An Independent magazine bringing in money - exciting (9)
I believe the answer is:
animating
'exciting' is the definition.
(animating is a kind of exciting)
'an independent magazine bringing in money' is the wordplay.
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'magazine' becomes 'mag' (abbreviation for magazine).
'bringing in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'money' becomes 'tin' (I've seen this before**).
'mag' placed around 'tin' is 'mating'.
'an'+'i'+'mating'='ANIMATING'
(Other definitions for animating that I've seen before include "Bringing to life" , "Giving life to" .)