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Whether it’s your local newsagent or the favourite supermarket, as soon as you enter the shop you are faced with a wall of magazines. The wall is made up of hundreds of fluorescent printed covers, for men, women and children, all vying for your attention. They cover every conceivable topic from hobbies and lads mags, to weddings and celebrity gossip. You name it – there’s a magazine about it.

The perception is that a publisher has approximately four to five seconds to draw your attention to their cover, as you scan across the shelves either trying to locate the most enticing cover which meets the requirements you want from a magazine. Hence why so many 5th colours are printed on magazine mastheads, and the use of oversized polypropylene bags inked with vibrant colours on their tall headers. All this is done to catch the eye of the potential customer is a very short period of time, as competition is high.

It’s not always been as cut throat a market as it is now. What was considered the very first magazine to be published ran its first edition in January 1731 and shared shelf space with books of poems and novels.

Ironically, this very first periodical magazine published fell under the category of being a lad’s mag. Published every month for the disconcerting man about town, The Gentleman’s Magazine provided regular commentary on any subject matter the editor deemed fit for the general public – covering subjects ranging from poetry in Latin, share and commodity values, plus excerpts from various other published works.

The publisher (Edward Cave) found routes to all corners of the English speaking world at that time to distribute his title and built a vast readership up, which others would try to mimic. Edward Cave’s legacy continued in to the 1900’s, when the final issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine ceased publication in 1907.

All be it a far cry from today’s Zoo and Nutz magazines, The Gentleman’s Magazine was the first of its kind and set the president for a whole new industry in modern times for the likes of Rupert Murdock to monopolise and make money from, by printing newsworthy articles relevant to the demographic at the time.

Hi! And welcome to the Seventhhouse Publishing site. We hope you find the information we’ll provide a useful resource and valued insight into the world of publishing. We’ll provide in-depth articles covering all aspects of publishing and the differing types of media platforms that can be used to publish works through.

Traditionally publishers and authors have reached their target audiences utilising the medium of print and paper, in the form of books and magazines, whereas today’s writers have the choice to publish their content on line, making their works available to all that search for it. With the introduction of the web creating easy access for all across the globe, paper based publishing has taken a few hits recently, with sales of titles off the shelves of the high street stores reducing.

It’s unlikely in our time that the web will be the complete demise of printed material, as there are the aesthetics associated with printer material which people just seem to prefer over the web in certain occasions. For example – reading a chapter of your current favourite book in either paperback or hardback each evening before bed is easier and more traditional and probably is still the preferred option to do in paperback or hardback format, as opposed to breaking out your wifi laptop and reading off screen. Why – well with more and more people using either laptop or PC screen at work for seven or eight hours a day – they don’t want to come home and relax by staring at a 15 inch LCD screen again.

There are various pros and cons for using printed reference and the web as platforms to reach audiences, with some of it just coming down to people’s personal preference. What this space to read more about the benefits of each and how best to get ahead in the world of publishing.