Writers can publish and promote own content

Kevin Grace, manager of local band Red Sun Rising, believes Printcasting.com, a new Web site that gives amateur publishers a chance to create their own magazine, could be the advertising future for Kent’s local band scene.

In addition to musicians, bloggers and poets are just a few others who can benefit from printcasting by providing and registering content with Printcasting.com for magazine publishers to use.

Printcasting provides users the choice of picking content to build a magazine that suits an individual preference and potentially earn some money. Publishers have the choice to print off their magazine or view it online, which Grace believes is the future of journalism.

“Print has kind of faded,” Grace said. “You kind of see newspapers going under now and they’re going online, books are going to Kindle, and then you’ve got the music industry – everyone is buying digitally.”

Printcasting not only allows magazine creators the ability to pick and choose what they want to fit their magazine, but it also allows people who blog or write regularly a chance to submit their content with Printcasting.com and earn a little money for content already provided for public viewing online.

Potential publishers choose a template, magazine name and articles for their Web site based on personal preferences, whether it is health and fitness or business and technology. Tools, guidance and design elements are provided to take the work out of the process of making a magazine.

“You can make a magazine in five minutes or less really. You don’t need to have any software, so there’s no money required. You don’t need to have any design skills because we provide templates for you,” Founder Dan Pacheco said. “If you do have design skills and want to customize it, you can do that, but you don’t have to. You don’t even need to have your own content – which it sounds like an infomercial when I say that – but it really is true.”

The idea for Printcasting.com, which launched in late March and is in the testing phase, came out of Pacheco’s findings that he was wrong in assuming everything would shift to online creating a one-size-fits-all media while all else would disappear.

“That’s really what I believed, but I couldn’t have been more wrong,” Pacheco said. “People tend to graze through media, all types of media through the day. They pick up a little from the radio, a little from the newspaper, something they read online or podcasts,” Pacheco said. “What’s really happening is that less time and more choices than ever in history drive people to products that let them get exactly what they want, when they want it, where they want it. I believe print can actually be a part of that new reality.”

Pacheco entered the Knight News Challenge, which is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, about a year-and-a-half ago with the idea of Printcasting.com and received an $837,000 grant.

“I entered, but it was on behalf of the Bakersfield Californian (newspaper),” Pacheco said, who has not quit his job as senior manager of digital products. “I had a choice; did I want to take the money and do my own thing or do it as part of the Californian. At the time I said ‘Oh, let’s do it as part of the Californian,’ and they were interested in that.”

Pacheco also found while talking to small businesses that online advertising doesn’t always suit local businesses.

Advertisements in magazines begin at $10 per ad, however, publishers can charge more. 60 percent of revenue is given to the publisher, 30 percent goes to the content providers and 10 percent to Printcasting.

Although the Printcasting Web site does not list any magazines created in Kent, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

“We’re analyzing where in the country, and also internationally, but mostly in the U.S. where people are using Printcasting,” Pacheco said. “If we see a large concentration of people in one area starting to use it, in a minute we can set up a new city hub for them. We want to make sure there’s enough interest in this city, we don’t want to have empty boxes.”

Contact principal reporter Kristyn Soltis at [email protected]