Having worked as a magazine editor and in magazine publishing for nearly 40 years (and having brewed for the same amount of time; come to your own conclusions), I can vouch for the fact that any low readership specialised magazine is both 100 per cent possible and 100 per cent viable. Having looked over this thread for the first time, I thought it was inevitable that it wouldn't happen, because the thinking started in the wrong place.
The first step is a simple one: how can you monetise the product? The reality is this: nothing can be done for free (well, nothing worthwhile anyway). There will always be costs and whilst these might seem small, it's amazing how quickly a project will curl up and die if you're scratching around for pennies all the time. That said, it's a question of picking the right model.
There are a lot of ways to go: the medium selected will always impact on potential revenue yield, but other considerations include whether the product will be controlled circulation (free to qualifying indiviuals and funded by earned revenues), paid for on subscription or a mix of both. These can be equally applied to print or digital editions. Companies will support any vehicle which offers the right value proposition.
Getting onto the shelves in CTN retailers will be a no-no; you need a deal with a company like Comag and mass appeal. If you can't outsell motoring, lifestyle, electronics, sport and **** mags, why would they give you shelf space. Admittedly you do see more specialised mags in geograpical divides (such as hunting mags in the countryside) but the homebrew space isn't really influenced by location. Unless we could produce empirical evidence to the contrary, that's the first model I would forget.
Digital publishing does have some additional benefits in that it can support multimedia, but the real question is what does a digital magazine offer over forums, websites, youtube, blogs and numerous other vehicles aside from the ability to 'push' the whole thing to the reader? It would have to deliver something unique. The costs of digital can be low (well, lower) but equally returns can be lowered until you build a significant following.
Print attracts the highest returns in terms of revenue, but is more costly and time consuming. However, if you have something that appeals to readers of all shapes and sizes, it's possible; I work on one magazine that is actually growing as a printed publication rather than on-line because it offers information you simply cannot get elsewhere. Therefore, readers need that information to help purchasing decisions, so advertisers want to be there, in front of people who are about to buy! The downside of print is often start-up costs; getting good credit terms from printers and paper merchants ain't easy if you're new, and bringing in revenues from advertisers typically takes 90-120 days! Then there's postage. The Post Office doesn't do anything to help.
So, before you look at names or getting free kits to review, there's the small matter of how you're going to make the thing run.
Still, if anyone is really interested in an uphill battle...
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