The WORM Where YA book fans unite Creator: Layne Hillesland

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1 The WORM Where YA book fans unite Creator: Layne Hillesland COMM 328: Magazine Design and Publishing Final Project: Magazine Launch and Design Professor Jessica Brown April 30, 2015

2 THE EDITORIAL PLAN: MISSION & PURPOSE: The WORM is a magazine dedicated to serving and entertaining young adults who love to read and write Young Adult (YA) novels. Each month our magazine provides readers with what s new concerning YA novels along with fostering both print and web products that encourage fan participation and discussion. o Our website, getwormy.com, serves as a platform for audience interactions as it gives our readers a chance to discuss topics in our magazine by commenting on our forums and blog posts. The website also serves as a place to submit original work, whether it be short stories or fan art (either of which have the possibility of being published in our magazine). AUDIENCE: o Demographics: Median Age: 17 Gender: 75% female, 25% male. Statistically, women read more than men, which is why our audience is primarily female (note: we provide content about all genres of books, not just girly ones). Education Level: 20% completed some Jr. high school, 35% completed junior high school and some high school, 30% completed high school and some college, 5% high school graduates with no college education, 10% college graduates o Psychographics: Readers of our magazine are mostly students but some early-career professionals / recent college or high school graduates. Their interests vary, which usually correspond to their favorite book genres. Values, however, are mostly consistent whereas the young adults are continually seeking a higher education and creativity while also valuing reading leisurely. COMPETITION: o Bookmarks Magazine: a U.S. magazine that focuses on featuring authors, giving advice on new books, giving reader recommendations, and reviewing books. o newbooks: a bi-monthly magazine located in the United Kingdom and first published in It primarily has reviews from different publishers and other submitters, but also has featured lists of books and guides for book groups. It also has occasional competitions. Although these magazines have similar goals as The WORM, they do not have a very specific audience and are limited to featuring books and writing reviews. Bookmarks focuses on writing short reviews of books so that readers can avoid wasting time on poorly written books. Newbooks focuses more on a group reading aspect for book clubs. Yet the main goal for The WORM is so that young men and women who enjoy YA novels can have a resource that assists with their fandom. Not only do we provide recommendations on books, but we are also more interactive with our audience than Bookmarks and newbooks. We are more interested in hearing what our fans have to say

3 about current books and authors not just paying someone else to write reviews. We also like receiving original stories and artwork that we can share in the magazine and online. Put simply, The WORM has a much more narrow audience (reaching to young YA readers rather than just general readers) and we are dedicated to making the magazine and website a socially interactive hub for them. COST & DISTRIBUTION: Most of our sales will be by subscription ($3.99/issue) since we have a specific audience and niche who have interests in the latest YA novels. Our competitors also sell mostly by subscription. As for newsstand sales ($4.99/issue), we will only sell on large-scale racks (where the store has a specific aisle for magazines). Therefore, The WORM will not be sold on sales racks closer to checkout counters and will not compete with tabloid magazines. ADVERTISING & PROMOTION: o Bic: Our readers are primarily students (whether they be currently taking classes or not). So their practical needs include school supplies such as pencils, pen, etc. There are no foreseeable conflicts between these ads and editorial content. o Barnes and Noble: The one thing all of our readers have in common is the love of reading. Since we advocate for continuous reading and imagination, we would gladly advertise for a location our readers could buy theses books. The only foreseeable conflict would be the artistic styles of the editorial content and the ad. We will have to make sure that fonts, colors and any other style features clearly define between the two. o Nook/Kindle: Advertising this product is for the same reason as Barnes and Noble we are delighted to advertise a way for our readers to buy the books we recommend. It also relates to our young audience as teenagers continually move into a digital atmosphere. A foreseeable conflict, again, is the distinction between editorial and advertising styles. Ad-to-editorial ratio: 60% Editorial; 40% advertising Circulation promotion: o Insert cards: we mainly rely on subscription sales. Therefore, we encourage our readers to either start or renew their subscriptions by inserting mail-friendly cards. o Free content: since our target audience contains primarily students, it is logical to assume these students have a smaller budget. Free content appeals to those on a smaller budget and thus appeals to students. Types of free content include sending free subscriptions for a designated amount of time in the hopes that once the free subscription is over, the reader will want to renew it. It s also ideal to offer deals such as providing a yearlong subscription for only a 6-month price. That way, the consumer gets more content for less money. Lastly, free digital content is a good way to reel readers in (especially young audiences). The magazine could provide online codes that would allow the reader to have access to free digital content, such as desktop wallpaper, poster, or a coupon from one of our advertisers.

