A question that has been posed to me a few times now is about the relevance
or legitimacy of an electronic or web based magazine. After all, a printed
magazine has a certain legitimacy by being a physical product and the
fact it can be purchased in bookstores means that this magazine has a
large potential readership. An electronic or web-based magazine does not
pass this means test since a webpage is not a physical entity and can
not be put on a shelf nor displayed prominently in a bookstore. Therefore,
being published in an electronic or web-based magazine has no more creditability
than a posting it in a blog. Or so some people would like you to believe.
Each time I go to Chapters, the largest bookstore chain in Canada, I like to
check out the magazines. More often than not I will find a few of interest but
often there are only a few copies available because retail space for each magazine
is limited. I recall once I was trying to find a certain magazine because someone
I knew was published in it. It was a painful experience because either the few
copies were sold out or the store did not carry that publication. Once I finally
found it, I was forced to lend the magazine to others so they could read it since
they also could not find the magazine in their searches.
This is where the electronic or web-based magazine shows its true worth. A story
published in an electronic or web-based magazine has a potential readership of
billions. It is simply impossible for a print magazine to find its way into the
hands of people from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Israel, Scotland,
England, Denmark, the United States and Canada simultaneously.
As our magazine celebrates its first year of publication, we have seen our circulation
increase dramatically. Our Fall 2005 issue has been downloaded almost two thousand
times in three months and we have also seen downloads of our back issues double
and, in some cases triple, once we offered free access to view and download them.
So each day, people are discovering and enjoying stories from our all of our
issues. This is far more difficult in a print magazine where, too often, back
issues are hard to come by.
So when someone tells me it is better to be published in print than online, I
put a question back to him or her: How important is to you to get your story
somewhere where it can be read by as many people as possible?
When the facts are compared, I think the answer is clear why online publication
has so much to offer. |
