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Behind the Scenes of Portrait Magazine
By Kat (Age 24, New Zealand)
A lot of work and organization goes into preparing each month’s issue of Portrait Magazine. We currently have a team of about fifty people who contribute to the magazine and each person has their job to perform and a date to perform it by. We don't have a fancy office like you've seen on 'Ugly Betty', just numerous studies and bedrooms all around the world from which the numerous parts of Portrait are brought to life. Come behind the scenes of Portrait with us as we give you a rundown of what goes down and when for our monthly issues.
Step One – Idea Time
Though the very first ideas for an issue are often set in motion months before it’s launch, the bulk of planning starts right after the previous issue launches. If it’s a February issue there will be lots of ideas for Valentines related features or if it’s September there’s lots of content about new and returning TV shows. We have a special Pitch Meeting thread on the Writers Forum where they can post all their ideas and brainstorm together. Your ideas are included as well! Often Portrait readers send in suggestions for articles they’d like to see in Portrait and these are posted and offered up to writers. We also spend this time setting up interviews for the next issue, contacting publicists to find out who is available. Interviews are hard to plan for a specific issue as there is so much scheduling to be factored in. Generally interviews are started months ahead of their final launch.
A peak at the Writers forum with brainstorming threads, Free Spirit jobs and more. |
In the early days of the month I (Kat, the Editor in Chief) go over the ideas and decide which ones we should run. These are compiled together in a big list. Our Free Spirit writers (Free Spirits are writers who don’t write a monthly column but volunteer for numerous odd jobs each month – these can be celeb features, articles on film or television or other things related to young life.) then volunteer for the jobs that they want. You’ll generally see these articles featured in the ‘Cover Stories’ section of our issue index (right under the cover graphic).
Step Two – Preparations for Next Month
At the end of the month we make a list of all the young celebs with new films, albums or TV shows coming out in the month of the issue following the ones we’re launching (so if we’re about to launch the September issue, we’re preparing for October). We then launch a poll and allow our visitors to choose who should appear on the cover (though the Portrait team are also allowed to cast votes). We almost always leave this decision up to the fans though occasionally when we get a big name celeb interview we need to give them the cover.
By about the 5th-10th of the month we have a clear enough idea of who’s going to top the poll and the top five or so celebs are included in our Free Spirit job list.
Step Three – Deadline Day!
The Gold Medal given to writers who get their article in first. Yeah, it looks like a guy riding a pig but it's the sentiment that counts! |
The writers have a deadline of the 15th to get their Free Spirit jobs completed by and sent to Kat. They’re responsible for writing their piece and choosing appropriate images to illustrate it as well as doing basic HTML coding. The lot are then e-mailed through. We actually give out digital Gold, Silver and Bronze medals each month to celebrate the writers who get their articles in first. The most impressive so far? Two months ahead of deadline!
The 15th is also the deadline day for many of our columnists though some have a deadline of the 10th if their article doesn’t involve recapping recent events. Unlike the Free Spirits the columnists are very independent. They know the theme of their column and come up with different ideas for articles each month, rather than waiting on the job list to be posted.
As a result of the influx of articles arriving right on deadline, the 15th (and 16th due to time zone differences) is a crazy time for me. The Portrait Magazine inbox fills up with articles and the odd ‘can I have a few more days?’ e-mails and then it’s time to start putting it all together.
Step Four – Processing
Processing involves basic error checking, coding articles that the writers didn’t do themselves, resizing images and placing them in the right spot in the article then creating HTML files and placing the articles in them. Articles must also be listed in our issue index (which you can find under the cover on our homepage and every other page of the website) with links, preview images and summaries. It might not seem such a big thing but when you’re processing 30+ articles a month, this is one of the biggest (and least fun) jobs for me each month. It takes up until the very end of the month to get everything done and I often spend hours working on it. Sometimes I take articles to work and prepare them on my laptop (though I don’t have internet access there which limits productivity), I only have Photo Shop on a very old and slow mostly broken down computer at home so files have to be moved over to that to make our layout and resize images and graphics for the articles. It’s a lot of mad running around with my little portable flash drive to get everything 100% completed so things generally work in stages. Portrait is of course a non profit website. Sure we have ads on some of the pages but they don’t earn money unless people click on them and even then it only works out to a dollar or so a month. Thanks to hosting images on shareapic we’re able to cover our hosting bills but there isn’t spare money to buy a new graphic program. Hey! Anyone know of a corporation looking to sponer an online magazine for aspiring
Kat's September 2010 Portrait To Do List on August 31st. |
writers?
