Business Plans: Moonsnails Magazine: We’re Back!

In fall of 2005 Twighlight Manor Press announced that it was planning the release of a new magazine, which at that point was untitled and it‘s genre unknown. Our original idea was to keep it local; local writers, local sales, local flavor to the stories. Market research, however showed us that that would be a very unprofitable venture that would doom our magazine to failure before it’s fifth issue. We had to rethink out plan.

Over the next several weeks we threw around ideas and finally decided that the magazine would be a fiction “literary journal”. At first we planned on “all good fiction”, but than after studying the market, realized that this was virtually a bottomless pit, that would result in more manuscript submissions than our tiny staff of four would be able to handle.

Another thing we decided early on, was that, we wanted to stand out on bookstore shelves. Looking at other magazines sold at a local bookstore, Nonesuch Books in Saco, I discovered something. Rack upon rack of magazines, where all the same: 8×11” glossy and flimsy issues, that would not stand the test of time on a bookshelf, given them a shelf life of just 3 weeks. (This short shelf life was according to a study I found online.) According to that study, only a few magazines would be shelved and saved to be read again and again for several years. These magazines had good content and a sturdy binding. I went to Nonesuch Books looking for magazines with good content and study bindings, and was amazed at how few there actually were. In the end I found only three, out of the hundreds of magazines the shop had on the racks. By the end of this stage in our study we came to one conclusion: this magazine, was NOT going to be a 8×11” glossy; instead it would read like a book, with crisp white paper and a square bound “paperback” cover.

After some more market studies, we came to the conclusion that rather than focusing on fiction in general, we would instead use the same rule we use for writing: Write what you know. In our case it would translate into: Publish what you read. All four of us are sci-fi buffs. Sci-fi movies, sci-fi TV, sci-fi comics, sci-fi books… well it seemed only natural that we would thus choose sci-fi as the genre for the new magazine.

By January of 2006 we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do with the magazine. On Space Dock 13 (the website) we announced that the magazine was a defiant go, and we were planning it’s release later that year.

With our genre in mind, we set out the name our new magazine. After several weeks of debate, only one thing was agreed upon: that the magazine must have a sci-fi sounding name and that it should reflect our local home base, namely that we are on the world’s most beautiful beach: Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

In April 2006 we introduced the world to two new websites. The first was the message board for writers: A Writer’s Desk. It was our hope that through here we would find new talent seeking to be published in our magazine. A message board built entirely to promote the magazine, today it stands on it’s own and has no connection to the magazine at all.

Our second Website was of course the homepage for our magazine. We had finally decided on a name, and that name was: Moonsnails. After a walk to the beach that cold April, me and my three brothers returned home with tote bags filled with Old Orchard’s most beloved seashell: the Atlantic Moonsnail. Later that day, while sorting the shells on the lawn, it hit me: Moonsnails was the perfect name for our magazine, it kept the local flavor and it sounded sci-fi. Later that week Moonsnails homepage went online.

By the end of April 2006 we were getting quotes from various printers, both local and online. Announcement went out with the news that Moonsnails would see its public release in September of 2006. We were off and running, and than came May 9, 2006 and the flood that washed away all of our plans, destroying everything we owned and bringing Twighlight Manor Press to an instant standstill. We lost everything, the building was condemned, and nothing survived. As far as the business was concerned, we were back at ground zero.

That same day, as a result of the flood, my dad went into a coma. In July of 2006, my dad awoke from the coma and returned home disabled and in my care. In September of 2006, instead of releasing Moonsnails, we found ourselves in the midst of fight to save our land from a local land shark. The result was my dad’s return to the hospital. In October of 2006, a fire swept through. What little we had that survived the flood, was destroyed in the fire and we were faced with fighting out Maine’s frigid winter in a tent, a fate that did not sick well with my disabled dad’s rapidly failing health.

In January of 2007, things took a turn once again, this time in our favor, and we found our selves with electricity, heat, and a roof over our heads, for the first time since May 9, 2006.

Reunited with my computer, I was amazed to find, that in spite of the flood, in spite of the fire, the hard drive remained intact, and with a few minor repairs, it runs as good as new. It looks like hell, a bent mangled mess, but who cares, all my files are still here! All my plans and templates, all those months of research and market studies: they had survived! With that knowledge in hand I set out to pick up the pieces, and once again, plans are underway, full speed ahead, to bring Moonsnails into production.

And that brings us to today. Nether flood, nor fire, nor cold of winter, could stop Moonsnails. Moonsnails rises once again.

~EK