Ideas needed for new Nikon Historical Society format

CameraQuest

CameraQuest

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Long story short, the beautifully done Nikon Historical Society quarterly magazine has long been done in Adobe Pagemaker 7 and then sent to a printer who works on final design.

The printer is retiring and the printing and mailing have become too expensive, NHS needs to be shifted online.

What is the easiest way to help Bob Rotoloni shift from Pagemaker 7 to an online magazine ?

Should he continue in Pagemaker and then convert that to something else such as PDF,
or switch entirely to a new easier publishing platform?


Best,
Stephen
 
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Online magazine, could be done right here on the forum using the article thread formatting.

The NHS website could redirect directly to the article forum here
 
Adobe replaced PageMaker with InDesign 21 years ago. A total makeover for the process of publishing NHS material is in order, especially if a younger member steps forward to take over the publication.
 
Definitely an e-magazine is the way to go - pdf or online or whatever. The physical copy has too much production cost. However, I know that it's hard work either way and Bob probably feels he needs a break.
 
Matters of migrating to newer software and methods of distribution can be solved, but whether BR wishes to learn newer computers and software, and still has enthusiasm to helm NHS..? PageMaker 7 is a whopping 24 years old.

What's the state of camera collecting these days? I was under the impression that the golden age for Leica and Nikon collecting was in the 1980s-90s, and that it never really made the jump beyond the baby boomer generation.
 
Google Docs is great if you want to keep the workload as low as possible. The tabs bar makes navigating long documents easy, and you can download a PDF.
 
Stephen, I believe he should switch to a different publishing platform, Pagemaker 7 is ancient at this point.

If he's dead-set on continuing to make a magazine "thing", page layout and design software like Adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher would probably be the best way to go. Experience level is probably moderate to difficult with these, though.

There are many options for publishing content online, depending on what he wants to do. Wordpress.org (not .com) is an open source publishing tool that much of the modern web runs on. It costs money to host, of course. You could also use website building platforms like sqarespace, wix, cargocollective, to name a few.

In another direction, one could look at Nikon Kenkyukai Tokyo. Their website is very simple, nothing is paywalled, and they essentially have shared notes and photos from the past 21 years of meetings (in two languages!). I assume they just collect dues from members to be part of the club.

I would also respectfully suggest reconsidering the business model when switching platforms. It is difficult to get people to pay for what is essentially accessing content online, like trying to sell books in a library. Instead, you could offer membership with perks, like small physical goods, or using a platform like Patreon to sell subscriptions to the society, or access to a private discord/forum, etc.

Best of luck with continuing NHS!
 
Ah - Pagemaker :)
I earned my money with this program for a few years and I miss it.

It depends on which file format you need for an online magazine. I don't know.
You can export PDF and HTML directly from Pagemaker.

I can understand why he likes working with Pagemaker ;-) "Scribus" would be a free alternative to Pagemaker.

Nevertheless, I think it would be better to learn a software that is better suited to creating and putting an online magazine online. Also in view of the fact that other, newer employees might be more experienced in using newer software.
 
It'd be a blast if NHS had members keen on letterpress or other old-school means of production, as the physical objects themselves might be beautiful and worthy of collecting. Another approach could be to go lo-fi with a 'zine format, literally hand-assembled from laser-printed pages.

Not sure what the big deal is about a specific printer retiring: Can't any number of online services print and mail as needed? And is there some reason that membership fees cannot be raised to cover increased production costs?

If NHS hopes to get paid for the content, e-documents can be problematic, because in many people's minds, they're "free", and some people feel compelled to "share".
 
Bob has pulled the plug. Received the last issue and a letter from Bob signaling the end yesterday. I do not believe that changing the software alone would solve the enormous costs that Bob has been dealing with the last few years. Much of the information that the Journal shared is already shared via the various facebook groups that have sprung up in the last few years.
I would be willing to continue to support a Journal, but possibly an e-mail document sent to members instead would still get the information out in a timely fashion. This would remove the printing and mailing costs, would allow a more flexible format and even allow color on a regular basis. The question would be, who would be willing to take charge of such a venture, and how would it work?
 
The key for such a project is content. How it's delivered is less important than having qualified contributors creating pertinent, interesting and compelling content on a recurring basis.

An RFF-NHS alliance is a natural, enhancing both entities. And a forum-based presentation would be helpful, due to the continuing interaction between members, superior to a static printed or emailed newsletter. And also superior to using Facebook for a multitude of reasons. Prior publications could also be curated here. The incremental cost of distribution would be zero (no need for an email service like Mailchimp or others.) Donations could still be collected to offset the time donated by content creators.
 
splitimageview said:
The key for such a project is content. How it's delivered is less important than having qualified contributors creating pertinent, interesting and compelling content on a recurring basis.
Click to expand...
As above. If you have ever been involved in producing a new periodical/newsletter you will know just how hard it becomes to encourage enthusiasts to come up with articles or find content yourself to keep the whole thing going.
 
wes loder said:
Bob has pulled the plug. Received the last issue and a letter from Bob signaling the end yesterday. I do not believe that changing the software alone would solve the enormous costs that Bob has been dealing with the last few years. Much of the information that the Journal shared is already shared via the various facebook groups that have sprung up in the last few years.
I would be willing to continue to support a Journal, but possibly an e-mail document sent to members instead would still get the information out in a timely fashion. This would remove the printing and mailing costs, would allow a more flexible format and even allow color on a regular basis. The question would be, who would be willing to take charge of such a venture, and how would it work?
Click to expand...
This thread is with Bob's blessing. He would be running it.
 
Unwanted sharing of an online issue could be sort of prevented by putting a slightly visible watermark on every page with the name of the member.
 
I'm looking at something along these lines for something in my non-photographic life/career at the moment, and rather than eMagazines/PDFs (which don't really have the tangibility benefits/appeal of a print magazine), the group I'm working with are continuing to publish a printed zine - but with the articles going up on a Wordpress-based website as the next print issue is released. Wordpress also has more than enough free and open source integrations to do more or less whatever you need at minimal cost.

With this setup, you could also offer two membership tiers: the full price option, where people pay for the costs of the magazine, and an international/digital only tier, with the articles behind a paywall online and released at the same time as the magazine goes out, but moving over to the "public internet" after X months.

Our quote (in Europe) for a small-format (A5 size) zine, with 36 full colour pages + 4 cover pages, was 250 EUR for 100 copies or 150 EUR for 50 copies. I don't know how many members the NHS has, but that should be more than feasible, especially if you're also selling the online version.

Either way, as others have pointed out, Bob's going to need to move to a more modern program for layout and you'll need a webmaster who can handle the website formatting.
 
I would certainly consider a member website. Or, maybe a mix of free and subscription content. Use Wordpress, Wix - something easy. Low overhead and - very important - mobile-friendly.
 
I don't know if I'm typical in these regards, but:
  • Paywalled web sites that I subscribe to: 0 (used to be nytimes.com, but I discovered that I preferred reading it in print form)
  • e-books that I've purchased: A handful, over a number of years, and only grudgingly in the case of illustrated works.
OTOH, I've discovered that I have a weakness for lavishly produced print media.
 
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