How to start an indie magazine and get issue one right

An indie magazine lives or dies on its first issue, and most of the choices that shape it are print choices you can settle before a single spread is designed: trim size, page count, paper, binding and how many copies to order. We have printed debut issues for fashion titles, film journals, skate crews and a car enthusiast with a camera, and the launches that went smoothly all made those five calls early. Here they are in order, with real specs from magazines we have produced.

What size should a first issue be?

A4 (297 x 210mm) is the familiar choice, and it is what most readers picture when they hear the word magazine. Outset, a fashion and culture title from two independent editors, went A4 for its third issue and gave it 134 inside pages on a 130gsm silk. AutoScoop, Lewis Mitchell's motor show review, launched at A4 with 80 pages.

A custom size is often what makes an indie title look like nobody else on the shelf. Cunning Folk settled on 240 x 170mm, Phantasmag chose 250 x 176mm for its debut, and Craic runs at 280 x 215mm, a touch wider and shorter than A4. Ephemera fits a pocket at 190 x 127mm, while Peak went the other way with an A3 issue whose loose sheets double as posters.

Two limits to plan around: glued magazines max out at A4, and stapled ones can reach A3 portrait. Our rundown of standard magazine dimensions lists the common formats if you want a starting point.

How many pages, and staples or a spine?

Your page count makes the binding decision before you do. Staples hold a stack of sheets folded through their centre, which is why the page tally, cover and all, must divide by four. The workable range is eight pages at the very least and seventy two at most. Once you pass roughly 40 pages a stapled copy wants to spring open on a table, which matters if you hope to see it lying flat at a stockist.

Perfect binding wraps the pages in a cover and glues them to a square edge. It becomes an option at 32 pages in total, a 4 page cover wrapped around 28 inside, although at that size the spine on 130gsm silk is barely 2mm, and printed lettering on the edge needs about 5mm. Craic used 96 silk pages at 130gsm and ended up with a 6mm spine; Outset's 134 pages made 8mm, so both show their names on the shelf. Our guide to how many pages a magazine should have works through the numbers.

Which paper suits an independent magazine?

Paper is where a first issue finds its personality. Photography led titles usually choose silk, which holds detail and colour without the glare of gloss; Outset and Craic both used 130gsm silk inside. Writing and illustration often sit better on uncoated paper, which feels softer and reads more like a book, so Cunning Folk prints its drawings on 120gsm uncoated under a 350gsm matt laminated cover. Gloss suits loud, saturated work, and Wolftown's skateboarding stories are gloss from front cover to back.

Covers usually sit between 250gsm and 350gsm with matt or gloss lamination, though lighter can be right. The first AutoScoop quote specified 300gsm silk for the outside; Lewis wanted it to feel more like a newsstand title, so the finished issue went out in 200gsm silk with gloss lamination. If you are torn, send for the sample pack we post out free and feel the stocks yourself; our magazine paper guide compares the weights side by side.

How many copies should issue one be?

We are happy to print a solitary copy, so make one first, read it on the sofa and only then commit to the run. The instant calculator prices runs of up to twenty copies online; a lone 32 page A4 stapled magazine is £63, delivered.

For the main run, unit cost tumbles as quantity climbs from about 50 towards 250, so get two quantities priced and weigh them up. To give you a sense of scale, a hundred stapled A4 copies at 32 pages, silk inside with a laminated 300gsm silk cover, come to £305 on our current prices. Add pages until you reach 68 and the issue needs a glued spine, at £610 for the same hundred. UK delivery is included, and there is no VAT on magazines. Our breakdown of magazine printing costs in the UK goes deeper.

What happens between approval and issue two?

Once you sign off the proof, a stapled issue is with you three working days later and a glued one in five, sent by tracked courier. Before that, one of us looks over every PDF at no cost, and if a page needs fixing we say exactly what and why. After launch we hold your specification, so commissioning the next issue takes one email and a fresh file.

When you are ready to price your own debut, our magazine printing page has the formats, turnaround and quote form in one place. For first issues worth borrowing from, read about Phantasmag issue one, a 114 page perfect bound debut on 150gsm uncoated, or AutoScoop, an A4 car magazine that found its cover weight on the second quote. If you also run a poetry or fiction title, our notes on printing a literary magazine cover the details that matter for writing.