Mr. Magazine

A Mr. Magazine™ Launch Story…

“At the Journals we have a slightly different strategy, in that the digital exists to point people to our print products. And it’s a wonderful way to do that, because we can reach so many people and bring them into the fold. But we don’t have a digital version of the magazine. There is no place that you can get our content online, unless you are subscribing, in which case you have access to all of our archives digitally, so that you can download and read them. I found in my last position and here that it’s the same as if you were selling any other physical product; the website exists to sell that product.” Brendon Thomas…

A new title about golf in its purest form. September will bring us the latest “journal” from the makers of The Surfer’s Journal, and if its premier issue is any indication, the magazine should be a stunner. The Golfer’s Journal makes its debut with a boxed presentation for VIP subscribers that’s also filled with goodies and promises of more to come down the road. Brendon Thomas, the magazine’s publisher, brings us his latest offering and does not disappoint. From the unique first edition to the commercially uncluttered pages that he promises within the magazine, The Golfer’s Journal aims to become the defining rallying point for people who want more from their golfing magazine than mere tips and celebrity statistics.

I spoke with Brendon recently and we talked about the business model that enables him to bring these amazing books to life. Half paid by the sponsors (not called advertisers by Brendon), and half paid by the consumers who support it, The Golfer’s Journal, not unlike its sister publication, The Surfer’s Journal, makes no apologies for its premium-priced content. Why? According to Brendon, because the magazine is worth it. By limiting the ads in the magazine, the pages are instead filled with insightful and creative content, pictures and artwork by some of the best in the business. It’s an escape that takes you into a world of golf unlike any you have known. The magazine strives for the true connoisseur of the sport and reaches a deeper level than most of its counterparts that are on the marketplace. And Brendon, an avid golfer himself, wouldn’t have it any other way.

Brendon shared that The Golfer’s Journal recently held its launch party and a great and successful time was had by all, with the energy and excitement of everyone fairly palpable.

So, I hope that you enjoy this most delightful and insightful interview with a man who loves golf and surfing and who shares those passions eloquently through his magazines, the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Brendon Thomas, publisher, The Golfer’s Journal.

But first, the sound-bites:

On his thinking behind bringing a specialty magazine that covers a broad topic into the marketplace despite the negative things said by many: You hear a lot of things about the marketplace, but on the ground, that’s not what I’m seeing. All I have to go on is my experience with The Surfer’s Journal and that’s going exceptionally well. Subscriber base is growing; we’ve increased interest from advertisers and have a waiting list of people trying to sponsor our Journal.

On the response he’s received already from the magazine: We had pretty modest goals, frankly, since we’re primarily in the surf space. I’m an avid golfer with a lot of connections in the golf industry, but that’s mostly due to my position at Surfer Magazine before. So, we didn’t expect to get the interest and traction that we’ve received so far. As far as quantifying it is concerned, we’re printing 30,000 for the first issue and half of that print-run is accounted for already.

On which he enjoys more, being an avid golfer or being the publisher of a golf magazine: (Laughs) Obviously, being a golfer. I absolutely love the game. I’m a low, single-digit handicap player, whose handicap has gone a bit higher since I’ve had children. And since I decided to start a golf publication; I’m not getting out as much. But there’s a lot of similarities between golfing and surfing. I love both of them. I’d rather be playing golf everyday if I had a choice. But we have to make a living.

On any major stumbling block he thinks he might face as he moves forward with the magazine and how he plans to overcome it: Distribution will be difficult, and awareness. Obviously, with social media platforms, we can get a lot more awareness going quickly, but the selling point of these books, apart from the great editorial, is the physical product. To really understand how cool they are, you have to hold one. In The Golfer’s Journal, there are far more solutions to that problem than there are in The Surfer’s Journal. There are existing clubs and charity golf tournaments; lists of people who are avid golfers and who are members of country clubs and golfing communities. So, our plan to overcome that problem is to form a coalition with these clubs and communities to share our interests and our golf and enlighten them to our rare product.

On the magazine’s business model (the very high cover price) and his practice of calling advertisers sponsors: As you and I know as magazine geeks, there’s obviously ways to cover the costs of your production through selling physical copies. We have found a balance between having our sponsors underwrite a lot of the costs of production, not all of it. We call them sponsors because they don’t just appear in print, they appear on every, single thing we do. They’ve got a logo on every page of our website; they’re at the events we hold; they’re on the bumpers of our videos online. They have the call-out on the cover flap; they’re listed on the masthead as sponsors. The reason why the price is so high is that we’ve found that there are a lot of readers who are tired of the commercialism in magazines and who are tired of how many ads they have to sift through to find the editorial.

On being Print Proud, but Digital Smart at the same time: I come from a digital background. I was a computer programmer before I got into editing and publishing, so I’m very intensely aware of the pitfalls and the benefits of digital media. My previous position at Surfer Magazine; we took a more traditional approach to kind of blending the two and monetizing each vertical and treating them both almost as separate entities under the same brand umbrella. At the Journals we have a slightly different strategy, in that the digital exists to point people to our print products. And it’s a wonderful way to do that, because we can reach so many people and bring them into the fold.

On the premier boxed issue of The Golfer’s Journal, which costs $150: Essentially, the way we’ve framed it is the same as in public radio or something. You become a benefactor of this reader-supportive project. It’s like a Kickstarter campaign, people are pledging money and in return they’re going to get some benefits by doing so. What we’ve done for the premier issue is we’ve created a really beautiful box that the issue will come in. We have one of our sponsors, G/Fore, has done a Golfer’s Journal glove with our logo on it. We have a hand-forged ball marker that will come inside the box. And they’re all presented beautifully inside the premier issue.

On whether he’s trying to form a community where, other than the game of golf itself, the magazine will be a magnet for them: Yes, I think so. We’ve found the same thing with The Surfer’s Journal; we have this inner circle of people who love the sport so much and the magazine is kind of the rallying point for them to coalesce around. In golf, there are a lot of those types of things. There are clubs and societies; book clubs and those sorts of things that really exist around the game. We want to create one that’s similar to that.

On whether he thinks of The Golfer’s Journal as being more a cause than a business: Yes, absolutely. We’re doing our best here to kind of stop the scourge of anti-intellectualism. We’ve been making a surf magazine for 26 years and when you think of surf magazines, you don’t think of great literature, but that’s what The Surfer’s Journal has really set itself apart with. It’s this fantastic writing, interesting characters, and highlighting people who are doing terrific art and really elevating the conversation.

On whether the VIP subscription to receive the boxed first edition has a deadline: No, what will happen is it will morph into a premium subscription after the founding, so the founding subscribers will remain the founding subscribers, they are the people who came in on the ground floor and contributed and helped get the thing off the ground. But as we come out with the second and third issue, that will change into a premium subscription and the offering will essentially be the same.

On anything he’d like to add: The first issue will be shipping out the first of August; it will be in our hands the first or second week of August, and then we will be shipping it out to subscribers. Also, one of the interesting things about this process, and it’s been going on for 18 months now to make this first issue, has been the willingness of really topnotch writers, photographers and artists to take part. We haven’t had one person that we’ve approached to say no, and say that this is not something they want to be a part of. They have all leapt at the opportunity to contribute and become part of the family.

On what he would have tattooed upon his brain that would be there forever and no one could ever forget about him: My number one thing is I want to deal honestly with everyone I work with, and to deliver on what I promise. That’s basically my number one goal.

On what keeps him up at night: Everything. Starting a new title is scary and there’s so much that goes into it. We’re not just a print publication, obviously. We have social arms and digital arms and the mechanism that runs the business has to constantly be refined and upgraded. So, it’s not a simple thing. There are moments where I’m wildly optimistic about what we’re putting together and how well our titles are doing. And then there are other moments where there is always uncertainty.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Brendon Thomas, publisher, The Golfer’s Journal.

Samir Husni: Some people today, when they hear about a new magazine coming, especially in print, they are quick to qualify it as very niche or some sort of limited edition. They say the future for big print that deals with big subjects is really non-existent anymore. Yet, you’re coming out with; yes, a specialty magazine, The Golfer’s Journal, but by the same token, it’s not a tiny topic. What was your thinking behind bringing The Golfer’s Journal into the marketplace?

Brendon Thomas: You hear a lot of things about the marketplace, but on the ground, that’s not what I’m seeing. All I have to go on is my experience with The Surfer’s Journal and that’s going exceptionally well. Subscriber base is growing; we’ve increased interest from advertisers and have a waiting list of people trying to sponsor our Journal.

And I have been working on this idea for five or six years now. Seeing all of the stars align by being at The Surfer’s Journal and seeing its continued success, and seeing what appears to be a giant gap in the market in golf, which is to say, there aren’t any magazines like The Surfer’s Journal in the golf space. There are one or two premium publications, but they’re littered with advertising. And they cater to a really elite, affluent audience exclusively.

So, we wanted to create something that is The Surfer’s Journal for golf, which is to say that it’s a beautiful publication that is half book, half magazine. The subject matter appeals to a broad readership, but it’s also very focused on the purity of the game. We don’t deal with offering swing tips and game improvement tips and celebrity profiles, and those sorts of things; golf is a lot more than that.

All the major publications seem to copy each other and do the same thing over and over again. So, we wanted to create something that celebrates the game for all of its diversity. And celebrate the photography, which is gorgeous and often underrepresented in other publications. As well as celebrate the culture around the game; the art that’s inspired from the game, and the people. There are so many interesting people who play golf and who are in the game neck-deep. So, we’re trying to provide avenues to tell those stories. And so far, the response has been fantastic.

Samir Husni: And since you announced the launch of The Golfer’s Journal, you just mentioned that the response has been fantastic, could you quantify that statement a bit more?

TGJ Launch Party

Samir Husni: You said that you’re an avid golfer, and I saw your title on The Golfer’s Journal as the publisher; which of the two hats do you enjoy more, being a publisher of a golf magazine or being a golfer?

Brendon Thomas: (Laughs) Obviously, being a golfer. I absolutely love the game. I’m a low, single-digit handicap player, whose handicap has gone a bit higher since I’ve had children. And since I decided to start a golf publication; I’m not getting out as much. But there’s a lot of similarities between golfing and surfing. I love both of them. I’d rather be playing golf everyday if I had a choice. But we have to make a living.

And I also want to create something about the game that preserves its history and celebrates the gifts of golf that never see the light of day. The game is ancient and people have been writing about it for hundreds of years. So, there’s a lot of ground to cover and that sort of thing isn’t presented in a way that can be kept; in a tone that will last as it’s presented in some publications. Those publications are generally monthlies that are discarded when they’re finished being read. And as we’ve found with The Surfer’s Journal, our journals don’t get thrown away; they are kept on bookshelves and on coffee tables for years.

Samir Husni: What do you envision as the major stumbling block that’s going to face you as the magazine moves forward and how do you plan to overcome it?

Brendon Thomas: Distribution will be difficult, and awareness. Obviously, with social media platforms, we can get a lot more awareness going quickly, but the selling point of these books, apart from the great editorial, is the physical product. To really understand how cool they are, you have to hold one. And the same is true for The Surfer’s Journal. That’s a challenge, because these books are costly to produce and we don’t give discounts or give them away for free.

So, we have to find clever ways to get them into people’s hands so they can experience it. And really understand the quality of the paper; the quality of the photography; the quality of the writing; and the exceptional layout and design. It’s getting copies into people’s hands.

In The Golfer’s Journal, there are far more solutions to that problem than there are in The Surfer’s Journal. There are existing clubs and charity golf tournaments; lists of people who are avid golfers and who are members of country clubs and golfing communities. So, our plan to overcome that problem is to form a coalition with these clubs and communities to share our interests and our golf and enlighten them to our rare product.

