Friday 31 July 2015

New Magazine start up and my thoughts (31.07.2015)

New Magazine start up and my thoughts (31.07.2015)


Recently I've started a new magazine with a few friends. The magazine is called 'Eight Magazine'. It's a fashion based magazine, that focuses on highlighting up-and-coming artists. Every issue we'll feature 8 artists from a wide range of media. It won't just be 8 photographers every issue, it'll have painters, illustrations, musicians, poets, authors, sculptors, film makers, etc. 

I have never done something like this before, not on this scale. This is a large collaboration with myself, 8 artists, and numerous writers and editors. I have little experience with managing a magazine, and I'm very grateful for the people I have the opportunity to work with, because they have been incredibly helpful and inspiring. 

However, a part of me is struggling to keep afloat.

Along with the magazine, we have a website: http://www.eightmagazine.co.uk/

At the moment, I'm focusing more on the website and our social media to generate viewers and a following. The website focuses on posting the latest; art, fashion, film, music and photography news. I try to post two articles a day minimum. This can be difficult if I'm busy during the day, there aren't many writers that write for our website, actually it's just me and my friend James. One thing that really bugged me was, a few articles I have posted were for the sake of posting something. It didn't feel right. You can see it in some of my writing, some articles I can write a ton about, and is generally more entertaining to read. I've currently tried to stop posting junk articles - if I'm going to post something and I can't write a lot about it, I'll just post the facts. Take my latest post about the Herschel Supply Co. Fall Lookbook. The lookbook is so beautiful and well done, but I couldn't find many words to write about it, so I just posted a quote, some facts and a link to the collection. It felt more honest to write that way. I didn't have to make up some bullshit sentences or feign excitement.

Another issue I'm having with is Google Analytics. Every morning and every night, and several times throughout the day... I check Google Analytics. I need to know how many page views we're getting, how many users, what's the bounce rate, what days are doing well, and why they're doing well. But the past two days the user and view count have started to drop. I don't know why. Last Saturday, we didn't post any articles and it was one of our highest traffic days. I don't know why.

I feel like I should stop looking at Google Analytics so intensely, it provides me with facts but it doesn't predict the future. Just because a few articles about women's fashion did well, doesn't guarantee that if I write more about, that we'll get more traffic.

This is a minor diary like entry/rant that I wanted to write. Please check out Eight Magazine if you're interested in art, fashion, film, music or photography news.

Here are some links to our stuff: