WDW Magazine November 2020 | Page 77

Back in 2013 , a few Disney megafans with a dream started up a little digital magazine . Seven years and 35,000 ( and counting !) subscribers later , WDW Magazine has evolved into the magazine you know and love today . By popular request , we ’ re going to give you an inside look at how WDW Magazine came to be , how it ’ s changed over the years , and what goes into publishing each magical monthly issue .
ONCE UPON A TIME Here ’ s a brief history of how it all began , 86 issues ago . Our Publisher , Carl Trent , had been blogging about Walt Disney World for years , making friends with other writers and photographers along the way . He came up with a plan to bring them all together and publish a monthly digital magazine to showcase the most magical place on earth , share trip-planning tips , and give readers that “ Disney fix ” we all need between trips .
A digital-only magazine made a lot of sense : It was costeffective , allowed us to link to websites and videos to enhance the content , and could be instantly in a reader ’ s hand upon purchase . We worked for years to build our audience up to about 5,000 subscribers , while testing the print market with things like coffee table books and wall calendars . Those projects were a lot of work ( and a lot of fun ) and really helped us prepare for what it would be like if we decided to make a print edition of our magazine one day in the future .
In 2017 , we started seriously talking about introducing a print magazine . There were a lot of challenges : We ’ d need higher-resolution photos , and we couldn ’ t add videos to create visual appeal in textheavy articles ; we ’ d need a whole new look and feel that was more appropriate for a print magazine , and we ’ d need that new look to translate to the digital publication too so customers were getting a comparable product no matter

Back in 2013 , a few Disney megafans with a dream started up a little digital magazine . Seven years and 35,000 ( and counting !) subscribers later , WDW Magazine has evolved into the magazine you know and love today . By popular request , we ’ re going to give you an inside look at how WDW Magazine came to be , how it ’ s changed over the years , and what goes into publishing each magical monthly issue .

ONCE UPON A TIME Here ’ s a brief history of how it all began , 86 issues ago . Our Publisher , Carl Trent , had been blogging about Walt Disney World for years , making friends with other writers and photographers along the way . He came up with a plan to bring them all together and publish a monthly digital magazine to showcase the most magical place on earth , share trip-planning tips , and give readers that “ Disney fix ” we all need between trips .

A digital-only magazine made a lot of sense : It was costeffective , allowed us to link to websites and videos to enhance the content , and could be instantly in a reader ’ s hand upon purchase . We worked for years to build our audience up to about 5,000 subscribers , while testing the print market with things like coffee table books and wall calendars . Those projects were a lot of work ( and a lot of fun ) and really helped us prepare for what it would be like if we decided to make a print edition of our magazine one day in the future .

In 2017 , we started seriously talking about introducing a print magazine . There were a lot of challenges : We ’ d need higher-resolution photos , and we couldn ’ t add videos to create visual appeal in textheavy articles ; we ’ d need a whole new look and feel that was more appropriate for a print magazine , and we ’ d need that new look to translate to the digital publication too so customers were getting a comparable product no matter

TOP TO BOTTOM : Some of the team poses with The Best of WDW - Volume 2 during a staff party at Splitsville ; Carl , Courtney , Danny , Stephanie , and Rain meet up at Disney ’ s Hollywood Studios ; Stephanie stages a picture of EPCOT festival food for use on social media and our blog . PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE WDW MAGAZINE TEAM