[sdiy] Audio (and synth) DIY printed magazine idea

[synth at charlielamm.com]

I come from a family of non-fiction writers and we are constantly bouncing
ideas off each other for books and magazines that might do a little better
than break-even (sometime break-even is OK too).

My latest idea is to have a magazine called something like "Audio DIY".
It would be in English, and come out monthly or bimonthly, and hopefully
sell to an International audience.

It would cover what I see to be the 4 "thrusts" of the audio DIY biz as I
see it on the web and usenet

--Synth DIY
--Stomp DIY
--Amp DIY
--Software DIY (Reaktor, Nord modular, roll your own plug ins, etc)

My brothers and father don't know anything about this "hobby" or "passion"
or whatever you'd like to call it, so they couldn't gauge if it would get
enough interest to survive or not (to break even, the average "special
interest" publication must see about 30K subscribers annually, more if
potential advertisers stay away).  That's why I am posting this here.

So, what does the group think?  Is there a 30K+ subscriber base,
worldwide, at say $20USD per year market for this (or am I preaching to
the choir?)  Has it been tried before?  Is it being done now, and I just
have never seen it at the newsstands?  Is this a silly question to ask of
this group?

Some details, of course all to be revised and ironed out.

My idea would be to have this represent all levels of this odd passion of
ours, from in depth Magnus-style filter math porn, to "how to get started
building a fatman".  My feeling is that the menches read everything, even
if it's remedial, and the beginners read everything too, they just don't
understand most of it, but hope someday they will.

In general I'd slant it more for the beginner/intermediate than the mench,
mostly to gain subscriber base, but, that's up for discussion.

As an advertising base I guess you'd try to get the parts suppliers on
line, as well as some music software mfgr's.  But in general I feel this
potential publication doesn't have the advertising potential of say
"Electronic Musician" or something...since someone like Roland has little
reason to advertise in it....and maybe since that keeps things a bit less
commercial (as I'm sure many of you know, at least a few of the music
publications say everything audio tech is great, even if it's not, to keep
the advertiser bucks flowing) it might be for the best.

And there's the rub.  Without a strong advertiser base, some publication
die before they are born.

But it'd be a hell of a fun publication to produce.  I'd certainly
subscribe to it.  And it might become a good little business, provided you
could keep enough people subscribing.

Some of the start up ideas:

--A basement publication, hand stapled and addressed, along the lines
of how a specialty publication like "Hemmings Motor News" got started.

--A spin off of an existing publication.  I guess I'd have to put on a
suit and go around with my hat in my hands!

--An angel investor (anyone know any?)

--An internet magazine (problematic, since no one will ever want to pay a
dime for the publication once they can get it free).


Comments?