You see them everywhere. In coffee shops, hair salons, dentists offices, waiting areas, etc., and you can’t steal them because they’re free!

I always wondered how magazine publishers could leave stacks of their magazines everywhere I went. Now I know. But I’m still curious about how to get them going and what type of money free magazines can make.

I was recently contacted by a couple of 14-year-old magazine publishers from the UK and they helped answer these questions.

Sean Spooner and Louis Porter started Corby Magazine in June 2010 and they’re preparing to release their third issue. In this email interview, Sean walks us through how they got started and how they’ve already turned a profit in four months with their free magazine.

1. What are a few critical steps to publishing a magazine?

Sean Spooner

A: The main step was to make sure that there was a need for the magazine. In the local area there weren’t any magazines. There was a newspaper, however, which already took up about 90% of the local market. So making sure that the magazine was economically viable was an important step.

We also had to check that clients were willing to pay for the advertising during these tough economic times.

Lastly, we signed up to as many press releases we could from the local area. This was to ensure that we were always on top of the news and things happening both locally and nationally.

2. What tasks are involved in producing, printing, and distributing a magazine?

A: The first task is always to plan (of course). Planning in our market is vital. We need to know what is happening and when. We need to ensure that there are recourses in place for us to get to an event, cover it and report on it, quickly.

The next two tasks are production and selling.

Louis Porter, Sean's business partner.

I take charge of the design and production, and Louis does the selling. We start with a basic page plan that’s not set in stone. We design and sell around this template. However, if something were to happen which makes big news in the area, we’d phase out another feature and report on the bigger piece.

There are then two steps left. The first is printing. Being a local magazine we keep it local and print with a local printer. By this time we have already contacted all of the printers in the town to get the best quote. The printing is paid for by the revenue made from the advertising.

Lastly we distribute. It takes a few days to get all of the copies into local hair dressers, doctors, dentists, community areas and reception rooms. (We decided early on not to distribute to houses, as they’d get binned, bring in a low readership and high costs.)

3. How do you make money from the free magazine?

A: We make revenue from Corby Magazine by selling adverts to local companies and organisations. Louis takes care of selling the advertising space. He starts by going to all of the small businesses in the town, conducting a short pitch, then answering any questions. This has proved rather successful for us so far.

We then go about designing the adverts. I take charge of this. The process is simple. We get a brief, design to the brief, the clients proof it, we take payment and that’s that.

4. What’s your vision for Corby Magazine?

A: My vision is simple; Corby Magazine to be in every home in Corby, every shop, and ever local business by 2012.

We plan to get there following the rate of growth that the magazine has already seen. Issue one broke even with 12 pages, issue two made a profit with 16 pages and issue three also plans to turn a profit with 36 pages.

In the future we plan to increase the amount that we distribute, the costs of this will be covered by the advertising rates being increased.

5. What advice would you give a young entrepreneur interested in magazine publishing?

A: If you’re going to do a magazine, make sure it’s something that you’re passionate about. Don’t do it about something you know nothing about. If you love it, it will come across in your writing.

Do not move too fast, and make sure that you check all of the printers; sometimes people can take advantage of the fact that you are young. Keep your wits about you, and do something amazing.

Confession: I had no idea they were young entrepreneurs until Sean pointed out that they were both younger than Savannah Britt, the world’s former-youngest magazine publisher. Due to they’re professionalism, I was thinkin’ mid-30′s. Go check out the awesome job they’re doing at CorbyMagazine.com and BiggishMedia.com.

Photo by: BrittneyBush

Your brand is your promise of quality to your clients. Brand identity can’t be built in a day. It takes a lot of time, money and effort to turn your small business into a recognized brand. But a strong corporate identity is a must if you want your business to be successful.

A brand identity is the most basic of reasons for customers to choose you over other companies. It makes your business appear professional and experienced. Your brand highlights the unique qualities of your business and therefore, attracts potential customers.

The logo is the most important component that determines your brand image. Let’s quickly learn about what it takes to have a successful logo for your business.

