Reader-generated magazines; not easy, not cheap

Having your readers write a whole issue of your magazine is a nifty, but daunting idea. For all the lip service that's paid to "engagement" and "reader involvement", most editors would think the thing too outlandish to contemplate. Much is being made of the decision by Budget Travel (properly known as Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel) in the U.S. to turn over its entire 10th anniversary issue to reader-generated content. Not to take anything away from the idea, but it's not unique.

There are, in fact, good examples -- like Our Canada -- where people submit stories and are given a subscription in return (the magazine is published by Reader's Digest Canada). And a company called 8020 Publishing created a travel magazine called Everwhere and a photography magazine called JPG that were entirely reader-driven. There are doubtless other examples, too.

Erik Torkells, the editor-in-chief of Budget Travel, recounts in a blog post he wrote for Folio: how he and his staff took the plunge for the magazine's 10th anniversary issue. Solicitations in the magazine and online for a variety of forms and story types got an overwhelming response -- it received almost 2,800 in-depth pitches for the “Want to be a travel writer?” story alone.

Occasionally someone would ask if we were doing a reader-generated issue because it was cheaper or easier. Let’s be perfectly clear: Making this issue was neither cheap nor easy. First, we paid our regular fees; second, we traveled more writers than we normally would (we tend to find people who live someplace); finally, we also paid for companions’ expenses (something we don’t do for professional writers). And without an extraordinary amount of deft editing—both in terms of generating ideas, sifting through submissions, working with non-professional writers and photographers, and actual text-editing—the issue would’ve been a mess. Editing non-professional writers’ words is never easy.