PR question - lead times for magazines?

[iarose]

Hiya I am helping out a friend get together some press releases for her charity, and wondered what the lead times are for magazines planning their future issues? I work a lot with local press where lead times are very short - couple of weeks - but how far in advance would you send say a Christmas themed press release to a national magazine? Any help and advice most welcome!
thanks iarose

Monthly or weekly magazines? I work on a monthly and it's sent to the printers about two weeks before it goes on sale, the work on the issue starts four weeks before that, and the editor is planning it roughly a month before that?

Big features have longer-term planning, but little newsy things are often done as the issue is being worked on.

Earlier is always better though.

Thanks Rhian, was thinking of monthly and weekly I guess, as it's all in early planning stages! But thanks for the advice, that's good to know. Some of our items are going to be more newsy so we can send them later than anything which is more likely to be used as a feature - good that gives us slightly more time!
Iarose

If you look on most magazine websites they usually give you copy deadlines.

The earlier the better IMO

Go online and look for the media packs, that will normally have advertising copy deadlines which should give you a ballpark, editorial is normally beforehand.

Tbh it's a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string scenario, or rather how short can you get away with. Some big glossies will be planning their major issues (Christmas, fashion show season etc) months in advance (May/June for Christmas). Depends what you're trying to push. Send early, then follow up, if they say 'oh we're not doing that yet', then ask when would be a good time to resend, also a change to check their preferred format for images etc.

Sorry, just realised this is a fairly old thread.

FOr monthly mags we used to hold Christmas in July events to meet their editorial deadlines!