Samir Husni: As you mentioned, the magazine is not cheap; you’re charging a premium price and you’re doing a unique presentation of the premier issue that comes out in September. Can you tell me a bit more about your pricing strategy, which is also a part of the business model of The Surfer’s Journal? And tell my readers how you refer to the advertisers as sponsors instead of advertisers.

Brendon Thomas: As you and I know as magazine geeks, there’s obviously ways to cover the costs of your production through selling physical copies. We have found a balance between having our sponsors underwrite a lot of the costs of production, not all of it. We call them sponsors because they don’t just appear in print, they appear on every, single thing we do. They’ve got a logo on every page of our website; they’re at the events we hold; they’re on the bumpers of our videos online. They have the call-out on the cover flap; they’re listed on the masthead as sponsors. So really, it’s an all-encompassing sponsorship of a brand. Everything we do, we’re out there representing those brands and delivering their message.

The reason why the price is so high is that we’ve found that there are a lot of readers who are tired of the commercialism in magazines and who are tired of how many ads they have to sift through to find the editorial. And they’re willing to pay for their commercially-quiet experience. And simply put, that’s what it’ll cost us to provide that for them. With our sponsors paying a part of it and our readers paying the rest to cover the cost of the publication of these books.

Samir Husni: The theme of my 2018 ACT Experience is Print Proud, Digital Smart. And if I could think of one entity that actually manifests itself in that way, it would be The Surfer’s Journal and soon The Golfer’s Journal. You don’t shy away from being proud of your print product, but you also have a very smart digital strategy.

Brendon Thomas: I come from a digital background. I was a computer programmer before I got into editing and publishing, so I’m very intensely aware of the pitfalls and the benefits of digital media. My previous position at Surfer Magazine; we took a more traditional approach to kind of blending the two and monetizing each vertical and treating them both almost as separate entities under the same brand umbrella.

At the Journals we have a slightly different strategy, in that the digital exists to point people to our print products. And it’s a wonderful way to do that, because we can reach so many people and bring them into the fold. But we don’t have a digital version of the magazine. There is no place that you can get our content online, unless you are subscribing, in which case you have access to all of our archives digitally, so that you can download and read them. I found in my last position and here that it’s the same as if you were selling any other physical product; the website exists to sell that product. That’s the strategy we’re taking with the Journals.

And the best way to advertise that product is to put out good content on the websites and make sure that it’s showing what’s unique about our offering, but not showing all of it. To get the entire story, you have to be a subscriber.

Samir Husni: Tell me more about the premier issue due out in September. It’s in a box and for people to get it they will have to pay $150.

Brendon Thomas: Essentially, the way we’ve framed it is the same as in public radio or something. You become a benefactor of this reader-supportive project. It’s like a Kickstarter campaign, people are pledging money and in return they’re going to get some benefits by doing so.

What we’ve done for the premier issue is we’ve created a really beautiful box that the issue will come in. We have one of our sponsors, G/Fore, has done a Golfer’s Journal glove with our logo on it. We have a hand-forged ball marker that will come inside the box. And they’re all presented beautifully inside the premier issue.

Afterward, our premier subscribers will be basically on our VIP list, so when we hold an event in your city in September, all of our premier subscribers will be invited. We will be surprising some subscribers with tickets to other events. There’s no competition, they’ll just get surprised with tickets to another premier event.

Also, we know that those premier subscribers are the most avid golf supporters and fans, so they are going to become benefactors of some of our sponsors’ products, such as Targus when they send out golf balls to test, and other different items. So, they really are being brought into this elevated little club, that is similar in some ways to luxury magazines that will send you out of the blue a little gift from one of their advertisers. One of our sponsors may be sending some subscribers a gift throughout the year. So, we really want to treat those people well and say thank you for their belief and support in us and they do get benefits in return.

Samir Husni: In addition to creating the magazine, I have a feeling from just hearing you talk, that you’re also trying to form a community group where, besides the game itself, The Golfer’s Journal will be the magnet for them?

Brendon Thomas: Yes, I think so. We’ve found the same thing with The Surfer’s Journal; we have this inner circle of people who love the sport so much and the magazine is kind of the rallying point for them to coalesce around.

In golf, there are a lot of those types of things. There are clubs and societies; book clubs and those sorts of things that really exist around the game. We want to create one that’s similar to that. And that’s why I’ve been so surprised by the response, because really that community has taken shape pretty quickly. Surprisingly. There wasn’t a lot put out into the world, and suddenly all of these very interesting characters starting coalescing around our cause, which reinforces my belief that this thing was missing from the game. And that people were searching for this type of thing. So, that’s very encouraging.

Samir Husni: As a publisher, you’re talking about a cause much more than you’re talking about a business plan.

Brendon Thomas: Yes, absolutely. We’re doing our best here to kind of stop the scourge of anti-intellectualism. We’ve been making a surf magazine for 26 years and when you think of surf magazines, you don’t think of great literature, but that’s what The Surfer’s Journal has really set itself apart with. It’s this fantastic writing, interesting characters, and highlighting people who are doing terrific art and really elevating the conversation.

We don’t believe we have to play to the lowest common denominator, and get thousands or millions of subscribers. That’s not what we’re after. We want to get the people who are looking for an elevated experience, and for people who want to read great writing, and be enlightened and learn something, and to find a new way to appreciate the game of golf.

Samir Husni: Will the VIP subscription close? Is there a deadline for receiving the boxed, first edition?

Brendon Thomas: No, what will happen is it will morph into a premium subscription after the founding, so the founding subscribers will remain the founding subscribers, they are the people who came in on the ground floor and contributed and helped get the thing off the ground. But as we come out with the second and third issue, that will change into a premium subscription and the offering will essentially be the same.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Brandon Thomas: The first issue will be shipping out the first of August; it will be in our hands the first or second week of August, and then we will be shipping it out to subscribers.

Also, one of the interesting things about this process, and it’s been going on for 18 months now to make this first issue, has been the willingness of really topnotch writers, photographers and artists to take part. We haven’t had one person that we’ve approached to say no, and say that this is not something they want to be a part of. They have all leapt at the opportunity to contribute and become part of the family. The incredible talent that we’ve brought in has been mind-blowing. We’ve got authors of books and famous photographers, notorious editors and writers. And also great artists; all who have contributed in the first and second issue. That’s been great, and it’s been really fun to work with all of those people from what to me is an entirely different industry, having spent the last 12 to 15 years in Surf.

Samir Husni: If you could have one thing tattooed upon your brain that no one would ever forget about you, what would it be?

Brendon Thomas: My number one thing is I want to deal honestly with everyone I work with, and to deliver on what I promise. That’s basically my number one goal.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Brendon Thomas: Everything. Starting a new title is scary and there’s so much that goes into it. We’re not just a print publication, obviously. We have social arms and digital arms and the mechanism that runs the business has to constantly be refined and upgraded. So, it’s not a simple thing. There are moments where I’m wildly optimistic about what we’re putting together and how well our titles are doing. And then there are other moments where there is always uncertainty. The world is a pretty uncertain place at the moment. And we’re just not sure what’s going to happen next.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“The surprising popularity is what lead us to conclude that we should do something more and move from an anonymous blog to a signed, fully out-there larger publication—with a print edition as well as an online presence—and try to build on the success of the online blog. Make the content a little more formal, a little more far reaching, and hopefully offer something unique intellectually.” Julius Krein…

A Mr. Magazine™ Launch story…

When a relatively unknown blog that began during the last presidential campaign begins to take off with viewers by providing a forum that takes exception to the more conventional partisan platforms, what could the powers-that-be at this new player in the political media game do next to top that surprising coup? Why, bring a print component into the game, of course.

Julius Krein is the editor of American Affairs, a quarterly journal of public policy and political thought. According to part of the magazine’s mission statement: We (American Affairs) seek to provide a forum for the discussion of new policies that are outside of the conventional dogmas, and a platform for new voices distinguished by originality, experience, and achievement rather than the compromised credentials of careerist institutions.

I spoke with Julius recently and we discussed this new policy journal called American Affairs. Along with being a (now) magazine editor, Julius is also an investment analyst and said that the differences between journalism and investment analysis aren’t as many as some might think. Uncovering facts and discovering unique and new views on the world is a must for either profession.

Photo by N.Y. Times

And with American Affairs, and Julius’s own background in finance, they’re hoping to bring many new voices and perspectives to the journal, giving the magazine a much-needed contrast from some of the other, more traditional political media outlets.

So, I hope that you enjoy this intellectually stimulating and informative discussion with a young man who has a definitive idea about what a journal on public policy should be, and it’s called American Affairs.

But first, the sound-bites:

On why he decided to publish American Affairs, with all the journal-type magazines already out there: The magazine basically arose as a response to the 2016 campaigns, the issues that came about during them, and the surprising results revealed to everyone. There had been a lot of issues that hadn’t really been addressed in conventional, elite political discourse. We wanted to do that.

On the public’s reaction to the magazine’s first issue: So far, the reaction has been very positive. There has been a lot of media attention, both from conservative media as well as from liberal media, including places like The New York Times, The Nation, etcetera. Most of it has been pretty positive and pretty open-minded. Inevitably, you get some very critical and hostile pieces as well, but that’s all part of the game.

On that moment of conception for the magazine: This journal really arose out of a blog that we did. It started in 2015 and then went on in early 2016 through the primary campaign, and this was just a little anonymous blog on a blogspot.com address, absolutely nothing fancy. We didn’t really think anyone would read it, but it ended up getting in the low hundreds of thousands of views per day.

On why in this digital age they decided on a print edition too: I can’t really explain why this is the case, but it seems like having a print edition does add a certain level of prestige, cachet, and seriousness to it. It also imposes a little bit of editorial discipline as well. With online, there’s really no limit to the content, but with print you have to lay it out; you have to decide which articles are going to go into the print edition.

On any stumbling blocks they’ve had to face since starting the magazine: Actually, in some ways the biggest stumbling block maybe, was the surprise of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, which we didn’t expect. That ended up being a bit of a challenge for us because some of the people that were involved in the blog ended up going into the administration, and therefore obviously wouldn’t be participating in the journal. It also created a weird situation where, you know, on the one hand it’s harder for people to see this project as independent from some of the day-to-day political events or the administration itself, even though it is independent. But at the same time, it’s created an opportunity in that I think it’s gotten a lot more attention than it would have otherwise.

On his being an investment analyst and whether that brings a different perspective to the role of magazine editor: A lot of people might be surprised, but much of investment analysis is very similar to journalism and sort of analysis anyway. It typically commands higher salaries, but fundamentally, all you’re doing is either trying to uncover facts or sort of develop a unique view on the world that is different from what everyone else has, but at the same time, hopefully, a more accurate description of reality and prediction of future events.

On whether he feels the mass audience is lost today between two extreme political points of view: That seems to be increasingly the case. I think it’s a very troubling phenomenon. In many ways, I would like to see this project as an attempt to counteract that. And as I said, we bring in interesting voices from both the right and the left, to actually try and have a dialogue and a substantive discussion, rather than the sort of increasingly vicious—and not particularly serious—Twitter wars or television sound bites. Increasingly, as you mentioned, there’s this sort of complete separation of the country, where people are just reading completely different things and have sort of two sets of “facts” and two viewpoints that never interact or overlap.

On what he hopes to have accomplished a year from now with American Affairs: I’d like to think that it will shed some light on the major issues in our economic and political life that we don’t’ really think about much, and that have been obscured by the conventional, ideological molds of “Big Government” or “Small Government” or “Internationalism” or whatever the opposite of that is. And show what’s happening in the finance industry, and in tech. And answer the questions, “How does our economy actually work?” and “How does that influence our politics in ways that the typical slogan doesn’t really capture?”

On anything he’d like to add: One thing I want to be able to do, and we’ve done a little bit of it so far, but one thing I’d like to be able to do is actually get people from the investment world, from the tech world—you know, professionals working in this industry—to write a little bit more. And, given my relationships from finance, I think I can.

