If you had a dedicated circulation base, it would be doable on a POD method. I used to work at Kinko's and we had a monthly RC Airplane Hobby magazine with color cover, color center pages, and BW pages for the rest on glossy paper. We'd do print runs of about 10,000 for an average of $1300 cost. Mailing would be an added cost, and not trivial.

For RPGs, I don't think that would be too great of a hurdle for magazines. I'm pretty sure that within 6 months of operation, you could have a decent subscription base.

The main problem would be getting the word out to enough people to make the venture cost-effective. The greatest sin committed by WotC regarding the death of printed Dungeon and Dragon magazine was the loss of advertising space for small companies, I'm sure that alone has broken a few small gaming businesses.

Quote from: HinterWeltI come back to, why would rpg companies advertise in your mag? Why would those outside the industry advertise in your mag?

For the same reasons they advertise in any magazine, I'd imagine.

Quote from: HinterWeltIn the end, I think it is harder than you might think...

Oh, no, I think it'd be hard. I wouldn't do it. But I do think there's a way to make it viable.

Seanchai

I just came across this article and thought it might shed some light on the topic of the health of magazine advertising.  In summary, even big name, established publications are having a hard time selling ad space.  BusinessWeek saw an almost 20% drop in Q1 of this year alone.  Imagine what kind of environment a startup mag in the RPG market would face.  And this is ad pages, not revenue.  I suspect that revenue has plunged even further as the rates per page have likely dropped as well.

Without ads to offset the high costs of printing and mailing, and you can see the problem.  This is likely why we haven't seen this kind of product (a non-Dragon/Dungeon monthly) in the RPG market in years.  If someone could make good money at it, it would probably already be done.


TGA

Quote from: The Good AssyrianWithout ads to offset the high costs of printing and mailing, and you can see the problem.  This is likely why we haven't seen this kind of product (a non-Dragon/Dungeon monthly) in the RPG market in years.  If someone could make good money at it, it would probably already be done.

Well, all print media is down. Down in sales, advertising, etc.. It's the dinosaur that the meteor called Internet killed...

Seanchai