Interesting idea. The article on mediabuyerplanner.com does not elaborate on how successful the ad selling effort has been in conjunction with the publication experiment.

A company called Printcasting is experimenting with a way to attract more advertisers and readers to print magazines while using an innovative model that allows nearly anyone to be a magazine publisher.

Printcasting (“People-powered Magazines”) lets would-be publishers choose articles and blog posts, along with a template, and then print and distribute their magazines themselves, The New York Times reports. Advertisers create ads on the site, then choose which magazines they will appear in; ads start at $10 an issue, but publishers can choose to charge more. Printcasting keeps 10% of ad revenue, gives 30% to the writers, and 60% to the publishers.

The company says about 250 magazines have been created since the company launched in March. For example, a runner in Bakersfield, Caifornia, blogs about high school track teams in the area; another publisher, in Wasco, California, collects articles from local bloggers and publishes a town newsletter. Both are distributed for free. Small organizations like schools, homeowners’ associations and wine clubs can make use of the service and, if the company sees a magazine that “really has potential,” Printcasting will print it, place additional ads, and distribute it, says Dan Pacheco, senior manager of digital products at The Bakersfield Californian newspaper and founder of the company. Pacheco says magazines can be saved by reducing production costs.