4 EDITORIAL METHOD: Types of articles featured in The WORM include: features of popular or up-and-coming authors, reviews from staff writers, letters to the editor, and original content sent from fans, such as short stories or fan art. o Get wormy: this department depicts our top ten picks for the month in YA literature. This section further includes polls from our audience about what they chose for their top picks. o Your Turn: this department includes short stories submitted from our readers This section is framed as a competition where the chosen winners receive special prizes (whether it be gift cards, free subscriptions, or scholarship money). o Fan Art: this department includes original artwork submitted from readers that depicts drawings, paintings, graphic design, etc. concerning a popular novel. This section is also a competition where the chosen winners receive such prizes as listed above. o In Other Words: this department is where readers respond to things published in the previous issue (letters to the editor or just general responses); other pages consist of social media analytics (e.g. how much a certain book rose in trending from the past month) along with comments said on our website that we would like to formally publish in our issue. Website editorial method: although books are known for their physicality (as in, words are printed on a tangible page), there are still ways to move the book market into the digital atmosphere. A big part of our magazine is the chance to get one s artwork or short stories published. Since there is limited space in the print product, we can promote more artwork and stories on our site. Also, we publish videos on our website that would appeal to our audience (young people of the technology generation ) such as how-to videos about ways to draw your favorite book characters. Also, our interviews with authors are on video. This way, our readers can have the print product in hand and read about these authors, but also have the chance with the website to actually see the authors and their responses. Lastly, forums are very popular with YA readers because people love to express their opinions about certain book topics. Since the print product can only have a limited amount of opinions published, the website will have forums that let our readers continually participate in conversations. THE DESIGN: Our design primarily consists of a classy book vibe meaning the colors and fonts are more mature because generally those who read have a greater maturity level and like the old-timey feel of a classic book. Yet there is also a kid-like element that mixes in so that the magazine will still appeal to the younger audiences. One such element is a bookworm logo named Doug, who makes hidden appearances throughout the magazine. THE COVER: The cover will vary in type each edition. We like to focus on our readers, so we primarily like to put their artwork on the front page. If we have an exclusive interview with a popular author, we can also put a large photo of the author on the front. Our own staff would take the photo. (Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches)

5 o Magazine logo: Academy Engraved LET o Cover lines: Georgia (can vary) TABLE OF CONTENTS: Our first table of contents page depicts 4-5 featured stories. The second table of contents page only depicts one story that is in the center of the magazine. This page is aptly named Center Content and it does not always have to pertain to the featured story on the cover of the magazine (Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches) o Body text: Adobe Jenson Pro, Italic Caption o Subheads and numbers: Capitals o Header: Capitals SPREADS: As you ll see in sampled spreads, the featured story about Veronica Roth puts her name in bolded letters that spread across the whole spread. This is to generate excitement for the story while putting a face to the content. It also allows for more creative freedom and a fun segue into the editorial content. As for photos, a large feature story about an author would have a mix of studio photos taken by our staff along with personal photos submitted by the writer. The second spread makes use of the two pages to show the winning fan art along with short descriptions about the artist. We plan to promote four winning artists on the first spread of the section and the following pages can promote many other smaller images of artwork that are of honorable mention. (Dimensions: 8.5 x 11 inches per page) o Subtitle text: Capitals o Body text: Garamond 3 LT Std o Headline text: Book Antiqua (can vary) o Byline text: Garamond 3 LT Std, Bold Italic o Extra text: Comic Sans o Headline text: Book Antiqua WEBSITE HOMEPAGE: the main goal of our webpage is to be easily navigable and even more fan-centered than the print piece. We want our readers to feel comfortable going to our website and expressing their opinions and submitting their work. The tabs at the top link to our popular departments. The center will hold our main stories with digital content such as video interviews. The right side will hold tabs that link to specific activities or pages such as the chance to submit work, subscribe to the print product, or take a quiz. The left side of the page will be sold to advertisers. (Dimensions: 960 x 1200 pixels, 10 pixel margins on left and right, 0 pixel margins on top and bottom, 20 pixel gutters.) o Subhead: Comic Sans o Body Text: Georgia o Magazine logo: Academy Engraved LET

Student Booklet. A level Media Studies NEA. For submission in 20XX

Student Booklet. A level Media Studies NEA. For submission in 20XX A level Media Studies NEA Student Booklet For submission in 20XX Copyright 2017 AQA and its licensors. All rights reserved. AQA Education (AQA) is a registered charity (registered charity number 1073334)