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Service

Magazine website development

For editors and publishers of consumer and trade magazines who need a website built around issues, contributors and subscribers rather than a rolling news feed with a magazine skin.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A magazine runs on an issue calendar, and most web platforms do not know what an issue is.

  • The editor plans the spring issue in a spreadsheet, commissions twelve pieces by email, chases copy through a shared inbox and only sees the whole issue once the art editor has laid it out for print.
  • When the issue goes to press, somebody then re-keys the features into the website one at a time, usually weeks later, with pull quotes lost and images re-cropped by hand.
  • The web version never quite matches the printed contents page.

Where it gets harder

Subscribers are managed in a separate fulfilment system, so a reader who pays for the digital edition has to be sent a PDF link by hand, and nobody can tell which issues a given subscriber is entitled to.

  • Back issues live in a folder; when a reader asks for an article from two years ago the answer is a scanned page.
  • Contributors have no login and cannot see where their piece is in the process.
  • Newsletter segments are built from an export each month.
  • The title has a loyal audience and a product that is hard to sell online because the website treats the issue as an afterthought.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom magazine build is organised around the issue. The issue model carries a cover, a contents list, a print date and a publish date, and each article belongs to one or more issues. Planning and commissioning happen inside the platform: the editor creates the issue, assigns slots to contributors, and sees copy arrive, go through edit and be marked ready. A long-form article template handles pull quotes, chapters, sidebars and credits so a feature reads as it was designed. Contributor profiles collect each writer's work. When the issue is built it can be published in one action, with the website contents page mirroring the printed one.

Subscriptions are part of the build where the title sells them. Digital issue delivery sends subscribers a PDF or page-flip link for every issue they are entitled to; single-issue sales and print-plus-digital bundles run through the orders engine; back-issue browsing lets readers move through the archive by issue, cover and section. Newsletter segments by interest come from the taxonomy, so a reader who follows one subject hears about the relevant features. The shared publishing layer provides revisions, scheduling, media processing, feeds, caching, old-URL migration and advert positions.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Print layout and prepress, which stay in your design tools
  • Print fulfilment and postal logistics, which stay with your mailing house, with the platform exporting what they need
  • Ad sales billing

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A trade title publishing ten issues a year with a print subscriber base held by a fulfilment house wants digital access for existing print subscribers, a paid digital-only tier, and twenty years of back issues imported with their original article dates. That is a different build from a quarterly consumer title with no paid tier, and the scope document names which parts apply.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from walking through one full issue cycle with the editor
  • A written scope document naming each stage from issue plan to archive and what is left out
  • Designs of the issue page, the long-form article template and the contributor workspace
  • The build, including subscriptions and digital issue delivery where in scope, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Import of back issues and articles with a redirect map for existing URLs
  • Training for the editor, art editor, subscriptions manager and regular contributors
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your content

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to the current website, the subscriber data held by you or your fulfilment house, and a sample of past issues.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the editor, art editor and whoever runs subscriptions; the issue stages, tiers and archive volume go into the scope document.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    The long-form article, issue contents page and archive browser are designed around your typography and your existing print design.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in layers: issue model and contributor workflow, then templates and media, then subscriptions and digital delivery, then archive import.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    Your team builds one real issue on the new platform in parallel with print and reports what does not match the way you work.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Changes from the review are made and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Back issues imported, subscriber entitlements verified against a sample, redirects tested, launch checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The next issue is published from the new platform; hosting and maintenance continue under their own agreement if taken.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Subscription fulfilment houses and mailing-list systems
  • Payment providers for digital subscriptions and single-issue sales
  • Page-flip and PDF issue viewers
  • Newsletter and email platforms for segmented sends
  • Ad servers for position-level campaign delivery
  • Print production and design tools for article export
  • Analytics and consent management platforms

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A trade title moving its print subscribers online

The situation

A trade magazine publishing ten issues a year holds its print subscribers with a fulfilment house and wants to give them digital access without re-registering everyone.

Why it is a custom build

The custom route is needed because the fulfilment house, not the website, remains the system of record for print subscribers, and the entitlement sync has to work in both directions.

The scope we would propose

  • An entitlement import keyed on the fulfilment house's subscriber reference
  • A claim flow where a print subscriber enters that reference to unlock digital issues
  • A separate digital-only tier sold through the orders engine, issue delivery that releases the PDF to entitled readers on the publish date
  • An archive import of twenty years of back issues keeping original dates and bylines

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Issues per year and the number of articles in a typical issue
  • Number of contributors and whether they need their own logins
  • Subscription tiers, bundles and the payment provider involved
  • Digital issue format and whether a third-party viewer is used
  • Back-issue volume to import and the state of the source files
  • Newsletter segmentation and the email platform to connect
  • Advert positions per template and any ad server integration
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Magazine publishing package

Issue planning, contributor workflow, long-form templates, digital issue delivery and back-issue archive for magazines that publish on a schedule.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

When is the package the better choice than a custom build?

If your title publishes on a regular cadence, sells subscriptions in a standard way and your archive sits in one place, the magazine publishing package usually covers it through configuration. A two-way sync with a fulfilment house, unusual entitlement rules or several archive sources point to the custom route. We say which during discovery.

Can print subscribers get digital access without paying again?

Yes, where the subscriber data can be matched. We import entitlements from your subscriber list and give print subscribers a way to claim their digital access. The scope document states how the match works once we have seen the data.

Do contributors need to learn the system?

Contributors only see their own commissions, the brief and a place to file copy and images. Most learn it from the invitation email. Editors and the art editor get a longer session covering issue building and templates.

Can we import our back issues?

Usually yes. Articles and issue metadata are imported with their original dates, and PDF issues are attached to the archive. Where only print files exist, we agree a realistic scope for which issues are re-keyed and which are offered as PDFs only.

Who owns the platform afterwards?

You do. The source code, all articles, issues, subscriber records and media are handed over at delivery. Hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

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