Leticia Leizens, publisher and editor of Our House magazine, will discuss the business side of start-ups on Wednesday 10 at 5:30pm at the NYPL’s Science, Industry and Business Library. We gave her 60 seconds to summarize her lecture, and then asked TONY publisher Marisa Fariña to weigh in.

“My lecture is basically a case study of what we did to publish an upscale regional magazine from concept to execution. We’re entering our third year in business; it’s real life. I’m going to talk about the importance of the business plan and break down advertising, circulation and editorial. We’re going to talk about the challenges 1 of being a publisher—how to get your magazine out there, how to get the advertisers and how to come up with interesting features 2 — and about the cost of operating a magazine. It’s not easy. The odds are all against you.3 Sixty percent of magazines that are launched don’t complete their first year. That’s what you’re up against.”—As told to Roisin McGinn

Fariña says: 1 A publisher needs to be levelheaded, hire good people, treat problems as challenges and be able to change course at any given moment. 2 My newest theory (not brain surgery) is that we should be selling what advertisers want to buy. Too many publishing companies publish what they think is interesting and then try to sell it to advertisers and consumers. Life is much easier when you first figure out what people want, so that when you create it, there’s a customer. (Duh!) 3 To be a publisher, you need to thrive on taking risks. But going into something when you think the “odds are all against you” is just stupid. Being a publisher is about motivating those around you, and pessimists cannot be motivators.