How to Write a Magazine for Parents and Children

© 2010 Ugur Akinci

Imagine someone asked you to put together a magazine targeting parents. They will provide all the advertisements and you'll provide the content.

Or perhaps you might be the one putting together a proposal for such a project. How would you do it? What would you include in such a magazine?

First off, consider the following evergreen topic areas that appeal both to the parents and their children:

1) Camps – all sorts. Summer camps. Winter camps. Spring Break camps.
2) Music. Kids love music and so do their parents.
3) Arts, including crafts, fine arts, drama and stage plays.
4) Animals. Pets and our other friends play a big role in children's growth and development.
5) Tutoring, education and schools of all kinds.
6) Eating. Healthy foods and eating habits.
7) Sports of all kinds. Parents spend a lot of time with their kids' sport activities.
8) Museums. Kids are curious by nature and visiting a museum is a popular weekend activity for a lot of parents.9) Health, dental health, healthy living and preventive medicine.

These are also all topics that the advertisers would be very interested in and invest in with their ad dollars.

Two topics that I'd definitely steer away from are RELIGION and POLITICS. Unless it's a specialized publication devoted to a very specific religious, ethnic or political group, I'd leave these writing areas alone since they can easily give rise to misunderstandings and controversy.

One thing that would help your success as a writer and content provider is to take an UNUSUAL ANGLE in your approach to these evergreen topics. That would make you get noticed right away as a creative writer who can deliver a fresh and engaging product. That'd mean a lot of repeat business for you in the long run.

For example, let's imagine you are writing about pets. An article about adopting a pet is nothing original. But if you wrote an article about a pet that adopted a kid?! Can you write such an article? Can you turn the tables around and tackle an old topic from a very energetic new angle? That would be a winner.

Again, countless parents have attended the musical or stage performance of their children (including this author). It's hard to write that topic from an exciting new angle unless... you write about a performance given by the PARENTS for their children, watching them in the audience!

If you're going to write about museums, don't immediately go and visit the closest art museum in your city. That's an over-done topic. What if you found and write about an ORDINANCE museum (there is one in Maryland, for example)?! Or SCIENCE museum? What if you found a museum devoted to FORENSIC SCIENCE? Or a museum of (let's say) Ukrainian-Americans? Now that would be a fresh article, wouldn't it?

When executed with such original ideas, a parent's magazine can be a reliable source of income for professional freelancers since every city, every community, is made up of families, parents, and children. The market is definitely there, waiting for your creative powers to shine and make the best of the opportunity.