On what someone would find him doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening at his home: I generally do enjoy reading these articles and editing them, so there’s a very fine line between work and leisure for me. Reading this stuff is what I would be doing anyway, so typically you’ll find me trying to read more articles, especially things that I haven’t read—maybe I didn’t have the time or incentive to read—before starting the magazine. I’m just trying to, again, find a larger group of writers, new people, new audience to include in the magazine.

On what keeps him up at night: Not to be too dramatic or sanctimonious or anything, but I am genuinely worried about the state of the country and what, to me, seems like the deeper fraying of the social and intellectual fabric that I’ve seen in my comparatively brief lifetime.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Julius Krein, editor, American Affairs magazine.

Samir Husni: In the midst of all the journals that are out there, why did you decide to publish American Affairs today, in this marketplace?

Julius Krein: The magazine basically arose as a response to the 2016 campaigns, the issues that came about during them, and the surprising results revealed to everyone. There had been a lot of issues that hadn’t really been addressed in conventional, elite political discourse. We wanted to do that.

Photo by N.Y. Times

The other opportunity of doing a new publication is that we didn’t bring any ideological—or other—baggage that inevitably arises from existing publications, and therefore we can bring together interesting voices, hopefully from the right and the left, to address these issues that perhaps both sides have ignored.

Samir Husni: What was the reaction to the launch of the first issue of American Affairs?

Julius Krein: So far, the reaction has been very positive. There has been a lot of media attention, both from conservative media as well as from liberal media, including places like The New York Times, The Nation, etcetera. Most of it has been pretty positive and pretty open minded. Inevitably, you get some very critical and hostile pieces as well, but that’s all part of the game. So far, it’s been okay. David Brooks wrote a column about it recently, other fairly prominent people have been reading it and talking about it. I’ve been very happy with the reaction so far and the reception and so forth.

Samir Husni: Can you go back with me to that moment of conception, when the idea hit you or hit the team, and you said, “You know, this is a completely different election year. We’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe we need a journal.” How did it actually happen?

Julius Krein: This journal really arose out of a blog that we did. It started in 2015 and then went on in early 2016 through the primary campaign, and this was just a little anonymous blog on a blogspot.com address, absolutely nothing fancy. We didn’t really think anyone would read it, but it ended up getting in the low hundreds of thousands of views per day. Everybody was talking about it; it became surprisingly popular. I think it was evidence of the fact that we had hit upon some things that other people weren’t talking about or maybe just approaching things from a new perspective, in a new way.

Anyway, the surprising popularity is what lead us to conclude that we should do something more and move from an anonymous blog to a signed, fully out-there larger publication—with a print edition as well as an online presence—and try to build on the success of the online blog. Make the content a little more formal, a little more far reaching, and hopefully offer something unique intellectually.

Samir Husni: Why did you decide to have the print edition? People say we live in a digital age, so why do we need print?

Julius Krein: I can’t really explain why this is the case, but it seems like having a print edition does add a certain level of prestige, cachet, and seriousness to it. It also imposes a little bit of editorial discipline as well. With online, there’s really no limit to the content, but with print you have to lay it out; you have to decide which articles are going to go into the print edition.

Those constraints, I think, add some level of rigor and discipline and, for some reason, still command a little more prestige in the wider public. That was basically why we decided to do it, and really in my experience adding the print edition really didn’t add any more work. It’s not particularly expensive, so it really wasn’t all that difficult. I think it was a good decision, and it probably gained us a little more attention than we probably would receive. And I’m glad to see that the print edition is now out there in stores across the country.

Samir Husni: After the blog and since the first issue came out, has it been a walk in a rose garden, or has there been some stumbling blocks that impacted the launch? And if so, how did you overcome them?

Julius Krein: Actually, in some ways the biggest stumbling block maybe, was the surprise of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, which we didn’t expect. That ended up being a bit of a challenge for us because some of the people that were involved in the blog ended up going into the administration, and therefore obviously wouldn’t be participating in the journal. It also created a weird situation where, you know, on the one hand it’s harder for people to see this project as independent from some of the day-to-day political events or the administration itself, even though it is independent. But at the same time, it’s created an opportunity in that I think it’s gotten a lot more attention than it would have otherwise.

I honestly have to say, since the actual launch in February… nothing’s ever quite the walk in a rose garden, but it’s been as close to that as I could really imagine. I think we’ve been very fortunate. So far, things have fallen into place really well, with a lot of new authors coming out of the woodwork. I think the media attention has taken care of itself, so we don’t have to worry about that too much. Really, it’s just trying to find good articles and make the magazine as good as possible, which of course is a problem we want to have.

Samir Husni: I see you wear two hats. You are the editor of the magazine, but you are also an investment analyst. Which one of the two do you enjoy more? Or, does the investment analyst bring a different view to editing a magazine than just a journalist editing a magazine might?

Julius Krein: A lot of people might be surprised, but much of investment analysis is very similar to journalism and sort of analysis anyway. It typically commands higher salaries, but fundamentally, all you’re doing is either trying to uncover facts or sort of develop a unique view on the world that is different from what everyone else has, but at the same time, hopefully, a more accurate description of reality and prediction of future events.

So, it’s not actually as different as you might think. I would say the one bigger difference is just the kind of people you end up meeting and talking to. Having moved over to work on the magazine, it has been a lot more travel than I’m used to, and—in a good way—a lot of meeting new people, scholars, academics, other people in the industry, and journalists. That’s been very interesting, but like I said, it’s actually not as different as you might think.

Samir Husni: As both an analyst and a journalist, what advice would you give the masses today that are bombarded by two extreme points of views. Whether you watch CNN or whether you watch Fox, whether you read this paper or that… Do you feel the mass audience is lost in the middle? That there’s no intersection between the two?

Julius Krein: That seems to be increasingly the case. I think it’s a very troubling phenomenon. In many ways, I would like to see this project as an attempt to counteract that. And as I said, we bring in interesting voices from both the right and the left, to actually try and have a dialogue and a substantive discussion, rather than the sort of increasingly vicious—and not particularly serious—Twitter wars or television sound bites. Increasingly, as you mentioned, there’s this sort of complete separation of the country, where people are just reading completely different things and have sort of two sets of “facts” and two viewpoints that never interact or overlap.

I don’t know that I have any advice; it seems to be that if you don’t have time to read everything, then you should almost not bother reading anything, because most of it, in my opinion, is pretty terrible, not true, and a waste of time. If you don’t have time to read and sift through everything, then it’s probably not good to sort of selectively just pick the things that you agree with. I’ve always felt that if I read something and agree with it one hundred percent, then I probably didn’t learn anything. I wish more people would take that view. But, this is just the climate we live in.

I don’t think there’s any real solutions to it. In a way, I think it’s one thing that makes us unique. It’s an advantage for us at American Affairs, and I hope that we can actually succeed in bringing more people from different sides and with different perspectives in dialogue around, maybe, some surprisingly common issues that have been overlooked and that certain people have an incentive to overlook.

Samir Husni: If you and I are having this conversation a year from now, what would you hope to tell me that you have accomplished in this first year of the print version of American Affairs journal?

Julius Krein: It won’t be for me to judge what it actually accomplished, but what I hope it will accomplish is to have brought together, like I said, interesting voices—new voices—from both the right and left to really address the questions of, “What actually holds us together as a nation?” “What are the common themes of our politics that might actually move us forward toward more positive politics all around?”

And also, I’d like to think that it will shed some light on the major issues in our economic and political life that we don’t’ really think about much, and that have been obscured by the conventional, ideological molds of “Big Government” or “Small Government” or “Internationalism” or whatever the opposite of that is. And show what’s happening in the finance industry, and in tech. And answer the questions, “How does our economy actually work?” and “How does that influence our politics in ways that the typical slogan doesn’t really capture?”

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Julius Krein: One thing I want to be able to do, and we’ve done a little bit of it so far, but one thing I’d like to be able to do is actually get people from the investment world, from the tech world—you know, professionals working in this industry—to write a little bit more. And, given my relationships from finance, I think I can.

It seems to me that a lot of what’s written out there, and not that it’s bad, but it’s always written a lot by scholars, think tank people, who typically have not really done anything in the real world. I think that inevitably misses some things, and I’d like to think that maybe we could bring in some more voices from the actual business community to comment on their industries. I hope that will provide some unique perspectives as well.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly at your home one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Having a glass of wine; reading a book; on your iPad; watching TV; or something else?

Julius Krein: I generally do enjoy reading these articles and editing them, so there’s a very fine line between work and leisure for me. Reading this stuff is what I would be doing anyway, so typically you’ll find me trying to read more articles, especially things that I haven’t read—maybe I didn’t have the time or incentive to read—before starting the magazine. I’m just trying to, again, find a larger group of writers, new people, new audience to include in the magazine.

In a good way, it’s taken up a lot more of my time editing this than I ever anticipated, but, as I said, it’s been a very positive experience so far and I have really enjoyed spending more time on these issues.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Julius Krein: Not to be too dramatic or sanctimonious or anything, but I am genuinely worried about the state of the country and what, to me, seems like the deeper fraying of the social and intellectual fabric that I’ve seen in my comparatively brief lifetime.

But, it just really worries me. These items every day, such as the recent shooting (GOP Baseball practice); I think we’re going through a potentially very frightening and troubling stage in our politics, and I really do worry about that. I hope we at American Affairs can offer something useful towards fixing it.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

A Mr. Magazine™ Launch Story…

“Also, I love, but just can’t compete with, in some instances, Essence and Black Enterprise and Ebony. They all have forty plus years on me. I’m a newbie in the game. So, there are some challenges there in terms of the advertising dollars and things like that. But, we continue to move forward. I have a wonderful staff of different people around the world, and we continue to believe in the project, what we’re doing and telling the stories that we tell; the stories of some of the heroes that are in these industries that are not necessarily featured in some other publications. That really keeps us going. Unfortunately, there is no walk in a rose garden, but we’re just excited to be able to be in the space and tell the stories that we are able to tell.” Sheree Williams…

Cuisine Noir debuted in the world of cyberspace in 2007, setting a precedent by featuring the talents of African American culinary and wine professionals. The online entity tapped into the world of African American foodies and became a vehicle for showcasing these great chefs from the industry.

In 2009, Sheree Williams took the lead with the website and began to show that not only did African Americans like to experiment with different flavors and food cultures, they also loved traveling, wine and the entire scope of the foodie lifestyle. Sheree raised the bar even more when she took the pixels from the screen and transposed them to the printed page with vibrant life and amazing vision.

I spoke with Sheree recently and we talked about Cuisine Noir and the multicultural message the magazine strives to convey with every page. Showcasing what African Americans are doing around the globe is a cultural movement and Sheree is determined to passionately continue the magazines mission.

From celebrities who are just as at home in the kitchen as they are onscreen or onstage, to unsung heroes who know more about mixing ingredients and producing amazing flavors than they do holding a mike or reading a movie line, Cuisine Noir is the platform that encourages both factions. And shows that African Americans have influence throughout the worlds of food and travel around the globe.

I hope that you enjoy this very “tasty” Mr. Magazine™ interview with a woman who knows a thing or two about food, wine and travel, but more importantly, about the passion it takes to put that knowledge to the test, inside the pages of a magazine, Sheree Williams, publisher, editor in chief, Cuisine Noir magazine.

But first, the sound-bites:

On the genesis of Cuisine Noir: I always tell everyone that I didn’t start the magazine. A different chef who is in California started it in the late ‘90s. He’s a chef down in L.A. and just wanted to get more exposure to black chefs. I connected with him in 2007 and, at that time, he had introduced the concept to me. So, we worked together to launch it [the Cuisine Noir site]. Then in 2008, I took it over because he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with it.