This is a guest post by Vineet Kothari. Vineet is the CEO at MyCorporateLogo.com, a logo design company that provides company logo design and website design and offers affordable logo design prices. Vineet graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and has worked in the digital design industry since 2005.

What is a Logo?

Building a brand identity is not a simple job. Designing a logo is the first step in creating a brand image. Your logo will visually represent your company to the world. It needs to stand the test of time, until you decide to redevelop it.

The logo becomes the symbol of your company and conveys the right message about your business to the customers. It can be used on business cards, letterhead and websites.

Logo Design Types

A logo is your first opportunity to create an impression on your clients. It is the first block for building your brand identity. Therefore, you have to be very careful about the choice of font, style and color. All these factors convey a particular message about your business and should not be neglected.

Logo designs are of two basic types: wordmark and graphical.

Wordmark Logos

Wordmark is usually when a logo simply consists of text, usually the company or brand name. The name is sometimes tweaked with a certain graphical twist to make it more visually interesting. The choice of font is very important for this type of logo as it is the most prominent part of the logo. Some designers even develop new font styles for logos.

Here are a few wordmark logos you’ll recognize:

Graphical Logos

Graphical logos are logos which are not simply text based, but have some icon or symbol associated with them. They can either be a mix of an icon and text or just an icon. The symbol/icon usually represents the vision of the company or explains the nature of business.

Here are a few famous graphical logos:

Font and Color Choices

To make the logo interesting and original, you can experiment with the use of colors and symbols. Just check whether these innovations are relevant to your business. The font and color choices are of utmost importance.

Colors used should be bright and attractive if you are in a business which caters to a young and trendy audience. More traditional businesses usually prefer blue and grey tones. These days greens and oranges are the rage because they appear eco-friendly.

The font chosen too can say a lot about your business. Strong, bold fonts denote power and aggression while thinner, elongated fonts appear more delicate, elegant and intellectual.

Experimenting with several fonts and colors is great, but one must also realize that if a logo does not look good in simple black and white, chances are that it wouldn’t appeal to your customer no matter how many colors or special effects are used.

Bonus: 3 Scientific Steps to Pick the Perfect Colors for Your Business

The Message

Since your logo defines your business, it is important that it puts the right message across. Suppose your company sells children’s toys but its logo is all business – dull and boring. This will misguide your clients and they would not know what to expect from you.

You can also incorporate a tagline to create your brand image. A creative tagline can help your clients connect to your business and also define it better. It has to be catchy and brief, one that has a strong appeal. It should also be easily memorable and express the motto of your organization, not its history.

Things to Remember While Selecting a Logo

The logo should look professional and define the objectives of your business. It has to be unique and original as well.
You should ask your logo designer to give you more than one option for the business logo. This will enable you to choose the one you think would be most appropriate to your business.

You should also receive the final logo from your logo designer in multiple formats and with all the common file types:

• TIF
• JPG or JPEG
• JPG (Grayscale)
• PSD (RGB) – Adobe Photoshop Format
• EPS (CYMK Color) – Adobe Encapsulated PostScript Format
• AI (CYMK Color) – Adobe Illustrator Format

Then you will be able to alter the size of the logo and use it in multiple media, according to various requirements.

All the above details have to be kept in mind while trying to build a brand image for your business. It might take some time for you to get established and evolve as a brand, but a sincere effort will definitely pay off. You can’t go wrong if you stick to these basics of brand identity.

Next: 21 Famous Logos with Mind-Blowing Hidden Messages

Photo by: Todd Klassy

Marshall Haas got his start selling Pokémon cards on the street corner with his friends. But by the time he was 17, Marshall had moved on to architecture. He got a job working for a high-end architect in the Dallas area and began taking classes at a local community college.

Marshall noticed that many architecture firms weren’t offering images, or renderings, to their clients. He decided to fill the void by starting his own company, AllRendered, LLC. Marshall recruited a team of 20 artists in the Philippines to create architectural images from floor plans and he began attracting as many as eight clients a month.

