Announcing PJN Magazine (UPD)

UPD: Added a survey so I can obtain some first impressions. Make sure to fill it out!

I’m proud to announce that Pokéjungle.net will get its own self-published professional magazine! It’s an idea I came up with a month or two ago and I wanted to make sure it’d be possible for us to do it. I also wanted to wait until after the launch for XY, as it will involve lots of input from the community! Let’s start with the general information first.

General information

PJN Magazine (PJNM) will be a professional looking magazine released two or three times a year available in both digital and printed editions. Page count will be big enough for substantial articles but will also be kept reasonable to keep the price down. Price is as of yet undecided, but will be kept to a minimum seeing as the magazine is intended to be non-profit. The content consists of articles which normally wouldn’t be placed on the site, with a big focus on community and behind-the-scenes stuff.

I’ll now explain it in more detail, but keep in mind these are all subject to change seeing as we’ll use a lot of community input to give the magazine shape.

Release timing

We chose a scarce release for a number of reasons. First, it gives us enough time to write the magazine so we wouldn’t feel a deadline rush, so we can give it all the care it deserves. Second, it would become expensive to buy all printed editions rather quickly, and we’re not here to suck all of your (or your parents) money out of your pockets. And as a last bit, we want to give it a special feel by it being a sort-of limited release, making it feel more likely a luxury product for our truest fans rather than a business.

Price

We don’t intend this to be a profit-making product. Therefore, we want to keep the price down as much as possible. There are however some costs involved in putting together the content and especially in assembling the printed edition. Self publishing is relatively expensive, and we also must keep international shipping in mind. However, we still aim it to be nearly the same price as a normal magazine you buy in shops. If there will be a mark-up, we will try to get your input on it, and rest assured it will be very small (<$2). I can promise the first digital edition will be distributed free of charge to give you a feeling of the quality.

Printed Edition

PJNM will be printed on the same stuff your usual gaming magazine is printed on, in full color. We think we found a way of doing this at reasonable price. We will update with more specifics closer to printing release.

Content

PJNM won’t feature the normal news you can usually read on the site. Instead, if it features news, it will be in the form of thought out opinion articles. The magazine is intended to be read anywhere, anytime, something you can pull up years later and still enjoy reading. We’ll have articles on lots of older and obscure games from the Pokémon franchise. We also want to take this opportunity to get you to know the staff a bit more. The big outlook is mostly planned out already, but I’ll keep most of it under the wraps, and it will get trickled out in further announcements regarding the magazine.

FAQ

Who is part of the team?

PJNM will be led by Daedardus (Editor-in-chief), with moving second in charge and responsible for design. The rest of the PJN staff will be responsible for providing content, and of course Pokéjungle who gave his approval for the project.

Can I contribute?

If you mean writing your own article, we’re not sure on that yet. It mostly has to do with silly copyright laws and we don’t want to get hit by copyright trolls trying to pull down the magazine. This also means we’re not sure if we can feature fan-art. We’ll communicate more on that later. But rest assured, you can help along with the general shape of the magazine and we will greatly appreciate your input.

When can we expect the first issue?

Somewhere around January/February 2014.

Will you feature ads? Can I promote my business in the magazine?

You probably can’t. We don’t want to make a profit and while it’s true ads could keep the price down, we still want to deliver the best experience to the readers. The magazine is totally intended as fanservice from my part, and I believe fanservice shouldn’t involve $$$. However, I may have a cool idea in my head, stay tuned for more info :).

Will the magazine contain a picture of the rare and elusive Daedardus?

Yes. No. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.

This idea sucks. Pokéjungle is the worst fan site there is and I hate all the staff.

That’s fine. You can read our competitor’s magazines in the meantime.

More info pls

Soon. Like next week soon.

UPD: You can fill in a (short) survey here. I’ll use this data in an upcoming post, which may take a week however. Stay tuned! 😉

~Daedardus~ on behalf of the whole PJN staff.