On whether everything went as she expected, or there were some bumps along the way: I’m sure you know how tough the magazine industry is. We still face that challenge, you know, being a multicultural publication, in terms of dollar allocation. Before, a lot of advertising agencies would have pockets of money just for multicultural initiatives, whether it was black, Latino, Asian, etcetera. Now we’re finding a lot of the agencies are rolling those dollars into the general market and not having that pot anymore, so it is tough.

On whether Cuisine Noir’s platform is about promoting famous chefs or discovering hidden talents: Well, we go in and out. I’ve personally had the honor of speaking to Dr. Maya Angelou; that was an awesome interview that I was able to do. With her two books that she had out, she was all about cooking and entertaining. We’ve interviewed Russell Simmons and Wendy Williams, so we do try and capture the celebrity foodies. We don’t make it just about celebrity foodies, because again there is so much talent among people who are not celebrities. But, we do want to capture what the celebrities are doing.

On how she convinces advertisers that Cuisine Noir is deserving of their dollars: We’ve really tried to present my analytics; we’ve got a great customer base. Unfortunately, there are some stereotypes and there are some perceptions about black consumers, about black travelers, etcetera, that we try to make sure we, in terms of where we’re spending, especially, our disposable income.

On getting traction in the multicultural publications with ad dollars: I have found, not naming any particular brands or companies, but I’ve worked with some in the past and had a good relationship. But then people are always changing in agencies. People are always leaving, and sometimes it’s like a revolving door. You have to ask, “Okay, who is the new person overseeing this account?” and you have to start building that relationship all over again. I think it’s important to have people in these roles that are making the decisions of where these multicultural dollars are going, to understand publications such as ours. Again, you want the quality of trying to reach the consumer—in terms of the quality of the consumer and not necessarily the quantity.

On whether she feels being based on the West coast is helping or hindering her success with the magazine: For me, I think it helps—especially when it comes to the food [industry]. I feel California is a leader when it comes to the food movement, especially around sustainable eating and things like that, and especially when it comes to the wine industry. I feel that I either need to be here or in New York, and luckily I’ve got correspondents in New York that help me make sure that if there’s anything in New York that we’re invited to, then we’re there. I definitely think that we’re in a good place, being here in Oakland and San Francisco that allows us to keep a good pulse on the industry and what’s going on.

On if she had the opportunity to present her sales pitch about Cuisine Noir to a big ad agency CEO, what she would say: I would definitely try to talk about, one: working with someone who is truly about getting their brand in front of consumers and making a difference. For me, it’s not about just taking someone’s money. I understand that there’s a return on investment that needs to come back and that they’re looking for certain things. For me [though], it’s about relationship-building. So, if they [the advertising CEOs] are looking for someone who is going to partner with them to help meet their goals, plus build a really good relationship, that’s who Cuisine Noir is.

On the most pleasant moment so far during her Cuisine Noir experience: It was one of those days where I was thinking, “Oh, you know, nothing is clicking today.” It was just one of those off days. I remember receiving an e-mail from the Smithsonian Channel, and it was one of the producers that was putting together a video for the African American Museum of History and Culture in D.C. They wanted to secure one of our covers to be placed in a video that can still be seen today when you go to the fourth floor of the museum. There is a video that talks about African American cuisine, and the cover of Cuisine Noir comes up on the video.

On the biggest stumbling block she’s had to face: I think one of the biggest ones unfortunately, is around engaging advertisers. When there’s an advertiser that you’re trying to engage and, for whatever reason—it could be something that we did, but I try to make sure to fulfill our agreements—but when they decide to go in a different direction, those are advertising dollars that are taken away from you. Those are planned, and so the only thing that I can do is just work harder. It shows you that you really still have to work harder because nothing is guaranteed. No one is guaranteed to stay. That was sort of, I think, an eye-opener.

On anything she’d like to add: I would just say that we really love the people we are able to showcase and the stories. It’s really great. I love getting emails from people who have discovered us. For instance, we just got an email from the comedian Bernie Mac’s ex-wife’s publicist, about doing something with her.

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly to her home one evening: You would probably, if I’m not on a deadline, find me with a glass of wine, just watching my TV or something. I think sometimes I just try and turn my brain off. I read so much; I’ve got a whole table full of magazines. But, you know, I definitely just like to relax.

On the one thing she would have tattooed on her brain to be remembered about her forever: That I never gave up.

On what keeps her up at night: Trying to figure out how to get my advertisers and my sponsors engaged. That keeps me up at night.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Sheree Williams, publisher, editor in chief, Cuisine Noir magazine.

Samir Husni: Tell me about the genesis of Cuisine Noir. How did you come up with the name, and then how did you get from the blog all the way to the magazine?

Sheree Williams: I always tell everyone that I didn’t start the magazine. A different chef who is in California started it in the late ‘90s. He’s a chef down in L.A. and just wanted to get more exposure to black chefs. I connected with him in 2007 and, at that time, he had introduced the concept to me. I was doing my backgrounds in PR advertising and PR, and thought it was a very interesting idea, because I also was writing as well.

So, we connected in 2007 and I told him, because at the time I was in grad school, that the web was about to really blow up and a lot of media properties were going to be on the web. I worked with him to launch a Cuisine Noir site online in 2007. It was really exciting, because that’s when Tre Wilcox was on Top Chef and Aaron McCargo, Jr. had just won Food Network Star and the Neely’s (Gina and Pat) were just coming out. That’s when we were really starting to see diversity in Food Network and things like that.

So, we worked together to launch it [the Cuisine Noir site]. Then in 2008, I took it over because he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with it. From there, I said, “You know what, I want to do food, wine, and travel.” I was an avid reader of Food & Wine and Travel + Leisure magazines, and I just saw that there was a big opportunity to really showcase black food, wine, and travel.

In 2009, as I started to lead the magazine and take it over, that’s when I started to rebrand it. I relaunched it, and relaunched a website online with Carla Hall, so that was exciting. Then, in 2011 is when I said, “You know what? I think we’ve got a good following and a good market, let’s take it into print.” I took it into print then, with Tre Wilcox being our first cover story. We’ve been going ever since then.

Samir Husni: Has it been like a walk in a rose garden for you—everything went exactly like as you expected—or have you hit some bumps along the way?

Sheree Williams: I’m sure you know how tough the magazine industry is. We still face that challenge, you know, being a multicultural publication, in terms of dollar allocation. Before, a lot of advertising agencies would have pockets of money just for multicultural initiatives, whether it was black, Latino, Asian, etcetera. Now we’re finding a lot of the agencies are rolling those dollars into the general market and not having that pot anymore, so it is tough.

Also, I love, but just can’t compete with, in some instances, Essence and Black Enterprise and Ebony. They all have forty plus years on me. I’m a newbie in the game. So, there are some challenges there in terms of the advertising dollars and things like that.

But, we continue to move forward. I have a wonderful staff of different people around the world, and we continue to believe in the project, what we’re doing and telling the stories that we tell; the stories of some of the heroes that are in these industries that are not necessarily featured in some other publications. That really keeps us going. Unfortunately, there is no walk in a rose garden, but we’re just excited to be able to be in the space and tell the stories that we are able to tell.

Samir Husni: It has been said that when it comes to the multicultural—to African Americans, to Latinos, to folks from Middle Eastern descent, like me—that you have a certain color until you become rich and famous. Then, everybody’s color is green. How do you deal with that? Are you featuring the famous? Or, are you working more as the talent discoverer and that’s what the Cusine Noir platform is all about?

Sheree Williams: Well, we go in and out. I’ve personally had the honor of speaking to Dr. Maya Angelou; that was an awesome interview that I was able to do. With her two books that she had out, she was all about cooking and entertaining. We’ve interviewed Russell Simmons and Wendy Williams, so we do try and capture the celebrity foodies. We don’t make it just about celebrity foodies, because again there is so much talent among people who are not celebrities. But, we do want to capture what the celebrities are doing.

We just talked about—we had her on the cover before—Laila Ali. She was on one of my fall covers and just announced that she’s coming out with a cookbook to honor her father that’s due to come out in January, 2018. We talk about Patti LaBelle’s cookbook that just came out. So, we do celebrities, and I think if we can do more, get the brand out there more… I don’t know if the celebrities are going to help us blow up a little bit more? But definitely just more of them communicating to their audiences who will probably help bring more awareness to what we’re doing.

We definitely find as we’re growing, when it comes to the dollars, it seems to be a numbers game. They [the advertisers] want the millions of viewers. Essence has a circulation of over 800,000, and I’m not there yet. When it comes to those dollars, if they’re looking at eyeballs and things like that, then they [Essence] are going to be the obvious choice, and deservingly so. I get it; it’s just a numbers game.

Samir Husni: So, how do you then convince those advertisers and ad agencies that you’re more about the customers who count, rather than counting customers?

Sheree Williams: We’ve really tried to present my analytics; we’ve got a great customer base. Unfortunately, there are some stereotypes and there are some perceptions about black consumers, about black travelers, etcetera, that we try to make sure we , in terms of where we’re spending, especially, our disposable income.

Looking at a snapshot of our reader [base], I try and tell them that our readers are very sophisticated. They love to try different cuisines. They love to travel internationally—and this next print issue that we’re working on is all about travel. We’re all about that, so we talk about that. We talk about the spending power of African Americans, and how it’s in the trillions, and a lot of that is being spent in the food and beverage categories. We really just try to look at our customers, where they shop and what they like to do. I try to make sure, as much as possible, that I can say, “You know what? Here is a customer that is all about trying new products and getting out and trying new experiences,” saying, “This is someone that you definitely want to market to. This is someone that we’re talking to directly.”

We’ve got a very active group on Facebook. We’re sharing recipes all of the time. We’re sharing stories all of the time. Really, we’re just trying to let the advertisers know that the readers are engaged and they’re all about food, so if you’re coming out with a food product or you’re talking about this, then we’re the right people to talk to. That’s what the readers are coming to us for.

Samir Husni: Why do you think this is falling on deaf ears? Why do you think, after all these years, we keep celebrating diversity and yet—when the rubber hits the road—we feel as though we are not getting any traction?

Sheree Williams: I have found, not naming any particular brands or companies, but I’ve worked with some in the past and had a good relationship. But then people are always changing in agencies. People are always leaving, and sometimes it’s like a revolving door. You have to ask, “Okay, who is the new person overseeing this account?” and you have to start building that relationship all over again. I think it’s important to have people in these roles that are making the decisions of where these multicultural dollars are going, to understand publications such as ours. Again, you want the quality of trying to reach the consumer—in terms of the quality of the consumer and not necessarily the quantity.

Sometimes, I have to admit, and I can’t say it for sure, but sometimes I have to wonder are the people making the decisions in some of these agencies, do they truly understand our publications, the influences that we can have in these markets and in these communities? And, if they did, would that change things? Would they say, “You know what? I’m not going to spend a $100,000 here, or $50,000—or whatever they’re spending on some of the more seasoned publications—but I am going to take a risk with you.” Again, sometimes I think it comes down to who is making the decisions and [whether or not] they truly understand what we do and who we reach in order to give us a chance to really knock it out of the park.

Samir Husni: Do you think that being based on the west coast is helping or hindering you when it comes to the magazine’s success?

Sheree Williams: For me, I think it helps—especially when it comes to the food [industry]. I feel California is a leader when it comes to the food movement, especially around sustainable eating and things like that, and especially when it comes to the wine industry. I feel that I either need to be here or in New York, and luckily I’ve got correspondents in New York that help me make sure that if there’s anything in New York that we’re invited to, then we’re there. I definitely think that we’re in a good place, being here in Oakland and San Francisco that allows us to keep a good pulse on the industry and what’s going on.

Samir Husni: If you had the opportunity to meet a CEO of one of those big ad agencies, say, you’re alone with him or her in an elevator and you have 18 seconds to give your sales pitch about Cuisine Noir, what would you tell them?

