I did one of these as a one off and my advice would be this:
- Decide firstly how many magazines you'll need to cover your target market (in your case nurseries, toddler groups, health clinics, classes, cafes and coffee shops, supermarkets, sports and leisure centres etc). You'll need this figure (print run) to both sell your advertising and work out how much you're going to need to make.
- Decide how often you're going to run. Monthly is great as it offers a regular income but may be difficult with getting into term time only places so my advice would be bi-monthly.
- Find a printer. I have no affiliation with this printers mixam.co.uk/ - however they have a useful price calculator which can help you to work out costs.
- Aim initially for at least a 16 page magazine and assume that at least half of these will be non paid for pages (ie editorial, class listings, bit about you, some editorial etc).
- Do your sums. Printing is going to be your biggest outlay, followed by distribution (fuel costs can add up plus you may need to do a deal with some places for a free listing/space = them stocking/distributing your magazine). Phone calls, post (letters/sample mags/media pack to prospective advertisers). Also if you haven't already got one, you'll need some kind of publishing software or a graphic designer (beware the latter will be quite pricey as they charge by the hour/day usually).
If you go for an initial print run of say 4,000 (which is the kind of figure your potential advertisers will want as a minimum) on a 32 page magazine you'll be looking at around £650 printing and delivery (to you).
Add in distribution costs (again lets say you do this yourself over a week and spend £50 in fuel/parking).
Then add in post costs (your advertisers will want to see their ad in the flesh) with stationery (maybe a compliment slip and obviously an envelope) so let's say another £50.
Factor in 10% as miscellaneous costs because it just happens.
So that's £825. On top of that you'll want to make a profit. If you run bi-monthly you'll want an average monthly income (x2 for the 2 months) which initially you may be happy to forego but ongoing you're going to want to earn). So let's say £1000 a month.
So costs are:
Printing £650
Distribution £50
Postage and Stationary £50
Misc costs £75 (10%)
Your salary £2000 (assuming £1000 per month)
Total outlay = £2825
So on a 32 page magazine, assuming half your pages are 'saleable' you need to sell each page for £2825 divided by 16 pages = £177 (rounded).
People will want deals on committing to more than one issue (ie 3 or 6 issues) and you'll do better selling smaller sections (ie 1/8 or 1/4) at higher prices than the whole page price (eg a 1/8 page would be more than the page price divided by 8). So you might charge £150 for a whole page, but most people aren't going to take a full page. So half page is say half price plus 10%, 1/4 page 1/4 price plus a bit and so on).
Offer value to your advertisers by including their classes/clubs in a separate listing page. You can even upsell this listings page by offering it as a single listing for say £5 or a bit more if they want their logo etc.)
Premium pages such as front page, inside covers and back page are always worth a bit more. Editorials are good as they can look like articles but you can charge for them so it's a win win.
Hopefully that's given some food for thought. Always worth looking at issuu.com for examples of magazines out there. Sometimes helpful to look at older issues and more recent ones to see if they've added/dropped sections as they will have found what works and doesn't and saves you a bit of a learning curve when you're starting.
Ones I've looked at are Time for tots, lots for tots, and toddle about but there are lots more out there!
Best of luck with your new venture!