Today, Marshall is 20 years old and still working to build AllRendered into a premier rendering service, while pursuing a degree in computer science. He is also in the process of developing a mobile web application called Podums, which will use game mechanics to encourage people to be productive. Whenever he finds the time, Marshall gets his thrills by riding his motorcycles.

The following is a short excerpt from 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs (Volume 1).

Q: What challenges have you faced specifically because of your age? How has your age helped you to succeed?

A: I’ll be straight up: it is harder when people see that you’re younger. I have to remember to tell clients, “I’m not a one man shop. I’ve got a designer and a developer and they’re not just my buddies. They’re the best at what they do.” It’s about communicating that I’m not some kid: this is the real deal and we’re just as good as the next guy.

There are definitely advantages [to being young]. A computer has been in our lives the entire time we’ve been alive. That is a big advantage in my industry. I talked [to a client] about social media stuff and he perked up. All of a sudden, it was an advantage that I was young. Now, that company might hire me as a consultant for social media.

Q: You have an outsourced team of 20 designers in the Philippines. How did you get started with outsourcing and how do you continue to manage such a large team?

One of Marshall's renderings on a billboard! He randomly found this last week.

A: It started with Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek. That’s how I was introduced to the whole concept of hiring people overseas. At the same time, I had this architecture job and the main architect had an amazing skill with rendering. I really thought that more firms should offer a visual experience like that for their clients.

So, I asked a homebuilder for a kitchen floor plan for one of their models. I told them that I wanted to do a rendering for them for free and see how they liked it. I took that floor plan and put up a job on Elance.com and I paid three different companies to do a rendering of it. I ended up going with one of those teams, a group of artists in the Philippines who do watercolors and 3D stills. Then, I just started looking around and contacting architects, saying, “This is what we do.”

I’ve got one point of contact with the team and he manages all of the other guys for me. He’s also an architect and one of the artists. I’m the one point of contact for the architects and he’s the one point of contact for the renderings. So, I don’t have to manage 20 people. It’s really easy.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: Whoever reads this, I would love to talk about your ideas. I love bouncing ideas around with people who are also interested in business.

This is an abridged version from Marshall’s interview in our latest project, 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs. I had the opportunity to meet Marshall earlier this year and, true to his word, he’s an interesting person with a remarkable story. I’m sure you’ve noticed, Marshall’s interview is chock-full of practical advice for young entrepreneurs. We had to hold back a few nuggets for the book.

Marshall Haas’s Top Quote

“I would like to be the messed-up child of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Tim Ferriss – morphed into super-genius entrepreneur.”

Want even more inspiration?

Find out how a high school dropout made and spent $2.5 Million:
Andrew Fashion Interview: $2.5 Million by 21 and Lost It All by 22 >>

As an 11-year-old growing up in a backward sector Northern India, King Sidharth and a few friends began organizing events and competitions for other children. They would make tickets and charge an entry fee, then award little prizes to whoever won. In an area where there wasn’t much else to do, Sidharth’s first business was a big success.

Seven years later, King Sidharth has just graduated from high school and he has already made a name for himself as one of India’s top young entrepreneurs. His primary work is in website development and design (see websites like MeditationRocks.us), but – like many young entrepreneurs – he’s never content working on just one thing.

King is also a speaker on topics of entrepreneurship and spirituality. He’s currently writing an e-magazine for teens (Friendz) and a book about the intersection of spirituality and science (Bhagvad Gita & the Law of Attraction). He’s also developing a movie that peeks into the lives of ten young entrepreneurs (“Friendz: The Movie”). Lastly, King is organizing a conference for teenagers called Createens. It will give young people an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, blogging, and more from world-wide experts.

The following is a short excerpt from 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs (Volume 1).

Q: What is the single most important reason for your success?

A: I keep everybody out of the equation and follow my own inner calling. A lot of people get caught up asking, “What do you think, mother of mine? What do you think, father of mine?” But there are a thousand different people and you’re going to get a thousand different responses: somebody pointing you South, ten people pointing you North, even more pointing East. Where are you going to go? Go with yourself. Your point of view is unique in the world.

