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Software for Managing the Production of a Magazine

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BGM:
Every other month I publish a childrens' magazine - about 800 copies with 1200 readers.  I have several authours and illustrators, and I write and illustrate, too, but I'm having a hard time keeping track of what should be in future issues, who is doing what article, and what needs to be done.  I've tried doing it in all sorts of ways.

I also have access to full office365, but I'm not sure how to leverage that do do what I need.

Is there an open-source/freeware software that can help handle these things?  Anyone have any good ideas?

mouser:
I don't know the answer but I'd be very interested in hearing what you come up with.

Deozaan:
Sounds like something you could do pretty well with a Trello board.

You could keep all future ideas in a list entitled something like "To do" or "Future Issues" and when you actually follow through with them for an issue you can move it over. For the current/in-progress issue, you could either make a list for each specific issue (e.g., June 2019) or just a list called something like Current Issue, and drag your items from the To Do list onto the current issue list. Then once the issue is published and work begins on the next, you can either move everything from the Current Issue list to the Done or Past Issues list, or if you use a unique list for each issue, you could just create an e.g., July 2019 list and go from there.

It's easy to collaborate with others. You could assign each card to whoever is working on each item, or just keep a note of it yourself in the card details if you or your contributors don't want to or can't join the Trello board for whatever reason.

Here are a couple mockup images I made to show off what I tried to describe.

Software for Managing the Production of a Magazine
This is the generic lists example.

Software for Managing the Production of a Magazine
This uses a new list for each specific magazine issue.

And keep in mind that the basic idea behind Trello is to have 3 categories of lists: To Do, Doing, and Done. Of course you can name them whatever you want and modify the basic structure however fits your needs, but you certainly don't need to use the Trello software to do this.

And if you find that Trello is a bit too simple for your needs, you can find something similar but with a bit more complexity in Hack 'n' Plan.

wraith808:
I'd second Deo's recommendation of Trello, though I actually use something else to keep track of things in sync with my other work- Notion.   It has a lot of features that let me get a great bang for my buck and the ability to expand it with templates and integrates with the browser for clipping and imports Evernote.

They have a free version, but I pay for it so that I don't have to worry about limits and to support the platform, though I'm in no danger of hitting the limits as they're pretty generous. You can see the pricing at https://www.notion.so/pricing.

Deozaan:
As it's so simple to use and making it more convenient to organize than Trello.
-Swift_Man (May 13, 2019, 10:28 AM)
--- End quote ---

I've never heard of this one. I have a hard time imagining anything in a similar vein could be simpler than Trello and still function. Trello is fairly bare bones when it comes to adding and managing boards, lists, and cards.

Anyone else catch a whiff of canned pork-product here?

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