Sheree Williams: I would definitely try to talk about, one: working with someone who is truly about getting their brand in front of consumers and making a difference. For me, it’s not about just taking someone’s money. I understand that there’s a return on investment that needs to come back and that they’re looking for certain things. For me [though], it’s about relationship-building. So, if they [the advertising CEOs] are looking for someone who is going to partner with them to help meet their goals, plus build a really good relationship, that’s who Cuisine Noir is.

We’re really about those relationship buildings, and we’re really about getting their products in front of our consumers—and I also love getting new things in front of my readers; that’s what it’s all about too. I think it’s a win-win situation. That’s what we’re all about: that relationship-building, trying to be an influencer for them, and then also engaging our readers and letting them know this is what’s new, this is what’s great, and this is what’s out there.

Samir Husni: What has been the most pleasant moment in the history of you and Cuisine Noir. Is there one specific moment you reflect back on and say, “Wow?”

Sheree Williams: It was one of those days where I was thinking, “Oh, you know, nothing is clicking today.” It was just one of those off days. I remember receiving an e-mail from the Smithsonian Channel, and it was one of the producers that was putting together a video for the African American Museum of History and Culture in D.C. They wanted to secure one of our covers to be placed in a video that can still be seen today when you go to the fourth floor of the museum. There is a video that talks about African American cuisine, and the cover of Cuisine Noir comes up on the video.

And that just made me cry. We celebrated that with the opening of the museum last September. My family and I went to the museum a couple of days later to see the cover just flash up on the screen in the museum. That was ad still is definitely a very proud moment for me.

Samir Husni: And what has been the biggest stumbling block you’ve had to face, and how did you overcome it?

Sheree Williams: I think one of the biggest ones unfortunately, is around engaging advertisers. When there’s an advertiser that you’re trying to engage and, for whatever reason—it could be something that we did, but I try to make sure to fulfill our agreements—but when they decide to go in a different direction, those are advertising dollars that are taken away from you. Those are planned, and so the only thing that I can do is just work harder. It shows you that you really still have to work harder because nothing is guaranteed. No one is guaranteed to stay. That was sort of, I think, an eye-opener.

But I also have to admit, too: I have a bachelors in advertising, and I did an advertising internship here in California before I actually moved from Chicago to California. I’m glad that I had that background. I think this whole thing with trying to solve the advertising puzzle and what is really going to get our foot in the door comfortably, is softened because of my background, knowing the lingo, what they’re looking for, and things like that.

I’m constantly having to overcome objections of “You’re too small. You’re great! But you’re too small.” So that’s still a stumbling block that I’m still overcoming right now. I’m actually constantly working on what is a good strategy, and I actually have a meeting with someone who I’m throwing out some strategy ideas to continue to overcome that stumbling block. I would say that’s one of the things I am constantly trying to overcome.

Samir Husni: Is there anything you’d like to add?

Sheree Williams: I would just say that we really love the people we are able to showcase and the stories. It’s really great. I love getting emails from people who have discovered us. For instance, we just got an email from the comedian Bernie Mac’s ex-wife’s publicist, about doing something with her.

We just contributed to something with Steve Harvey’s producer who is a baker. I love being able to tell those stories, when it comes to the community heroes. And also to share the stories of the celebrity foodies who are known for singing or doing something else, but also just awesome in the kitchen. I really am excited about that and just excited to see where we can go. I definitely hope people continue to follow us and join us for the journey and the ride.

Samir Husni: If I showed up at your home unexpectedly one evening after work, what would I find you doing? Would you be drinking a glass of wine, eating some Southern cuisine, reading a book, watching TV, on your iPad, or something else?

Sheree Williams: You would probably, if I’m not on a deadline, find me with a glass of wine, just watching my TV or something. I think sometimes I just try and turn my brain off. I read so much; I’ve got a whole table full of magazines. But, you know, I definitely just like to relax.

You’d probably find me, if I’m not out eating with someone, just sitting here on different things. I’ve been trying to catch up on what’s going on, watching some of the culinary competitions on TV to see who’s doing what. Or I’m just organizing. We get so busy sometimes. I’ve got a bookshelf I need to put up, so one evening I’m going to get to the bookshelf that I need to do. It really just varies, but one thing is sure, I’m relaxing. I definitely need to relax.

Samir Husni: If there was one thing you would want engraved or tattooed on your brain, that would be remembered about you forever, what would it be?

Sheree Williams: That I never gave up.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Sheree Williams: Trying to figure out how to get my advertisers and my sponsors engaged. That keeps me up at night.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

“The truth is, we didn’t have much time to reflect quietly on the magazine because, as soon as it got printed, we actually had a launch party. I think that I hadn’t even had a chance to read through the entire physical copy of the magazine until after the launch party. At that point, everyone had a copy and everyone was just feeling it. They were feeling that it had a soft-touch glaze and they would smell the pages—there’s something really wonderful about freshly-printed magazines. So they were sniffing it, they were feeling it. There was such a tactile sense to the product that they were literally petting it during the launch party.” Kristina Pines…

A Mr. Magazine™ Launch Story…

In 2016, Spoonful Magazine was one of Mr. Magazine’s™ picks for the 30 Hottest Magazine Launches of the year. The passion that radiated from the pages of the unique food magazine was palpable. After talking at length with its founder/publisher, Kristina Pines, I now see where the magazine gets its intense warmth and zeal from.

Kristina started the magazine with a group of friends who had one thing in common: they were creatives who had a strong belief and love for the subject matter they were about to launch into the magazine marketplace. While the business side of publishing wasn’t exactly their forte, the entrepreneurial spirit was certainly something they were riding high on. And when you flip through the pages of Spoonful Magazine, you can see and feel the result of Kristina’s dream.

Having grown up in Saudi Arabia, watching her parents open their home to other immigrants that were living and working in the country, home entertaining became second nature to Kristina and the experience has overflowed into the pages of Spoonful. It’s a unique magazine that uses food and home cooking to bring people together. And isn’t that what magazines do best? Bring people into the circle of communities where they can experience joy and comfort?

I spoke with Kristina recently and we talked about Spoonful and her hopes for its continued production. And while nothing is assured in this crazy world that we live in today, one thing is absolute when it comes to her passion and love for the magazine: a “Spoonful” is definitely the right dose for her dream’s prescription.

And now the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Kristina Pines, Founder/Publisher, Spoonful Magazine.

But first, the sound-bites:

On how she used her own passion for the subject matter to create the magazine: This was a passion project between friends that kind of took over and became its own thing, and became this magazine. We’re hoping that with this magazine we’re giving the modern-home cook—those who don’t have the same luxury of time as in years past—to entertain again in their home by giving them recipes that other home cooks have trusted for years in their own family, giving them time management tips, and giving them other resources that would make it a successful event for them.

On how she took her passionate idea and actually turned it into a magazine: I was always a writer, and I wanted a platform to bring this message out there. I’ve had a blog for a long time. My other friends that have worked in various publications helped me start this. But, we were all freelancers. We had never done this full time. So, we just started researching, asking, “What are the practical measures?” and “How much do we need to raise?” We knew that the concept of the magazine was interesting enough. It was a niche in the food industry that hadn’t been covered yet.

On her most pleasant surprise after holding the finished magazine in her hands for the first time: To be able to kind of step back and watch everyone else who was seeing it for the first time fall in love with it, and to just understand what we’re trying to get… When we say that we’re about celebrating home cooking, it’s such a vague concept, you know? There are a lot of other publications that talk about home cooking and, you know, the different niches that are in home cooking; whether it’s gluten-free or paleo or easy recipes under thirty minutes and that type of thing. But we [Spoonful] are talking about specifically entertaining, and when all of these people who have thrown parties and who have opened their doors for us to take photos of them and show other people how they gather and then they see it all put together, they’re like, “Oh, this is what it is! I understand now.”

On the biggest challenge that she’s had to face: The problem is that we are not as widely circulated. Our distribution is still pretty minimal, compared to a lot of the other publications, so we’re not able to attract the same advertisers. And we kind of held off too long. So, I think the honeymoon started dwindling when we were trying to make this a financially viable project, and it was no longer just a passion project. But it’s all still about passion and just doing it for fun. You know, you kind of throw caution to the wind and say, “Okay, whatever happens happens.”

On the magazine’s current circulation: We have just over 1,000 subscribers, and we have 14,000 circulating as single copies throughout stores. About 500 single-issue purchasers per issue, at least, and then the rest are through our distribution point.

On whether she has any regrets about the magazine’s $20 cover price: I wish that we’d been more pragmatic and immediately dove into trying to get those ad sales. We were hoping, to be quite honest, that we would survive just through subscribers, you know? We were kind of like a “Field of Dreams” philosophy, “If you build it, they will come,” that type of thing. And they are coming, but it’s not as fast as we were hoping it would be, and it’s not as widely distributed as we would want it to be.

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly one evening to her home: At the end of the day, I cook. I mean, I cook every single day for my family. Friday nights are my only night off; I’ve decided that’s when we order in stuff. But for every other day, every meal, I cook. That’s what I do, and I find joy in that.

On what keeps her up at night: I think the sense of uncertainty that is in the publishing industry, but specifically for Spoonful; I want this to be stable for the people that are working for me. I want them to continue with that sense of joy and pride, without feeling vulnerable because our product feels vulnerable to the tides of time.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Kristina Pines, Founder/Publisher, Spoonful Magazine.

Samir Husni: I know for a lot of people who publish new magazines these days, it’s more of a passion rather than a business. So, tell me, how did you combine that passion of yours for this specific subject matter, Spoonful, and create the magazine?

Kristina Pines: You’re right, this was a passion project between friends that kind of took over and became its own thing, and became this magazine.

I personally grew up in Saudi Arabia. When my parents moved there, met each other there, and got married, they didn’t really know the people that lived in the area. So, to combat that loneliness, they started inviting people to their home – as a potluck party. Through that, they started building a community in Saudi. That community became their family. And they kept up the tradition.

Soon, they became known as the people that would invite you over if you were new in town. So, if you were a fresh, new immigrant to Saudi Arabia; if you were working there; if you didn’t know anything about the city, and didn’t know anyone else, you were typically invited to my parents’ home. That’s where all of these other immigrants, from all over the world, would come together and they would have weekend potluck parties. That was my childhood.

When I came to America and moved to Chicago, I first experienced that sense of separation—there’s so much space in America, more than I’ve experienced in any other country that I’ve lived. In the Philippines, certainly, everyone lives side by side. So, there you didn’t really have that sense of separation or isolation.

So, when we moved to Chicago my parents did the same thing—they decided to open their doors, invite in strangers, and soon our immediate neighborhood became our community, our family, and our friends. When I moved to Philadelphia, I did the exact same thing. I had moved away from my family, I didn’t know anyone in the Philadelphia area, and I knew the power food had over building communities. I wanted to show that.

So, Spoonful is really the vehicle for me to send that message out there, and it makes sure that people continue inviting people over. Because, these days, you don’t hear people saying, “Come on over for dinner!” They say, “Let’s go out for pizza.” Or, “Let’s go eat somewhere at a restaurant.” Which does build a relationship, but it’s not the same sense of intimacy.

And so, we’re hoping that with this magazine we’re giving the modern-home cook—those who don’t have the same luxury of time as in years past—to entertain again in their home by giving them recipes that other home cooks have trusted for years in their own family, giving them time management tips, and giving them other resources that would make it a successful event for them.

Samir Husni: Besides the family upbringing and all the travels, what gave you the idea to do a magazine? Just thinking: ‘Oh, I know nothing about this magazine business, but I know a lot about how I grew up.’ How did you put the two together?

Kristina Pines: (Laughs) I was always a writer, and I wanted a platform to bring this message out there. I’ve had a blog for a long time. My other friends that have worked in various publications helped me start this. But, we were all freelancers. We had never done this full time.

