A small group of former magazine journalists and editors, including a former president of Newsweek, plan to publish a weekly digital magazine this fall, seeking to create content specifically for mobile technology.
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A view of what a page in Nomad Editions would look like on the iPad. The magazine is scheduled to begin publishing this fall.
The magazine, called Nomad Editions and created by a New York start-up of the same name, will feature the work of freelance journalists with expertise in a specific area, like surfing or movies. Every Friday, starting in October, subscribers will receive through a mobile application what amounts to a mini-magazine, focused on their area of interest. Each edition is expected to each take 20 to 30 minutes to read.
Mark M. Edmiston, who held several top leadership positions at Newsweek from 1972 to 1986, said the short read time was something he and his colleagues thought would be attractive.
“The fact is that people are reading on their iPads, they’re reading a different way,” Mr. Edmiston, the chief executive, said.
An avid reader of books on his iPhone, Mr. Edmiston said he started batting around the idea of providing high-quality magazine journalism for mobile devices in spring 2009, before the iPad reached the market, but well after the Kindle and other mobile devices began to steal readers away from print. The venture has been financed largely by friends, family and a crop of angel investors; the company has raised $600,000 so far.
“There’s a growing audience in the mobile universe so the content needs are there,” said Phuc Truong, the managing director of Mobext, the mobile marketing arm for Havas Digital. “There’s the need to access content, not only when you’re at home or at work but when you’re out and about doing other things.”
Unlike many Web sites that link to other content from their articles, links will not be embedded in the Nomad Editions content, but it will support multimedia like video and audio. The initial “editions” — on food, movies, surfing and viral video — will each contain one or two longer features and four to five shorter articles. After a 30-day free trial, users will be asked to subscribe to 52 weeks of content for an average price of $24 a year for each area, although they can subscribe for three months at a time.
Aside from about a dozen full-time staff members, Nomad Editions will pull its writers and editors from a growing pool of freelancers. “There’s lot of talent out here that’s underemployed or not being fairly paid,” said Mr. Edmiston.
Writers will earn up to 30 percent of subscription revenue per edition per week, while editors will make 5 percent of the same revenue with an additional cut of the advertising dollars. Mr. Edmiston estimates that writers can make anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000 a year if their area of expertise attracts an average of 50,000 readers.
The Treesaver technology that powers Nomad Editions is also new. Unlike other mobile applications that restrict content to a specific device or application, Treesaver is Web-based and lets a user see the same content using the same Web address on their iPhone or on their desktop.
Filipe Fortes, the chief technology officer at Treesaver, said the technology would help support a richer advertising experience. Nomad Editions has an ambitious advertising plan that includes offering full sponsorships to marketers in each area.
“We want the advertising to enhance what the vertical is about,” said Marjorie W. Martay, the executive vice president for sales and marketing, using a term for in-depth coverage of a narrow area. “I’m trying to have a marketer tell a story.”
Nomad Editions plans to offer advertisers what the company calls a unique multiplatform immersion, or the ability to be the full sponsor with eight ads per edition.
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