With magazines printed and online everywhere for young women, what’s the difference if another one is started up? Magazines that target young women today market brands that are out of price range for some college women, making it unrealistic for them to stay on trend or relate to articles.
Ever since her sophomore year at Towson, recent grad Shelby Newsome, has dreamed of putting together an online magazine for young women in college written by college women. She has shared her story, ideas, and advice for college women everywhere with us!
Her Campus: What made you want to start Tote Magazine?
Shelby Newsome: Orginially I had come up with the idea my sophomore year, but with a friend. She went to Maryland and I went to Towson. We had this idea of creating a magazine for college girls but she had other priorities that she was busy with, so she kind of backed out of it, but it was something that I really wanted to push through, even though I didn’t have my co-founder anymore.
HC: When did you start Tote?
SN: I had officially started it senior year, it was for my senior thesis class, but the year before I had went abroad where I had taken a magazine design and publications class. That’s where I realized it was something plausible and something I could do, but for that class, it was just focused on the design aspect, not concept. So for my senior thesis class, I really wanted to do the design, content, the website, everything.
HC: Who is Tote magazine for and what is its goal?
SN: Tote magazine is an online magazine for college girls. Essentially, any college girl that covers issues like finding internships, recent grads that can give advice to college girls that might be graduating soon, or looking towards the future. There’s also some fashion and beauty. It’s basically to showcase a real college girl because I feel like a lot of the media is focused on celebrities, you have Glamour and Cosmo and maybe Teen Vogue that some girls college age might be reading, but its all celebrity stuff so I really wanted to focus on a real college girls that are doing really incredible things.
HC: How do you come up with the topics for every issue?
SN: Some of the sections are normally spotted for each issue, like the Intern Diaries and Recent Grad. I like the product pages I have, those are the staple pieces I will cover each issue. Other than that, some of it has just been luck, running into people that might know somebody that would be interesting to interview. My October issue, that will be coming out hopefully mid-October, it was by luck that I had gotten the cover girl. I had run into a friend I hadn’t seen a while from a few years ago and he was like ‘oh I have this really cool musician, she’s in college and really trying to go for her dreams!’ So he put me in touch with her.
HC: What’s your advice for girls in college now that are trying to start their own magazine or media publication?
SN: I would say to just go for it. A lot of times doubt or fear is what is holding you back or just the idea that I’m just from some small town somewhere and nobody is going to listen to me, but you don’t know until you try. I think that’s one thing I’ve learned, it is possible to accompish your dreams. Just keep on going for it. Even if you keep on hitting road block after road block, I would say to stick with it. Another thing is to be nice to everyone because you never know who could help you out or who you’re going to run into that knows somebody down the road. It’s always great to make connections, especially during college, you’re meeting so many new people. Also, this is going to sound really simple but it is something that has really helped me with my magazine, Google everything. If you don’t know an answer to something, just Google it. This was advice that Ali Pannoni shared with me, when she was doing her magazine, she was like ‘when I don’t know something, I just Google it.’ It really works, I built up the website by myself and I used Google a lot to figure out the coding. So anything is possible.
HC: I really love how interactive your magazine is, and how it has an actual issue, just online. How did you learn it?
SN: The actual issue is something on the website I use. My magazine has a platform on Issue.com, so it uploads and has options to create the links. That’s something I’d like to say I really did want to create the magazine and make it as interactive as possible because I feel like its fun. It’s an online medium, you can do anything you want with it really. So instead of having a magazine that’s print and you are flipping through the pages and have to actually type in the website to check it out, with my magazine I wanted to make it so readers could just click to it and purchase it if they wanted or for my covergirls, they are doing really cool things, so I wanted it to be really easy for readers to just click on it and be directed to that person. Really just to help everyone out.
HC: So it’s like the best of both worlds, since journalism is turning to online now.
SN: Exactly, that’s something I really wanted to do. As much as I don’t want to say that print is dead, it still really isn’t, a lot of it is going towards online and one of the things though, I really love flipping through magazines. I love sitting down and flipping through the pages, so I didn’t want to lose that quality bringing it online. I wanted to bring it online because that is where everything is going but I want to still have that quality. It was something really important to me.
HC: What can we see from Tote in the future?
SN: Hopefully a lot of expansion, right now I am ranging 50-60 pages an issue, but I would love to get more girls on board and increase the Tote team, so I can get more content out for other girls. I would love for things to continue and just grow really.
HC: Who is your dream cover girl?
SN: A college girl that is doing something that wouldn’t seem possible for college girls to do, but they are finding a way, [no matter] how unconventional it may be to do that.
HC: Are there any spoilers you can give us for the upcoming issue?
SN: The musician is the cover girl, her name is Carly and she is based in Baltimore. She is doing some really cool stuff. A very cool DIY is coming up for your dorm room, bringing the outside in.
HC: Thank you so much!
If you are interested in joining the Tote team, contact Shelby at shelby@totemag.com