When you’re done with your vision, then you might ask for advice on minor things. You have to strike a balance. But even after asking people, follow what you think out of it, not what they think.

Take Google and Yahoo. These two are different perspectives of solving the same problem: finding content on the internet. Yahoo keeps on listening to people. Google doesn’t give a darn. They never ask you how their home page should look like. They never ask you anything – and that is really behind their success. They do it themselves. Then later, they might ask you how they could improve it.

Q: Why do you call yourself an outlaw in India?

A: I consider myself an outlaw because I refuse to follow a given pattern. I’m going to reinvent the wheel. My vision of the wheel is unique.

The majority of India thinks, “I’m here. I better play this safe because this is the only life I’ve got. I better get in the rat race that everyone has tried and tested.” How many students in your own class are really interested in enterprising? Are 90% of them just there for the degree? They want to get a good job so that they can get a good life, good money, and be happy. I ask them, “Why don’t you be happy in the first place?” Then you don’t need the degree and you don’t need the job. You can be happy now and then you can do anything you want.

That’s the reason I started Friendz in the first place. I saw talented people wasting their time with work and trying to score marks in exams when they could do so much more. The magazine is a place where teenagers can be themselves. I want to make it a platform for teenagers to know that there is nothing better than following their own passion.

You’re not going to find the real entrepreneurs in universities or online courses. Either you will find them as drop-outs or you will find them in the places least expected. Come to India. Go to the streets. They are street-smart people. They know how to sell. They can sell you your own shoes in two minutes.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

A: When you start out, whatever project you’re working on, realize that you don’t have to figure everything out about it in the first place. You can’t. You can’t sit on a breakfast table one morning and write out your life plan.

As you move on with your life, it will keep on changing. Creation is never complete. Keep on fine-tuning. If you’re a designer, you will realize that design is never complete. If you are writing a blog post, you will realize that a blog post is never perfect. Google is the best company in the world. But, it is still evolving and it always will be evolving. So, you don’t have to figure out all of the answers before you get started. All you have to figure out to begin with is what you want to do and just get started with it. The rest will come.

Meditation Rocks by King Sidharth

If this universe inspired an idea in you, then it has every means to fulfill it. Trust in that. The more you improve, the faster you grow. So, the secret to a bigger business is not finding the perfect plan and sticking to it. If you do that, your business is going to be dead. The secret is to keep on changing, keep on fine-tuning. The best scooter in India was Bajaj LML. For years, that was the only scooter you could get. But they didn’t do any research and they didn’t fine-tune their product. Every other company in India was doing just that. Today, LML has vanished from the market.

Entrepreneurship is never about playing it safe. If you want to play it safe, please close this book and go to sleep. It’s not for you. Life is not for you. Life is never about playing it safe. Life is about playing it fun. That’s behind every entrepreneur. If you go and ask, “What makes you so passionate about your blog, your product, or your business?” It’s because they love changing it and they love how it all comes to form.

Be yourself, nothing else will do.

This is an abridged version from King’s interview in our latest project, 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs. King is the most enthusiastic entrepreneur I have ever come across. He absolutely loves what he’s doing. The main takeaway from his interview is just that, do what you love and love what you do. Awesome, right?!

King Sidharth’s Top Quotes

“If you’re not doing the things that you love, then your life is not worth living. What are you here for?”

“I’m going to reinvent the wheel. My vision of the wheel is unique.”

“It was just one year ago that I realized that what I was doing was entrepreneurship. Just two weeks ago, I learned how to spell it [laughs].”

Want even more inspiration?

Find out how a 16-year-old college student from Mumbai manages a worldwide team:
Farrhad Acidwalla Interview: Rockstah Entrepreneur Out of India at 12 >>

Syed Balkhi used to get online at three o’clock in the morning to trade stones for a game called Neopets.

When he was 12, his cousin pointed out that he could do the same thing with domain names – all while pulling in a handsome profit. Soon he was developing websites, designing them, and running a paid domain name directory.

