Magcloud?

Hi Warriors,

I've been knocking around the idea for about a year, and am about to the point where I've seriously decided to try and run a small, boutique style print magazine.

The company that I'm looking at to do this is MagCloud . . . It seems like they handle the printing, fulfillment, etc. and you just upload your files to them.

The main reason I would want to do this is just so that I have another very cheap way to advertise.

What I am thinking is that I would create a really high quality magazine, glossy cover, high quality content, expert interviews, etc. and then advertise my own products, or possibly even affiliate products related to the magazines niche (use a domain to presell and then send the traffic to the offer).

The main benefit I think to me would be that there's no capital outlay - just the time to write and format the magazine, but I think I could get some help from friends and even people on my mailing list with articles and so on...

I'm thinking I would do maybe a bi-monthly or if I had time or enough help a monthly magazine, and just let it go at cost since the buyers cover the expense (shipping, etc.).

So I'm just wondering what other people think about doing something like that.

I could easily find products related to whatever niche I wanted to make the magazine about (I'd probably drill down and make it a super niche zine), and it wouldn't cost much to register some domains to pre-sell or "video skin" the offers or whatever, and I know that people love to get stuff in the mail. Especially stuff related to their hobbies or interests.

For example my father is into guns. Not like a gun nut or anything, but he used to be a machinist, and has always been interested in it. He has subscriptions to about 4 or 5 different magazines that are related to that subject in one way or another (National Rifleman, National Geo, Mother Earth News, Organic Gardening, some reloading mag, and probably a bunch of others). He also spends a huge amount of money on this hobby.

Since there's no cash outlay to start a magazine these days and it can all be automated, and you can produce some nice, slick, glossy magazines and it would be VERY easy to source your own affiliate offers - I'm just curious:

What do you all think about something like that?

Does it sound reasonable? Would it be something that might be a good earner?

Also - has anyone used MagCloud or any similar service before?

I'm steadily trying to get away from digital products and am almost there, but this is something I am really interested in trying out. But before I sink a lot of time, effort or thought into it, I'd like to get some thoughts from Warriors about the general idea and see if there's a piece of the puzzle I'm missing out on or some constraint or possible problem I haven't thought of yet . . . .

Thanks