It really began when we started reading books on how to launch a magazine. We used Lorraine Phillips’ “Publish Your First Magazine” as a guide. That book had very practical tips in it. We also used James B. Kobak’s “How to Start a Magazine: And Publish It Profitably.”

So, we just started researching, asking, “What are the practical measures?” and “How much do we need to raise?” We knew that the concept of the magazine was interesting enough. It was a niche in the food industry that hadn’t been covered yet. So much of the food magazine industry currently is focused on celebrity chefs and how they cook at home. And there are other magazines that don’t have that same angle, but we’re really all about entertaining. We knew that at the heart of the concept of the publication, it would work and, at least be attractive to people.

We knew what we wanted—visually. We decided to hunt around for a printer that would partner with us, and we were lucky enough to find Standard Group Analytics that was able to handle our small run. At first, we were looking at larger printers, but they had a minimum of 50,000 and we just couldn’t commit to that.

So, having gotten the numbers and having gotten a practical understanding of what we needed to start it, we began putting together a pitch for investors. Our immediate funders were private investors—people that we knew, family, friends. And, as you put it in that entrepreneur article that I read; we were “Family, friends, and fools.” (Laughs) But, most of them were family and friends. I hope that they weren’t fooled, anyway. They were very supportive of the concept, and that’s how we got our first seed funding. From there, we started building our first issue, which was the ‘Love Affairs’ issue, Spring 2016, and we are now on our 6th issue. We just released our ‘Salt’ issue, with Carla Hall as the feature story.

Samir Husni: What was the most pleasant surprise that you can recall when the issue came back from the printer and you were flipping through the pages? What was the most pleasant moment for you when you finally held your baby in your hands for the first time?

Kristina Pines: The truth is, we didn’t have much time to reflect quietly on the magazine because, as soon as it got printed, we actually had a launch party. I think that I hadn’t even had a chance to read through the entire physical copy of the magazine until after the launch party. At that point, everyone had a copy and everyone was just feeling it. They were feeling that it had a soft-touch glaze and they would smell the pages—there’s something really wonderful about freshly-printed magazines. So they were sniffing it, they were feeling it. There was such a tactile sense to the product that they were literally petting it during the launch party.

I think the most pleasant surprise was being able to step back that evening and watch their reaction to this thing we’d been working on for a year. We had a year lead time to prep the Spring 2016, so, for me, it was old material. We were already at that point working on our third issue, at least content-wise. So, mentally, I was no longer really attached to the subject of the first issue.

But to be able to kind of step back and watch everyone else who was seeing it for the first time fall in love with it, and to just understand what we’re trying to get… When we say that we’re about celebrating home cooking, it’s such a vague concept, you know? There are a lot of other publications that talk about home cooking and, you know, the different niches that are in home cooking; whether it’s gluten-free or paleo or easy recipes under thirty minutes and that type of thing.

But we [Spoonful] are talking about specifically entertaining, and when all of these people who have thrown parties and who have opened their doors for us to take photos of them and show other people how they gather and then they see it all put together, they’re like, “Oh, this is what it is! I understand now.” And that type of understanding that they had on the concept of the magazine, the support that they’d already given us, plus having that double, even triple that evening was really a pleasant surprise and a pleasant experience.

Samir Husni: What has been the biggest challenge with the magazine? Is the honeymoon phase still going on, or have you had your first fight?

Kristina Pines: (Laughs) I think the first fight happens when you start feeling like it’s not as profitable as you’d hoped it would be. We also didn’t have as much experience with publishing. First of all, we didn’t have 100,000 in circulation. We couldn’t attract the same advertisers that we wanted to at the beginning—at least not the big, national brands. So, we were hoping to build more of a portfolio to attract them, to show them how we are unique, and who all our subscribers are.

Now we’re in our second year and we have a 90% re-subscribe rate, which is amazing. So the people that have signed on with us in the first year, have then actually recruited their friends to subscribe. It’s amazing, really, the reception to the magazine. Once you understand and see the magazine, you fall in love with the magazine.

The problem is that we are not as widely circulated. Our distribution is still pretty minimal, compared to a lot of the other publications, so we’re not able to attract the same advertisers. And we kind of held off too long. So, I think the honeymoon started dwindling when we were trying to make this a financially viable project, and it was no longer just a passion project. But it’s all still about passion and just doing it for fun. You know, you kind of throw caution to the wind and say, “Okay, whatever happens happens.”

But when you start relying on it as a source of income, as a source of stability, your relationship with it becomes tenuous, because it’s now laden with other responsibilities. You’re making it responsible for your livelihood. So, that makes it a little bit more of a difficult relationship. We still love what we’re doing, we still love the product that we’re producing. I think we have a really beautiful product, and with the launch of our summer issue, I think we’ve really hit our stride, in terms of the look and the writing and the aesthetic that we’re trying to put out there. But, at the same time, there is a lot more strain in making this profitable.

Samir Husni: What is your current circulation; how many subscribers do you have now?

Kristina Pines: We have just over 1,000 subscribers, and we have 14,000 circulating as single copies throughout stores. About 500 single-issue purchasers per issue, at least, and then the rest are through our distribution point.

Samir Husni: And, if I may add, your cover price is $20?

Kristina Pines: Yes, it is.

Samir Husni: And what’s your subscription price now?

Kristina Pines: We usually have a 10%-20% off discount, depending on the season. It’s $80 a year standard, but it’s usually around $64 to $72, depending on what promotion we’re putting out there.

Samir Husni: You’re one of the many, what they like to call in the United Kingdom, boutique magazines, where you need to find your cult audience and get them to pay that high cover price, because for the price of one issue of Spoonful, you can buy two years of other food magazines on the marketplace. But, yours is more like the “Kinfolk,” more like the “Jarry” magazines—I mean all of these boutique magazines that have the very high cover price, yet, once the honeymoon is over and you start thinking about the business model, that’s where the rubber meets the road. So, as you look toward the future, do you have any regrets? I mean is there ever a time that that you’ve said, “I wish that I had done this, rather than that?”

Kristina Pines: If we could start over, knowing what I know now, we would have started looking for advertisers as soon as our first issue hit the shelves, and for our second, third, and other issues. We wouldn’t have waited until we’d perfected our writing style or really found our voice.

But, we were hoping that once we kind of put together the perfect package, what we thought was the best work that we could really put out there, that it would just come; that other people would agree; that advertisers would see what we’re trying to do and say, “Yes, I believe in what you’re doing. Here’s some advertising money.”

I wish that we’d been more pragmatic and immediately dove into trying to get those ad sales. We were hoping, to be quite honest, that we would survive just through subscribers, you know? We were kind of like a “Field of Dreams” philosophy, “If you build it, they will come,” that type of thing. And they are coming, but it’s not as fast as we were hoping it would be, and it’s not as widely distributed as we would want it to be.

Samir Husni: If I show up at your house unexpectedly one evening after work, what do I find you doing; sitting on your couch, having a glass of wine; cooking; reading a book or a magazine; watching TV; or something else?

Kristina Pines: At the end of the day, I cook. I mean, I cook every single day for my family. Friday nights are my only night off; I’ve decided that’s when we order in stuff. But for every other day, every meal, I cook. That’s what I do, and I find joy in that. My family would much prefer to eat in than they would eating out. That’s how I relax. After business hours are over, I step away from my phone—I literally turn it off and put it away—because I devote all of my focus on my family at that time.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Kristina Pines: I think the sense of uncertainty that is in the publishing industry, but specifically for Spoonful; I want this to be stable for the people that are working for me. I want them to continue with that sense of joy and pride, without feeling vulnerable because our product feels vulnerable to the tides of time. We don’t know if it’s going to survive the test of time. So, we’ll see.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

A Mr. Magazine™ Launch Story…

“Right now there isn’t a digital component for Coloring with Mommy, because it’s really print and paper-driven. It’s a book that digitally, even if you printed out a comic book page, it wouldn’t be the same quality and it wouldn’t have the heart that we put into the magazine, because it’s not just coloring book pages. It’s that bonding time and the extra stuff that makes the magazine feel more special.” Brittany Galla…

“… But of course with our other launches, such as Bake It Up! with our digital team, there have been things such as recipes that they’ve put on Facebook live, and there are things to promote the magazine and the content on there, but really we are looking at targeting the newsstand reader and the newsstand parent with these new launches.” Brittany Galla…

Bauer Media’s youth division has been offering up new print titles throughout the last few years as though digital was simply a extensional platform that could complement print or offer a different perspective than its ink on paper counterpart – and what do you know, I do believe they’re right. Brittany Galla, editorial director for the media group’s youth division, said their latest title “Coloring with Mommy” offers something that Bauer strongly believes in, a break from “screen time” and that bonding experience that many mothers and daughters find elusive in this fast-paced digital age.

I spoke with Brittany recently and we talked about Coloring with Mommy, and about the other titles that are growing up under her wing. With this latest launch, Bauer is targeting the loyal readers of Star-tastic Coloring Book, and Brittany said that the new magazine featured 28 beautiful side-by-side, outward facing images for mom to color along with her child, while bonding and spending quality time together, something she feels parents need today.

Brittany added that while Bauer is very excited about its digital division, these new launches are targeted strictly for newsstand and, as with Coloring with Mommy, offer something that both children and parents need in this busy time we live in, a moment to escape and exhale from the bombardment of information that we all receive second-by-second onscreen.

So, sit down, relax, and take a breath from your busy schedule and enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Brittany Galla, editorial director, Bauer Media Group’s Youth Division.

But first the sound-bites:

On why Bauer is putting out more and more print magazines for teens and children in this digital age: What’s going on here is that we’re just bursting with creativity and ideas, and I think in a time when we do see a lot of digital growth, which we’re excited about for our digital sides of the brand, we also see a lot of opportunity to concentrate and focus on print and what’s on the newsstand and what’s not really being offered to readers right now.

On where the ideas for these new magazines come from: Honestly, it’s a mix of different things. An idea comes from a focus group or where we’re talking to 10 or 12 girls and Sebastian (Raatz, executive vice president of Bauer Media Group) and I are taking notes and they’ll say something about a hobby that they love and everyone talks about it and discusses what that could mean on the newsstand. Some ideas do come to me at night as well and some ideas come to my great staff and then they present it to me.

On how she brings the idea to life: Time-wise, it was probably over a span of three to four months, from beginning to end. First, we decide if it’s really a good idea, such as with Coloring with Mommy, which is a way to get a child and her mom to bond more. It’s something more than just a coloring book they’ll find on bookshelves. It’s different and it means more than that. And it has more reselling factors.

On whether there is a digital component for Coloring with Mommy: Right now there isn’t a digital component for Coloring with Mommy, because it’s really print and paper-driven. It’s a book that digitally, even if you printed out a comic book page, it wouldn’t be the same quality and it wouldn’t have the heart that we put into the magazine, because it’s not just coloring book pages. It’s that bonding time and the extra stuff that makes the magazine feel more special.

On what she feels the role of print is in today’s digital age: I feel like the role of print is to really give these young kids and tweens across America and the world something that they’re not getting digitally, and it’s a way to still connect and to bring families together, still speak and relate to their lives. And I think that it’s also just a chance to be creative and to challenge digital. There are many great things happening digitally and at Bauer XCEL, but I think that there is still a lot of growth and room to succeed on the newsstand and it’s time to challenge what we can do and what we can offer readers.

On whether as an editor she believes that there is a responsibility to help with the digital addiction that many children are reported to have: I do. Speaking from a personal sense, my mom is actually a teacher and a reading specialist, and has been for many years. It’s so important to read books. And it’s constantly encouraged by teachers in schools to read the sight words and practice index cards. And there’s something about reading a book together, with your parent, with your mom or dad, as opposed to just everybody being connected to their tablets or phones. It’s so important to have that communication and to have those times together to read.

