Issue 7: JPG Mag
Issue seven of JPG Magazine, all 20,000 copies of it, are giving the publishing world something a little different. Founders Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek-Champ (yes, they’re married), print on dead-trees, but the production of the bi-monthly magazine relies completely on photography submitted by users of their online community.

“Instead of starting in print and building a community, you start online. Then when you launch your first copy, you have supporters there,” said Derek Powazek.

JPG was, in part, an expansion of a working idea called Photo Club – a service that delivered an original photo once a month to subscribers. The Powazeks went online and named their endeavor JPG Magazine, “to honor all the fantastic work being put online that never saw the light of day in print.” They accepted digital submissions from anyone using all the digital tools at their disposal (gmail, flickr, lulu), selected the best and produced six issues over the next two years.

Issue seven had more than 1,400 submissions in several loose themes, like “self-portraiture,” “hometown,” and “big,” and issue eight has already received over 5,000 submissions.

And while editors still have final say, the community now votes on what photos they would like to see in the magazine. Think American Idol for magazines.

“We consider ourselves an open source magazine in that the participants have access to everything the editors have access to, with a couple of exceptions. In traditional magazines, it’s all about hoarding until that last moment and then going ta-da – buy the magazine!”

This concept of one community (editors, writers and even advertisers), building a magazine together is the basis of 8020 Publishing, to which JPG belongs – and is their only product so far. “Instead of treating readers like they don’t have brains – anyone can help make the magazine.”

One thing JPG discovered early on is that while an open submission and voting policy is best for the health of the online community, it requires moderation from an editor to produce the highest quality magazine.

“We let the community say ‘I like that’ but the final decision is made by an editor. If there wasn’t a final editorial cut, the magazine wouldn’t work – you’d get too many photos that were alike. There’s an art to assembling that narrative, we want to make sure that the photos work together.”

Even with editorial control, JPG still gets criticism from professional photography. “When I talk to traditional photographers they are aghast at community voting.”

JPG is also trying to become more affordable by switching from on-demand printing and inviting advertisers into the community to help produce the magazine. To keep people from running away from the commercialization, JPG now offers $100 and a free year subscription to each photographer who makes it in the magazine, a way to show how much they value their contributors. They are also very careful with advertisers – Issue 8’s sponsor is Lensbabies, who in addition to taking out space in the magazine offered a $300 selective focus lens to each contributor.

JPG is worth keeping an eye on — they are an example of taking user-generated content offline and into an industry that is traditionally top-down.

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Alex Padalka is a journalist living in New York. He has written for the Queens Tribune and is the editor of Block Magazine and McGraw Hill Construction.