New Business Magazine Finds Profits Early On.

It isn't often that a new magazine is in the black on the day it launches; an industry rule of thumb says it takes about five years, on average, before a new magazine turns a profit.

Yet the publisher of E-Merging Business, a Los Angeles-based magazine offering Web resources and tips for small-business owners, claims to have achieved that feat.

E-Merging Business launched on Sept. 25 with a splashy 256-page issue. The magazine is an unusual hybrid publication -- part Red Herring, part Entrepreneur, offering a mix of stories on Internet business and regular old start-up businesses. The nationally distributed premier issue includes some 45 articles on subjects ranging from business buying online to steps to getting the best deal on office or commercial space.

The bi-annual magazine will not exactly hit newsstands. Publisher Image Publishing (www.imagz.com) struck agreements with the Service Corps of Retired Executives, the Association of Small Business Development Centers, Women's Business Centers and One Stop Capital Shops, which will distribute the magazine to small-business clients at their 1,400 locations nationwide.

That unique distribution approach may have been what attracted advertisers to the new title. Advertisers in the premier issue include Microsoft Corp., Gateway Inc., Staples Inc. and AT&T Business Services. No advertising space was given away and most advertisements were pre-sold, according to Image Publishing's Managing Director Alan Doron.

The magazine is edited by Daniel Kebrer, founder and former editor of Independent Business and Business 99 magazines.

Almost every article in E-Merging Business includes a "Go-To Guide" that directs readers to various Web sites where services can be bought or more information retrieved. While some of those companies listed as resources are the magazine's advertisers, most are not, according to Kehrer.

"There's a Chinese wall between advertising and editorial," Kehrer said. "The objective of our writers is to give readers the best information that they can possibly obtain."

E-Merging Business is the first magazine published by Image Publishing. The nearly two-year-old company, which also has an office in Ponte Verde, Fla., focuses on custom publishing for clients such as the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Stamps.com and Citibank. Image Publishing's staff of 11 handles advertising, marketing and production.