On whether she feels that she has a social responsibility and a duty to push reading on paper: I feel like I do. I oversee J-14 Magazine and I feel that way when I think of the teenaged reader that I’m targeting. I do think a lot about the reader and a lot about the families that are buying the magazines and what they need and what’s going on. How stressed they could be and maybe they just need 10 minutes with their child to bond, and that’s what I think about every day. I think of the reader and how we can help them bond with their daughter, or their mom, to feel a bit more connected.

On what makes her tick and click and get out of bed each morning, looking forward to her day: It’s the reader. I have wanted to work in magazines since I was a young teenager growing up in Long Island. I read all of the magazines: YM, Cosmo Girl, and they weren’t just magazines to me, they were much more. I lived by every word. They really were my bible. They told me about myself and they empowered me. And that’s what drives me. When I think of the reader that I once was and what magazines were able to provide for me, escape, advice, just being a big sister; when I get out of bed every morning, I’m thinking about that same reader and how I can connect with them. And I think about what our reader needs. That really drives me every day.

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly at her home one evening: I’m obsessed with my dog. My husband and I have a rescue dog named Bo and he’s a Black Lab/Rottweiler mix, and we are just completely obsessive. So, if you were to find me at our house, I would be playing with him or hiking with him or just walking him.

On what keeps her up at night: I usually just fall right asleep because I’m so tired from the day, but if I do toss and turn a little bit, it’s usually just thinking about all the new ideas we have and how to put them in motion.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Brittany Galla, editorial director, Bauer Media Group’s Youth Division.

Samir Husni: What’s happening at Bauer; are you all crazy, putting more print magazines out there for teens and children when everybody is telling us the entire future is digital?

Brittany Galla: (Laughs) What’s going on here is that we’re just bursting with creativity and ideas, and I think in a time when we do see a lot of digital growth, which we’re excited about for our digital sides of the brand, we also see a lot of opportunity to concentrate and focus on print and what’s on the newsstand and what’s not really being offered to readers right now.

We do a lot of focus groups and we talk to a lot of moms and daughters; tween girls who are not on their phones just yet, they might have iPods, but it doesn’t always connect to Wi-Fi, of course, and they don’t have iPhones until fifth or sixth grade, or even later. Some parents are really insistent that they don’t have a cell phone before fifth grade, so we do see these ages who are younger who really do need magazines and are looking for something to read and to do during their free time.

And I think here, what’s been going on in the past year is we sat down and thought about how we could attract a reader who is not being targeted on the newsstand right now in different ways, just getting new readers. And we have a lot of conversations with girls and moms who are not really spending the time together that they used to, because things are so busy with sports and school. The moms are on their phones a lot too, and admit that.

So, we really wanted to create products where we are bonding the family together. We think that family time is really important and so we created products like “Bake It Up!” and even “Star-tastic” and now with “Coloring with Mommy,” you can really sit down with your mom. With “Bake It Up!” it was baking and making cute stuff in the kitchen together, and now with “Coloring with Mommy” it’s a different type of coloring book, where the left side of the page is more difficult and detailed, and the right side is an easier replica of the same image. So, it’s a coloring book that they can share and do together. They’re working on the same page, but the mom has a bit more of a detailed one and the daughter has a little easier one and they’re sharing and doing it together.

And then the mega poster that we have is an image that they can fill in together; it’s completely joined on one giant page, so they can do a beautiful mega image together. And we also added content in the book, and we call it “Bonus Bonding” time. There are 10 questions where both mom and daughter can interview each other, such as “What is your biggest fear?” “What was your favorite childhood toy?” Questions that someone may have never asked their mom. I’m 31 and there were questions that I didn’t even know about my mom that I asked her. Just little ways to spend time with your mom and have these special moments that you don’t always get because life is so crazy right now.

Also, in the mega we have a little list where they can write 10 reasons that they love their moms and then a place where the moms can write 10 reasons why they love their daughters. Then they can cut it out and color it. We really wanted it to be a magazine that makes them happy and makes them have that warm and fuzzy feeling inside that I think a lot of girls can identify with. In 2016, we launched five new titles, and this is our first for 2017, so really excited about it being on newsstand.

Samir Husni: Who comes up with these creative ideas for the new magazines? In the last two or three years, you have been putting out one new title after the other aimed at a segment of the population that almost everyone else has written off. As the editorial director, how do you come up with these new ideas? Is it a group effort or do you have this dream at night and wake up and say we need to do this Coloring with Mommy magazine?

Brittany Galla: Honestly, it’s a mix of different things. An idea comes from a focus group or where we’re talking to 10 or 12 girls and Sebastian (Raatz, executive vice president of Bauer Media Group) and I are taking notes and they’ll say something about a hobby that they love and everyone talks about it and discusses what that could mean on the newsstand. Some ideas do come to me at night as well and some ideas come to my great staff and then they present it to me.

Over the last year, Sebastian and I have really worked together quite a lot and we met on a weekly basis and we had a list of over 100 ideas. We would write everything down, from the simplest and most obvious ideas, to the craziest and most extreme ones. And we’d keep this running list that we would add to and then choose which to focus on. With the coloring, obviously, it’s no secret that coloring has been huge on the newsstands for magazine publishers in both 2015 and 2016. And so we thought about how we could make it different and that’s when Star-tastic Coloring Book came into play, so people could color their favorite celebrities.

And then we just thought about what we could do in the coloring section that was a little different from Star-tastic, such as going a bit younger like the Coloring with Mommy, and where it’s not just a coloring book. If you look at the adult coloring books, those could be way too complicated for a little girl with all of the fine detail. She may could do it, but it would be very time-consuming. And then the kid coloring books are very easy, almost too easy. So, this was a way to combine both, where it’s not just an adult coloring book or one for just the child, it’s a coloring book that you can enjoy together and that’s perfect for your age group. It’s perfect for the parent to do, and then the page right next to mom’s is perfect for the daughter to color. And it’s sometimes the same image, just easier, and takes the same amount of time to finish.

So, really, the ideas do come to us in a variety of different ways. I think being creative and thinking outside of the box is something that Bauer has always really encouraged since I’ve been here. And just talking with readers and understanding what’s going on in their lives and finding out what they need and talking to moms. Also, I have six nieces that are my go-to when I have a lot of questions about what kids like and want to see. And all of those things just help form an excellent idea.

Samir Husni: Can you take me through the process of actually bringing the idea to fruition, maybe relive that a-ha moment when you decided that you were definitely bringing Coloring with Mommy to life?

Brittany Galla: Time-wise, it was probably over a span of three to four months, from beginning to end. First, we decide if it’s really a good idea, such as with Coloring with Mommy, which is a way to get a child and her mom to bond more. It’s something more than just a coloring book they’ll find on bookshelves. It’s different and it means more than that. And it has more reselling factors.

So, once we’re a 100 percent go on that, I pitch a bunch of ideas for the title, Coloring with Mommy was one of a few. My team also pitched some and Sebastian picked maybe one or two favorites. Then we presented them to the focus group to make sure that they liked them and that they spoke to the reader. And then we check to make sure that the title we’ve chosen can be used. After that, our art director, who is excellent, and we have an art pool of designers that we use, and we start a style guide for the magazine. For this one, it was almost like a “Girls’ World” type category, we used a lot of the “Girls’ World” fonts and bright colors.

And really, in just a few hours we had the templates and the images ready. I thought about the “Bonus Bonding” content, and then really the magazine was designed pretty quickly, I would say. When we have an idea, there are little tweaks here and there, and then I show Sebastian and the team, make any other tweaks that are needed and we go through the magazine together, and then that’s it.

Samir Husni: You’re newsstand-driven, but is there a digital component, or do you think that print is enough?

Brittany Galla: Right now there isn’t a digital component for Coloring with Mommy, because it’s really print and paper-driven. It’s a book that digitally, even if you printed out a comic book page, it wouldn’t be the same quality and it wouldn’t have the heart that we put into the magazine, because it’s not just coloring book pages. It’s that bonding time and the extra stuff that makes the magazine feel more special.

So, with Coloring with Mommy there’s not a digital component, but of course with our other launches, such as Bake It Up! with our digital team, there have been things such as recipes that they’ve put on Facebook live, and there are things to promote the magazine and the content on there, but really we are looking at targeting the newsstand reader and the newsstand parent with these new launches.

Samir Husni: From an editor’s point of view, what do you feel the role of print is in today’s digital age?

Brittany Galla: I think that digital has obviously opened up many avenues of different creativity, but I think that there’s still a need for families and kids to unwind. We’ve read about kids literally being addicted to social media and all of these apps. In an article in the New York Post, it was basically called digital heroin by a psychologist.

I feel like the role of print is to really give these young kids and tweens across America and the world something that they’re not getting digitally, and it’s a way to still connect and to bring families together, still speak and relate to their lives. And I think that it’s also just a chance to be creative and to challenge digital. There are many great things happening digitally and at Bauer XCEL, but I think that there is still a lot of growth and room to succeed on the newsstand and it’s time to challenge what we can do and what we can offer readers.

Samir Husni: Based on the research you’ve done, and all the studies we’re beginning to see, we’re starting to learn that millennials do read, and yes, while they do spend a lot of time on their digital devices, they’re also engaged in reading ink on paper. As an editor do you believe that there is an obligation to help remove the addiction or help with it a little bit?

Brittany Galla: I do. Speaking from a personal sense, my mom is actually a teacher and a reading specialist, and has been for many years. It’s so important to read books. And it’s constantly encouraged by teachers in schools to read the sight words and practice index cards. And there’s something about reading a book together, with your parent, with your mom or dad, as opposed to just everybody being connected to their tablets or phones. It’s so important to have that communication and to have those times together to read.

I do think that we can play a role in encouraging the reading. In our magazines we have fiction stories in Girls’ World and little starred facts and even puzzle fun targets the sight words. Puzzle fun is for kindergartners and it’s great as a kindergarten prep. So, there really is a call for us to be able to offer this educational content. And with Coloring with Mommy we’re helping with that bonding time and helping them to connect more than they would be if they were just sitting there with tablets looking at screen time. It’s a way to give a screen time break, which I think is something that many families are craving right now.

Samir Husni: Do you feel then that in addition to being an editorial director in charge of the magazines that you also have a social responsibility and a duty?

Brittany Galla: I feel like I do. I oversee J-14 Magazine and I feel that way when I think of the teenaged reader that I’m targeting. I do think a lot about the reader and a lot about the families that are buying the magazines and what they need and what’s going on. How stressed they could be and maybe they just need 10 minutes with their child to bond, and that’s what I think about every day. I think of the reader and how we can help them bond with their daughter, or their mom, to feel a bit more connected.

In terms of my other magazines, there are so many topics that we cover in J-14 and in Girls’ World, and it’s always about the reader and purpose and how we can make their lives better. And that’s always what I’ve seen my job as.

Samir Husni: What makes you tick and click and get out of bed each morning, looking forward to your day?

Brittany Galla: It’s the reader. I have wanted to work in magazines since I was a young teenager growing up in Long Island. I read all of the magazines: YM, Cosmo Girl, and they weren’t just magazines to me, they were much more. I lived by every word. They really were my bible. They told me about myself and they empowered me. And that’s what drives me. When I think of the reader that I once was and what magazines were able to provide for me, escape, advice, just being a big sister; when I get out of bed every morning, I’m thinking about that same reader and how I can connect with them. And I think about what our reader needs. That really drives me every day.

Samir Husni: If I showed up at your house unexpectedly one evening after work, what would I find you doing; reading on your iPad; watching TV; cooking; reading a book; or something else?

