through subscriptions and word of mouth. I let a lot of people have samples in the beginning.

Actually, I just thought of an idea for you.

Since you are looking for people that are into hort. why not do a local search of all of the garden clubs, historical gardens, anything garden related. Take samples and give them out. Let them have extras but make sure you put a subscription form inside so that they can subscribe.

Always, make sure that any extra issues from the past runs go out to entice readers and get them to subscribe that way your leftover copies don't turn into compost.

Your librarian should also be able to help. My librarian is a God send. She knows everybody, what they do, where they are, how to get into touch with them. In fact, you should send a free subscription to all of the local libraries. You would be surprised what kind of response it would get.

Better yet, get buddy buddy with yours and you will be surprised at how proactive they can be.

My original format used lots of color and was designed like a regular tabloid (lots of flash). The lowest number I could get printed was a thousand. Out of the 15 outlets near my job (and therefore convenient for me to distribute to on my lunch hour) only two would agree to carry the publication. They each only sold 100 issues a month, so I was stuck with 800 papers to find homes for. I put out freebie stacks at the senior centers, community activity centers, and the local arboretum. Even though they were free the pick up rate diminished after June and I ended up stuck with tons of left overs. Sales also dragged after the spring frenzy was over (even though the weather was mild). I've spoken at garden clubs and only ended up with two subscriptions from it. They are easy for me to pull off but they aren't really gardening focused, more a social outlet for little old ladies. Which is fine, but the planning committee arranges the speakers many months in advance so nothing happens very quickly. I also promoted the newsletter during our state fair which has a wildly sucessful gardening exhibit (65% of the 850,000 fair attendees visit the garden area). I compete each year in garden design and cut flowers and my displays win big money and garner lots of media attention - but even after all that, very few people respond to my freebie coupons.

My point is, if you want to launch a publication you can either do it the slow way or the fast way. The fast way requires lots of money invested into promotion that you more than likely will never recoup. The slow way takes years of hard work. And no matter how good your product is, distribution will always be a problem.

I just this weekend got an explanation for the garden centers reluctance to carry a locally produced publication. If they only average 12-20 sales of the product per month and their cut is 50% of a $1.50 product they don't care to invest anything to earn such a small amount of money (keep in mind that I was doing all the work, managing the display, keeping track of the numbers sold and unsold...etc.). They have a book shelf and a magazine rack both of which are managed by a distribution company (which charges 10 cents per item to stock, I deliver to their warehouse, they handle distribution from there. This screws out of too much of my slim profit margin so I won't be doing this. Besides they probably feel that my product is too low cost also). The garden center manager (or buyer) knows that people go to bookstores to buy books so they aren't interested in devoting time and energy into the literature area of their business.

In another interest area (not gardening), I subscribed to a magazine that had been in publication for more than a decade and was highly respected by those in that interest area.

A few years ago, the publisher/owner stopped print production of the magazine and instead turned it into an internet journal. He cited the difficulty in retaining and managing distribution outlets as the reason for the switch.