How to Set Up An Online Magazine

'I tried to find a metaphorical name for the magazine, which would mean moving towards a positive future.' Dhow off the Jumiera Palm, Dubai (image courtesy Nico Crisafulli under Creative Commons license)

Have you ever dreamed of running your own creative business? If so, Iman Ben Chaibah, a member of the British Council’s Young Creative Entrepreneur network, has tips on how to do it. She explains how she successfully set up Sail, an online magazine written by young Emiratis in English. 

Choosing the right name for your venture is important


Sail eMagazine was started back in March 2010, as an Emirati online monthly magazine about community, culture, and creativity. The number one question I always get when talking about Sail is: “Why Sail? What does it mean?” When I first started the magazine, I wanted to give it a name like ‘Epiphany’, ‘Illumination’, or ‘Elitist’. I was originally drawn towards those names because they implied the potential depth of the magazine’s content. But then I was advised that although those names implied elements of what I wanted for the magazine, it would be better to replace them with a name that was inclusive of the whole community, and wouldn’t make a certain group feel left out, or that they might not be able to understand the magazine’s content. So I tried to find a metaphorical name that would mean moving towards a positive future. Eventually I came around to ‘Sail’, hoping it would reflect the idea of taking the community with me on a journey to a future where we all read, write, and talk to each other, taking what we want to keep from our culture and values along with us.

A clear vision behind your business helps it stand out
Sail is an Emirati magazine, and by Emirati, I don’t only mean ‘originated from the United Arab Emirates (UAE)’, but also that all the writers and illustrators who create its content are Emirati. Why Emiratis in particular? They constitute less than 20 per cent of the UAE’s population. So it is easy for them to be forgotten or pushed away by the crowd, and not be given the chance to have their voices heard. The magazine was meant to give Emiratis a chance to express their views.

Why I chose to publish in English
Sail is different from the rest of the magazines in the UAE. First of all, it’s in English instead of Arabic, despite the fact that all of the writers speak Arabic as their mother tongue. I chose to publish the magazine in English for several reasons:

• Young Emiratis are increasingly globalised. English is becoming their language of preference, and their thinking voice.
• We have a large population of non-Arabic speakers in the UAE. Despite this, the main publications in the UAE are all in Arabic.
• Most Emiratis write in Arabic publications. This means our local English language media lacks the Emirati perspective, even though the non-Arabic speaking population is hungry to hear it in a language they can understand.
• English language media in the UAE often require their writers to have a journalistic background if they are not native English speakers, or require that writers are well-known before publishing their articles.

Publishing in English allows Sail to be understood worldwide. The globalised younger generation of Emiratis can read and write articles in the language they prefer, and the entire population of the UAE, including those who don’t speak Arabic, can read the magazine to find out what Emiratis think.

A digital product helps you understand your audience
The magazine is solely digital. This makes it different from other publications that use the web to support their ‘main’ one. The model allows us to push out our articles through social media, encouraging readers to share it. It also means we can concentrate our efforts on evolving our digital platform and looking at readership data so we can understand our audience better.

The articles we publish are purposely short and fresh, on topics that everyone can relate to. This approach has led to a diverse international audience: 65 per cent of our readers are from the UAE, ten per cent from the US, five per cent from the UK, and the rest are scattered around the globe.

What I’ve learned from setting up my business
I’ll leave you with four lessons I shared in my editorial piece, published on Sail’s fourth anniversary, in the hope they might inspire you in the same way they’ve inspired me.

• You need to truly and deeply believe in what you do. If you believe in your business, nothing can stand in your way, and you won’t ever be too tired to work on it.
• It’s all about persistence. Giving up on a business, project, or initiative is easy. It takes a lot of strength to persist and keep going no matter what.
• Don’t let rejection stop you trying some more. I admit, it still gets to me when we get rejected for certain funds or support for Sail, but I’m trying to minimise the time it takes me to stop feeling frustrated and move on to knock more doors. It’s only a matter of time till you find someone who believes in what you do as much as you do, if not even more. So keep trying, and don’t let that ‘no’ stop you.
• Trust your gut. Go ahead and ask selected people for their opinions, check what else is being done in the industry, but listen to that voice within. It often guides you to the right place, so try to trust it more often, and don’t let outside voices dilute it.

Culled from: BritishCouncil