If our magazine was valued in bits and you took the amount of work we have done till now, Milla de Oro Magazine would be worth about $100 million. If you valued the magazine on the number of ads we have run, we would be worth about COP 100 million. But if you take the amount of revenue we have generated, the value of our magazine is at zero. Nobody is doing us any favors, nobody is reading the magazine, nobody is sharing the magazine, no one is staying on the website long enough for my pages to gain value, people turn the pages of my magazine so fast that they also do not have value, the photos we have taken are being used by other websites, the ads we run attract only one in a thousand for one day, we don’t get likes of our articles or pictures on social media, people can’t get past the cover of the magazine when it finally does load because they don’t know how to swipe right to left, none of the buttons on the website or magazine are pressed, no one reads the media kit, no one responds to texts or calls to ask them to be in the directory; which, is free and my email marketing doesn’t even get opened with most people unsubscribing while people also block me from sending WhatsApp messages with the current issue.
Money talks and people walk; and I must admit I do a lot of walking. I don’t want a car, it’s such an unthinkable waste of money here in Colombia that I could not absorb the gross loss to not only my wallet but my character if I were to submit to the hyper inflated ego driven carcasses on wheels that are called cars here. So, I walk everywhere and take the bus, it is so much better than having a car parked in my lawn here at my home/office. I also have a home/office because I would have to more than double the amount of money I have now to own an office as well as my home. If you rent an office, then the landlord will just raise rent on you when you are doing well forcing you to move and I can’t stand to move my office that much or even at all once I’m set working. So, I don’t want an office that I do not own. My home/office is at the mercy of the landlord I have now, but I have the option to lease which I hope with this magazine will provide me with the opportunity to do so by the end of the year before I must renew my contract.
Operations of a magazine like this are minimal because I do everything myself. I host, design, publish, create the entire thing. My hosting for all my ten websites cost a little over $100 a year with the registration of each domain at $15 each for the year. The design of the website on WordPress is free but I have upgraded before to other themes depending on what they offer from anywhere between $30-75. My publishing company who allows me to design the magazine costs me $20 a month as well another $20 for the Adobe Creative Studio for editing pictures, graphics, and video. All my other tools are free, except Microsoft Home Office which is about $175 a year. I have not been able to afford much advertising but a good estimate of what I would like to do on Instagram is about COP 78,000 a month and on Facebook of about $50 a month and LinkedIn of about $100 a month. So monthly this magazine costs me $220 which is the price of a half page ad in Milla de Oro Magazine.
However, if clients were to pay me I can design ads just for them and direct them to their audience using the funds that they provided to target. If I was a richer man, I would hire video producers for all my pages and articles, I would pay photographers and writers properly; I would give an opportunity for many people to be involved with the magazine as a creative endeavor to express themselves. I would choose what I want to publish and what not to, I would have control over the creative material and I would direct the outcome. I would push for more WhatsApp calls to action, I would offer giveaways to hotels, restaurants, and spas or hair salons. I would increase my pull strategy across the web, grabbing people as they surf the web to bring them to the magazine with non-intrusive ad campaigns. I would increase my email contacts and bring more content to my email marketing to those who subscribe to receive special material.
I would create an app if I were a richer man with Milla de Oro Magazine. I would put it in the cloud and make a hierarchy of content that users can subscribe to and contribute to help facilitate the recognition of foreign businessman coming to the Milla de Oro and open doors for them to do business. I would clearly show them what obstacles have been in the past and what is necessary if anything, if there is hope, to overcome those hurdles and bring the future to the area that is already sufficiently rich but has yet to develop into a global contributor.
Therefore, Milla de Oro Magazine has value to the community. It is a way for people to show that they are part of the growing development that they are open to have people see how and what they do. It gives the community to show itself to the rest of the world wherever the internet is available. Milla de Oro is an invitation to those in the world who want to enjoy themselves in the richness of the Sabana. I am trying to express the great joy that I find here and wish others would treat me with the respect that I deserve for feeling gratitude for something so amazing.