Brittany Galla: I’m obsessed with my dog. My husband and I have a rescue dog named Bo and he’s a Black Lab/Rottweiler mix, and we are just completely obsessive. So, if you were to find me at our house, I would be playing with him or hiking with him or just walking him. I go home and it’s all about Bo. (Laughs) I do some work, but in the mornings I hike with him and as soon as I get home, he just has so much energy, I become completely obsessed and that’s what I’m usually doing after work.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Brittany Galla: I usually just fall right asleep because I’m so tired from the day, but if I do toss and turn a little bit, it’s usually just thinking about all the new ideas we have and how to put them in motion.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

A Mr. Magazine™ Launch Story…

A luxury magazine geared toward the ultra-affluent market, ChicagoMod joins its sister publication, HudsonMod, and gives us a glimpse of modern-day luxury for the Chicago metropolitan area, while also offering international perspectives for its very niche audience.

Shannon Steitz is president and group publisher of MOD Media, the company that produces both ChicagoMod and HudsonMod and said that their newest publication presents a fresh and different look at all the things that pique the interests of individuals who have a minimum annual income of $500,000, which she is the first to admit, is a very niche audience indeed, but one that isn’t being served in the way that ChicagoMod delivers.

I spoke with Shannon recently and we talked about this latest endeavor and how her company, which includes a custom publishing division, focuses on partnering with its clients to meet key marketing objectives, something that Shannon said is a must in the luxury magazine business. She hopes ChicagoMod will create opportunities for its brand partners to connect with Chicago’s most discerning audience and present the “Windy City” as a sought-after worldwide market for them.

The magazine will be distributed six times a year through exclusive in-home delivery to Chicago’s most affluent residents between the ages of 35 and 55, at high-profile events in the Chicago area, and through placement in-room at hotels and resorts and in high-end establishments, such as luxury retailers, spas and private jet terminals. It’s a beautiful, glossy publication that promises to deliver on its tagline of showing its readership how to have a “Life Well Lived.”

So, I hope that you enjoy this up close look into a luxury market magazine and the woman behind it – the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Shannon Steitz, president & publisher, ChicagoMod Magazine.

But first the sound-bites:

On whether people have asked her if she’s out of her mind for producing another luxury title for an already crowded Chicago market: I’ve heard that Chicago is a crowded luxury market before, but I don’t really view it that way. Greenspun and Modern Luxury are there, that’s two publications, and there are some others that we’re certainly aware of as well. But I think that’s just an indication that it’s a viable market, really. Competition is good; I’ve always viewed it that way.

On how her luxury titles differ from the others already in the marketplace: From a content standpoint, people will see a distinction there, in that while it is a Chicago magazine, and we certainly have a lot of Chicago content, there is also international content to serve the discerning appetites of our ultra-affluent readership.

On whether she thinks print is still the best way to reach that readership: I think a customized, multimedia solution is the best way to reach any audience, including the ultra-affluent. Print is one of many pieces of the puzzle, and that’s how we approach all of our client relationships.

On what she offers in that multimedia approach: We approach each relationship with a comprehensive needs analysis, really trying to understand our clients’ objectives and coming up with custom-tailored solutions to meet them. And that’s different for every client.

On what some of those solutions are: It really ranges, but at the end of the day, it’s really about tapping into their perspective buyer who has the ability based on demographics, and we’re able to deliver that more effectively, I feel, than most other media companies.

On the magazine’s tagline “Life Well Lived” and what it means: As far as the meaning of a “Life Well Lived,” we’ve learned over the years by interviewing many, many people and asking them what luxury means to them, it’s so subjective and it means very different things to various people.

On who would be standing in front of her if she could strike the magazine with a magic wand and turn it into a living, breathing human being, and would it be her: It wouldn’t be any one person. I think, certainly, my opinions weigh heavily, in terms of our publications, but at the same time, I look toward others on my team to collaborate and ensure that we’re putting out the very best quality product that we can possibly produce. I’m the type of person that sits in meetings and encourages feedback from my staff, realizing at the end of the day that I don’t know everything, and it’s impossible to stay on top of everything that we have to cover.

On whether her last five years in the publishing business with HudsonMod and now with ChicagoMod has been a walk in a rose garden, or she’s had to face challenges along the way: The first five years of any business is never a walk in a rose garden. (Laughs) I knew that when I set out to do this, so I was never expecting a walk in a rose garden. Also, this industry is a challenge. As you mentioned earlier, there is a lot of competition out there, and there will continue to be, regardless of the misconceptions about print, certainly around niche publications. I feel there is a heavy misconception.

On what motivates her to get out of bed in the mornings: What makes me most satisfied is when I see that our services and our products are working on behalf of our clients, and that we’re having a positive impact on their business. As a former CFO, there’s nothing better than that.

On what’s next for her company: That remains to be seen, but there will certainly be another market next year, and we’ll continue to also grow the custom publishing division of MOD Media as well.

On anything else she’d like to add: I think Chicago is a great city and I’m so thrilled that we chose it for this magazine. I’ve spent a lot of time there. Aside from all of the statistics that support us moving into that territory, it’s just a place that I now consider home myself.

On what someone would find her doing if they showed up unexpectedly to her home one evening: I’m rarely at home, you’d be lucky to catch me there, but you would certainly find me with my dog, Missy. I have a rescue that is half Shar-Pei and half Yellow Labrador. Her pen name is Hudson Maddie, as she grew up in the office of HudsonMod. So, I’m certainly with my dog and my children, when they’re not off playing sports and doing their thing, because they take a lot after their mother, so they’re rarely home as well.

On what keeps her up at night: Just thinking about the things that I wasn’t able to get to during any given day. It’s never fast enough; it’s never good enough; it could always be done better, quicker and differently. So, I’m always looking to, basically, enhance and elevate all that we do as a company, in each and every publication.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Shannon Steitz, president and publisher, ChicagoMod magazine.

Samir Husni: Do people ask are you out your mind because you published a print magazine five years ago, and now you’re doing another one in a very crowded luxury market; what gives?

Shannon Steitz: I’ve heard that Chicago is a crowded luxury market before, but I don’t really view it that way. Greenspun and Modern Luxury are there, that’s two publications, and there are some others that we’re certainly aware of as well. But I think that’s just an indication that it’s a viable market, really. Competition is good; I’ve always viewed it that way.

And we do offer key points of distinction and unique offerings to our clients, so I think there’s room for another publication, and there is certainly room for ChicagoMod.

Samir Husni: When you say there’s room for other publications and other points of differentiation; tell me the DNA of ChicagoMod, and HudsonMod, since you’ve been doing that title for five years now, and how are your titles different from the other luxury titles in the marketplace?

Shannon Steitz: From a content standpoint, people will see a distinction there, in that while it is a Chicago magazine, and we certainly have a lot of Chicago content, there is also international content to serve the discerning appetites of our ultra-affluent readership. In order to receive ChicagoMod, one has to earn a minimum of $500,000 annually, so we want to ensure that we’re serving those appetites with insider perspective and content written by industry experts.

Samir Husni: Do you think print is still the best way to each that audience?

Shannon Steitz: I think a customized, multimedia solution is the best way to reach any audience, including the ultra-affluent. Print is one of many pieces of the puzzle, and that’s how we approach all of our client relationships.

Samir Husni: Can you describe that multimedia approach in your client relationships; what are you offering besides the content of the magazine that is a different experience than they can get with Modern Luxury or Greenspun?

Shannon Steitz: We approach each relationship with a comprehensive needs analysis, really trying to understand our clients’ objectives and coming up with custom-tailored solutions to meet them. And that’s different for every client. More times than not, given our track record on the events side, our clients do want us to host events. So, we typically produce events on their behalf, in addition to digital and other strategic marketing offerings.

Samir Husni: Can you name a few of those solutions?

Shannon Steitz: It really ranges, but at the end of the day, it’s really about tapping into their perspective buyer who has the ability based on demographics, and we’re able to deliver that more effectively, I feel, than most other media companies.

Samir Husni: You’re tagline is “Life Well Lived.” And your Letters from the Publisher are so personalized, they actually reflect your life well lived. Do you see yourself as the persona of the magazine and it’s a reflection of you?

Shannon Steitz: As far as the meaning of a “Life Well Lived,” we’ve learned over the years by interviewing many, many people and asking them what luxury means to them, it’s so subjective and it means very different things to various people.

As far as what I view myself as, that’s an interesting question because I’ve never thought of it. What is top of mind is, I view myself as a businesswoman and an entrepreneur; I love what I do and I think that represents a piece of that “Life Well Lived,” loving what you do every day.

Samir Husni: If you could strike the magazine with a magic wand and turn it into a living, breathing human being, who would be standing before you afterwards? Would it be Shannon Steitz?

Shannon Steitz: It wouldn’t be any one person. I think, certainly, my opinions weigh heavily, in terms of our publications, but at the same time, I look toward others on my team to collaborate and ensure that we’re putting out the very best quality product that we can possibly produce. I’m the type of person that sits in meetings and encourages feedback from my staff, realizing at the end of the day that I don’t know everything, and it’s impossible to stay on top of everything that we have to cover. So, at the end of the day, yes, I think the magazine, of course, represents a fair amount of me personally, but also my staff.

And on our staff we have experts. If there’s an auto feature, it’s written by Ferrari magazine’s former editor in chief, Dom Miliano. He’s an expert and has driven every make and model car prior to writing about it. So, I really look toward my staff quite a bit to ensure that the quality level is there in this publication.

Samir Husni: Has it been a walk in a rose garden for you these last five years with HudsonMod and now with launching ChicagoMod, or have you had some challenges along the way?

Shannon Steitz: The first five years of any business is never a walk in a rose garden. (Laughs) I knew that when I set out to do this, so I was never expecting a walk in a rose garden. Also, this industry is a challenge. As you mentioned earlier, there is a lot of competition out there, and there will continue to be, regardless of the misconceptions about print. And certainly, around niche publications, I feel there is a heavy misconception.

I think we’ve been very fortunate, and we’ve been very blessed at the same time to have had the five years that we’ve had. Part of that is probably luck, and the other part is our hard work. We live this. There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears in every client relationship; in every publication that we produce, especially on our custom publishing side. So, nothing is a walk in the park. (Laughs again)

Samir Husni: What makes Shannon click and tick; what motivates you to get out of bed every morning and look forward to another day in a life well lived?

Shannon Steitz: What makes me most satisfied is when I see that our services and our products are working on behalf of our clients, and that we’re having a positive impact on their business. As a former CFO, there’s nothing better than that.

Samir Husni: You began with New Jersey/New York, now Chicago; what’s next?

Shannon Steitz: (Laughs) That remains to be seen, but there will certainly be another market next year, and we’ll continue to also grow the custom publishing division of MOD Media as well.

Samir Husni: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Shannon Steitz: I think Chicago is a great city and I’m so thrilled that we chose it for this magazine. I’ve spent a lot of time there. Aside from all of the statistics that support us moving into that territory, it’s just a place that I now consider home myself. And I couldn’t be more thrilled.

In fact, we’re premiering the magazine in Chicago very soon and Taylor Kinney and the cast of “Chicago Fire,” a number of athletes and other celebs will all be lining the red carpet.

Samir Husni: If I showed up unexpectedly to your home one evening after work, what do I find you doing; reading a book; watching TV; having a glass of wine; reading a magazine; or just playing with your dog?

Shannon Steitz: I’m rarely at home, you’d be lucky to catch me there, but you would certainly find me with my dog, Missy. I have a rescue that is half Shar-Pei and half Yellow Labrador. Her pen name is Hudson Maddie, as she grew up in the office of HudsonMod. So, I’m certainly with my dog and my children, when they’re not off playing sports and doing their thing, because they take a lot after their mother, so they’re rarely home as well.

Samir Husni: My typical last question; what keeps you up at night?

Shannon Steitz: Just thinking about the things that I wasn’t able to get to during any given day. It’s never fast enough; it’s never good enough; it could always be done better, quicker and differently. So, I’m always looking to, basically, enhance and elevate all that we do as a company, in each and every publication. Occasionally, does that keep me up at night? Absolutely. But not often, because typically when my head hits the pillow, I’m out, preparing to go onto the next day and the next adventure, which I love.

Samir Husni: Thank you.