Anyone interested in writing for an online magazine for pre-teen girls that does not feature makeup, boys, horses, cute animals, pink or glitter?

[MmeLindor.]

Before anyone reports me to MNHQ, this is a voluntary, non-profit making blog that I am thinking about creating.

I am sick fed up of looking for interesting magazines for my 9 year old daughter that does not feature the above. Most of the comics/magazines are so boring that she flicks through them then discards.

Who decided that all pre-teen girls are only interested in stuff like that? I think that they might be persuaded to read a bi-weekly online magazine with other topics.

My daughter loves art, for example. I could see her loving a magazine that featured stories of artists, or history of art. Maybe your dd likes to read about astronomy, science, geography, or maybe you work in that field and would like to write an article explaining what you do.

We could have articles about technology, about politics (in a general way, explaining about the upcoming US election, and how they vote), about countries, people and how they live.

I would set up the blog and anyone could submit articles for publication. I would be looking to have two articles a week on set days.

Anyone interested?

This is such a fab idea.

If i ever think of something to say, and say it coherently, I'll mail you MMeLindor.

I'll probably read it myself for pleasure, sounds like minimumsnet

am volunteering dd1
she just missed the opportunity to be a blog writer for a new guides blog last month (misread the application deadline and was gutted) - so off the top of my head she could def do a 'my town' (will pm the details but picture canadian mountains) and has been doing dance for yonks, she's currently into garage tap, which is a bit less fluffy than all her other genres... . dd2 has been doing some writing about having cerebral palsy too, so maybe the odd bit of disability stuff to remove stigma surrounding 'difference'?

there are mners with kids all over the world, it would be fabulous to get them all to contribute!

I think R2PeePoo's biographies would interest my DD(9) who likes history and hates 'girly' things. Also video games, music and sport would go down well. Not sure I know enough to contribute though, but we would read it!

Please do email me if you are interested

mmelindor at saltandcaramel dot com

Am currently fighting wordpress to try and get the new blog up. It may well take me all night.

MmeLindor I sent a message via the contact me section of salt&caramel; would it be easier for you if I sent an email too?

Congrats on the brill idea BTW!

If you have already send me a message on the blog, don't worry. I will try to match you up with your MN name so that I don't contact you twice.

I am preparing a spreadsheet. Always wanted one of those.

I've just sent you an email. Think it's such a brilliant idea! Can't wait to see the launch of this!!

I've emailed you.

Fantastic idea, have emailed - will read rest of thread tomorrow :)

A brilliant idea, I'd love to support it if I can.

I think you'd do much better though if a large part of content is written by teens and children and just edited by grownups.

Also I strongly recommend you user test the name with some actual children and teens. I can see it's popular here but we're not the target audience!

Is the word "jump" relevant to teens / children today? Does it have any negative connotations?

Personally it reminds me of "go jump" and/or the film "Rita Sue and Bob Too" (sorry, but they do use that terminology!) However I'm ancient now, what matters is what it means to young people.

Not trying to be negative to put you off btw! Just trying to help.

Personally I reckon "salt and caramel" is a great name, couldn't you use that?

MmeL - why can't I access your blog? when I clicked on it at first it worked perfectly, then I clicked to see if I could send you message and I've got some random domain default message telling me it's locked. Have we broken your blog, or is it just me?

madwoman
I have been backing up the blog, so maybe that was why you couldn't access it.

Yes, we will use a lot of teen content, but I do want adult written content such as career histories - although we could have teens interview the adults, I guess.

SGM suggested asking the kids to do vlogs (video blogs) so that would be a good way of doing it.

Can you all ask your pre-teens if they like the name Jump!

I don't want to use SaltandCaramel, as that is my private blog - it came from an important part of my life. I feel like I found myself in the years we were in Switzerland, and that journey was in part due to blogging.

Bedtime beckons, but just nipping in to mark my place and come back when I an get my head back above water at work. Really interesting idea MmeLindor, and possible opportunity to link up with you on this.

If you are waiting to hear back from me, bear with me

(argh. Can you tell that I have spent HOURS in the past few weeks on the phone to banks and other companies - everyone seems to say, "just bear with me")

I am working my way through today's emails.

Have spent the last FOUR hours sifting through my emails, Mumsnet PMs, Twitter DMs, FB messages and smoke signals to write down all the interested contributors for the new Jump Magazine.

If you haven't received an email, then you might have slipped through the cracks in the social media world. Send a pigeon and I will add you to the list.

Happy to write, and can also contribute my (fairly limited) online editorial type skills from The Camel's Hump if you need proof reading, formatting etc. Also, like I said on fb, would be very pleased to feature/promote this on TCH.

My areas of expertise are probably literature, social policy, and mental health, but can turn my hand to whatever if needed.

have done some market research for your target readership - DD3 (9) said "cool" when I asked her what she thought of a magazine like this. DD2(13) nodded vaguely interestedly.

Both said they weren't keen on the name Jump as it didn't convey what it was about. No negative vibes about it though, just "it's a nothing-ey kind of name".

Both would read it though (at least the first edition ). DD2 said "please don't let them patronise us though".

This is wonderful!

I have had emails from over 50 women volunteering to write, edit or help in other ways.

I have the name registered and will set up the blog today (thanks to the help of a MNetter who has sorted me out with technical side of things)

Will tinker a bit with the actual blog, but that is not really my area of expertise so might need help on that.

And I will sit down and figure out what the opening couple of weeks should look like. I was thinking bi-weekly - I don't think that preteens have all got daily access to pc and that way we won't run out of articles so fast.

You lot are amazing.

I don't know how to write for that age either, so am going to wait in the wings until I see some and then unleash on my dull area of expertise

Another couple of ideas, sorry if they've already bindun: a feature on children who raise money for charity, just because I'm constantly amazed by the lengths kids will go to do something for others - we could interview kids about why they chose the activity they did, why they chose that particular cause, good and bad points about the experience etc. And a real life experience feature asking older people about something they did when they were 9(ish) - could give an interesting snapshot of how different lives were, e.g. my nan could contribute 'what it was like to be locked outside during a WW2 air raid'!

Bender
Yes, have a couple of contributors who work with charities, but if anyone has a child who has raised money for a charity and would like to be featured - send me an email.

Also love the idea of asking adults about their pre-teen memories.

Thinking of the age group - when we say pre-teen, are we limiting ourselves to under 13yo? Should I leave off the mention of pre-teen?

Have discovered a word that exactly describes what I am looking for - an e-zine - not a blog but an online magazine.

Vivian
Yes, to showing kids that they don't have to watch crap TV - maybe a regular feature about being different is cool. Gut feeling with satire is that we have to be careful as it can come across as mean sometimes.

I bought a pile of kids mags today, for research (which my DC loved). My DD is going through the girl mags and making notes what she liked and disliked. What I noticed though is that they are very much marketing vehicles for

• TV shows
• Xfactor slebs
• more crap magazines
• Disney crap
• moshi monsters
• hello kitty