Originally from Pakistan, Syed is now 19 and attending the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. Along with a handful of college friends (Amanda Roberts, David Pegg, and Mohammed Karim), Syed has started a successful web service company called Uzzz Productions. His blog for WordPress beginners, WPBeginner, has been up since July 2009 and already attracts an incredible 145,000 unique visitors each month.

Maybe it’s genetic: Syed’s six-year-old brother is running a successful blog of his own with Syed’s help.

The following is a short excerpt from 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs (Volume 1).

Q: What do you want to be when you grow up?

A: That’s a tough question. I don’t want to grow up. I like the way I am. I want to be an entrepreneur and I don’t want to work for anybody else. I love that I can work from wherever I want, whenever I want. I’m making money when I’m sleeping. It’s a great feeling when you can wake up and say, “Oh wow – I just made $600 while I was sleeping. I was a productive sleeper.”

Entrepreneurship has really opened a lot of doors for me. To give you a personal example, I got a traffic citation. I knew a lawyer who was my client. So I didn’t have to find a lawyer to fight my ticket. Same with my finance guy and my insurance guy. I get the best discounts you can get on my travelling, on my car insurance – on everything. If I was working as an employee, I would not even know how my boss was making money. Now I see a bigger picture.

Another thing is that I get a lot of technology before everyone else because all of these companies get it as a gift for me. Mountain Dew sent me a Flip camera and eight never tasted Mountain Dew flavors. I helped decide which flavor should be on the shelf. That was a great opportunity and that I owe to entrepreneurship and social media. I was really happy. I love Mountain Dew.

Q: What would you tell a young entrepreneur who is just getting started with social media?

A: Use social media as a communication tool rather than a marketing tool. When you are using Twitter, don’t set auto-tweets every time you publish a blog post. If you had a customer on a call, you wouldn’t tell him, “Hey – I don’t have time for you. Bye.” That’s how I see social media: if I have 4,500 followers, that’s like 4,500 clients for me. I don’t want to treat them with disrespect. So, I actually spend the 30 seconds that it takes me to write a clean title, show them my URL, and tweet that [instead of auto-tweeting].

Second, a lot of people try to get on Digg’s front page. But Digg can do nothing for your Search Engine Optimization. Stop submitting your own articles, because that’s not the way to go. It’s meant to be shared. No matter how good of an author you are, not all of your articles deserve to be on Digg. Keep your promotion for only the best articles. You’re building a brand – and when you have a brand people just talk about you. That is what you really want.

Don’t go after the quantity, go after the quality. People are following 120,000 people to get 120,001 followers. But because you don’t have a real connection with those 120,001 people, it’s not going to do you any good. I would rather have 200 converted followers who, when I send them a message, they go and do it.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

Get Your Blog Set Up for Free, WPBegginer.com

A: I think we talked about pretty much everything. I want to give a shout-out to WPBeginner. If anyone is starting to blog and wants to learn the technical aspects, they shouldn’t pay someone $400 to take a mini-course. Everything you need is free on the site, so go check it out.

We also set up WordPress blogs for anyone who signs up for one of our hosting services. You would be paying for the hosting services anyway, so you might as well go through us and we’ll set up the site for you.

This is an abridged version from Syed’s interview in our latest project, 50 Interviews: Young Entrepreneurs. Syed is a self-proclaimed “talker”. But when you find a “talker” who actually knows what they’re talking about, that’s a goldmine of information. Needless to say, I tried to hang out with him as much as possible. Also, since I talked to him, Syed has released a new site that features the dopest handshakes and greetings from around the web, Dopello.com

Syed Balkhi’s Top Quotes

“A lot of people have said that the internet is a teenager. Guess who understands a teenager best: a teenager.”

“You should always stay hungry. Stay hungry, so you can eat.”

Want even more inspiration?

Find out how Syed’s friend from the UK makes 6-figures with his blog:
Michael Dunlop Interview: Voted ‘Most Likely to be a Millionaire’ >>