Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts

[2] Nicholson's journal would accept short papers, written by new or anonymous authors, and decide whether to publish them relatively quickly.

By one account this less-formal model was so appealing that the next year (1798) a similar startup launched, Alexander Tilloch's Philosophical Magazine,[3] and in January 1813, a further rival, Thomas Thomson's Annals of Philosophy.

[4] By one account, William Nicholson started the journal and made all editorial decisions in a "pioneering and uncertain attempt" to make a living from publishing it.

[...] [T]he result of [...] deliberations [between the publishers of Nicholson's Philosophical Journal and The Philosophical Magazine in order to respond to readers' complaints regarding duplication of material in the two publications] has been that it would certainly be best that we should unite, and that the joint product of our exertions and our correspondence should be consolidated in one periodical work.

For the duration of Volume 43 (January to June 1814) the joint publishers of the new merged journal provided duplicate title-pages for each number, ostensibly so that subscribers to Nicholson's Philosophical Magazine might be enabled to "preserve their Series without a chasm."