The image on the right shows my ‘To Do List’ for the September issue as it stands at the time of this writing (August 31st). The list grows throughout the month with each new article being listed for processing as it arrives. After a month of sitting on my desk that list starts to look a little scruffy. You’ll notice a few Hot Chocolate stains and maybe even the odd paw print from Honey (my Cat who is everything but the definition of her name).
Step Five – Cover
Even though it’s nearly a week after deadline it still takes until the 20th for the majority of articles to arrive. We then start sorting out what will be featured on the cover. As our cover isn’t the full size of an actual print magazine we also have limited space to fit our headlines on. The celeb cover feature is already decided but we then need to choose the other articles that deserve a mention on the cover.
Sarah's puppy Charlie. Isn't he the cutest? |
It’s hard work. There’s generally at least another six things I would like to include but we simply don’t have the space. This information is all sent away to Sarah by the 23rd and she gets to work on designing a cover graphic over the course of the next week. Nowdays Sarah gets a lot of ‘help’ from her new puppy Charlie who has his own opinions on where his mother’s attention should lie. We’re sure he’s annoyed our cover has yet to feature a dog.
It must be said that not all Portrait writers are reliable. Sometimes an article is volunteered for by a seemingly very enthusiastic writer and then never arrives. So we can’t send cover information away to Sarah until the completed article has been received, for fear of having a cover advertising an article that doesn’t exist. In the past I would have to write up these abandoned articles at the last possible minute, along with all the other jobs but now we just delay the cover to ensure I don’t have to.
Step Six - Final Days, Oh My!
The last seven days of the month are really hectic with processing the final articles, adding them to the index, working out summaries, adding last minute ideas, choosing the color scheme to go with that month's cover, creating a layout and of course contacting people to ask ‘Where the heck is your article?’. The last day of the month is craziest because there’s always at least one person who sends an article at the last possible minute, causing a last minute rush to add it in. There are also some jobs that can’t be done until the end of month like assembling the comments we’ve received to be published in the next issue, putting together our site of the month poll and adding reviews to the issue index.
Step Seven – Issue Launch!
This month's cover! Yay! |
I originally started this article with this paragraph in first because each month always starts with the end of the previous issue.
The new issue launches on the first of every month. As I live in New Zealand and we’re one day ahead of many countries including America, it falls on the last day of the month for many of you. After the issue is launched the team set out promoting it. We have a Facebook, Twitter and a Myspace page through which we can connect with readers. We also contact fansites to let them know about celeb features in the issue. Sometimes they’re kind enough to mention it on their site and encourage their readers to visit. We rely on word of mouth for each issue and our readership can vary dramatically depending who is featured on the cover.
All in all, from planning to promoting, an issue takes about five weeks of focused preparation and then we start it all over again for the next month!
Note: This article only summarizes the work that goes into each issue of the magazine. The issues are only a part of the Portrait website. Throughout the month at Portrait we have people creating and donating wallpapers and siggys for our subsites, people writing reviews that are published each week at Portrait Reviews and dedicated people constantly posting news, videos and pictures on the blog on our homepage to keep you up-to-date on everything entertainment. On average we have at least one new writer or graphic designer join the team each month so there’s always someone being trained and given their little backstage pass to everything Portrait. And then of course there’s our ‘This Week @ Portrait’ section which is like a mini magazine issue with a new article each day on books, up and coming celebs, you tube and other fun things. We’re always working hard to make sure there’s something new for you to see at Portrait every single day of the month. The site isn’t just about the magazine issue. Please don’t just visit once a month to read that.
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