“The first issue is always the easiest issue to get out. The second issue is probably the hardest one that you’re ever going to do because it just doesn’t come as easy as the first one did. Then once you hit number three and four, and so on, then I think you get those processes down.”
“You asked something about print earlier. And why I’m still doing print. I still walk into neighborhood houses and see a copy of our magazine on the coffee table or see another magazine on a coffee table. And I was thinking to myself why do people keep this stuff right here? Why are they referencing this stuff on their coffee tables?”
A quarterly print publication that showcases one of the fastest growing cities of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, Richardson Life Magazine (RLM) is as unique and interesting as Richardson, Texas itself. The magazine promotes upcoming events and connects people with their local neighbors while educating and informing them.
Mike Obert is a businessman extraordinaire and knew the voice and flavor of Richardson would bring people to the magazine like a pied piper. So along with his wife they decided now was the perfect time to breathe life into the dream. And so RLM was born.
Mr. Magazine™ hopes you enjoy this fascinating read with a man who is still a strong believer in print and proves it every time with his new magazine. The Mr. Magazine™ interview with Mike Obert, Publisher, RLM Magazine.
But first the sound bites:
On why he still believes in print and city/regional magazines in this day and age: I think print still resonates. And for doing city/regional type magazines, I think they’re extremely strong because I believe each city needs some sort of voice or flavor to go to for the information they want and need about some particular city.
On why now was the right time to publish this magazine: I think we’ve had success in some of the community magazines that we’ve done. And we just knew that the city that we were in needed that same sort of voice and there was nothing out there. We looked at it for probably two years and just decided to go ahead and launch this thing. And we’ve had tremendous response and feedback from people saying this is awesome.
On the many hats he wears and which he prefers; being a magazine publisher, ad guy, or outsource person: Probably a magazine publisher. I love that back-of-the-napkin strategy of putting numbers together. And should we do this story or this feature, and can we target these advertisers? So the publishing part to me is very exciting.
On whether it was a walk in a rose garden publishing this magazine or there were some challenges along the way:The launch of the magazine, because of the outsourcing that we do as well, probably made it a little bit easier for us to put it together because the engine was already there to put together a publication and get a website out.
On how an outsourcing company helps when launching a magazine: I think for me, the outsourcing provided us a lot of that back office-admin type stuff. Sending invoices, tracking payments, making sure ad copy was in. All those small little details that in the past for me has kept me up late at night.
On how he overcame any challenges with the magazine: I think it’s all process-oriented. Creating that process, even as you’re going through it, even if it’s an initial launch; when you’re going through that process you make sure that you’re documenting all the steps so that it’s easier for people to walk in. My take on any city/regional community type magazine that I’ve been a part of, is first off having that formula and the formula being what’s going to be my content?
On whether he and his team have ever questioned what was or was not in the magazine: I think you always kind of second guess it. I’m probably not a perfectionist. To me it’s always get it out, we can fix it and correct it. Print it. I’ve had a lot of conversations with my editor about the digital side of things and it doesn’t have to be perfect to get it out, because you can always change the digital side of things. The print side of things, I get it, let’s make sure that we’re not making a huge mistake or doing something that we don’t want to be out there.
On when someone asks him for advice on starting a new magazine, does he encourage or tell them they’ve lost their minds: I normally say, don’t do it. That’s the first thing I say, don’t do it. And then I say, why do you think you should do this? And then it’s what I said earlier. I think there’s been a lot of great editorial and content ideas that have been out there. It all comes down to that salesperson. And how are you going to generate revenue. A lot of people overlook that.
On how important it is to him to be a part of the community his magazine is about: I think it’s pretty important that they have the contacts, that they know the people to go after. I always tell people that I’m changing the world one quarter page at a time. I still sell ads. But I think I’m doing it not in an overbearing way. People know what my product is, and they know who I’m reaching.
On what he hopes to say about the magazine in a year: I would say a year from now that we’ll have a more clear formula for each issue. We’ve got a good blueprint in place. I think we’re still tweaking it a little bit, but as I said we don’t want to reinvent every issue. It doesn’t have to have something about new restaurants in Richardson or what new businesses have been launched around here.
On his busyness and when he sleeps: The outsourcing company has taken a ton of work off my plate. I’ve got my own personal executive assistant that does a lot of tasks for me. Before this call, I was on with her talking about the three things I need to get done today, including putting our digital issue up online and getting the social media plan ready for whenever issue number two drops. So all those kind of things are flowing through other people, which will free up the time that I have.
On any critique he’s had so far on the magazine: If I had any type of critique for issue number one it was the distribution and the circulation. Richardson is a town of 100,000, and we sent it to 15,000 people. Kind of cherry picked some of the different neighborhoods, more affluent neighborhoods. So if I had any kind of critique it was why didn’t you send it to 100,000 people? And that costs a lot of money. (Laughs) But that’s the only feedback that I’ve gotten on what I could have done differently.
On anything he’d like to add: There was one thing I was thinking about. I think you said something about print earlier. And why I’m still doing print. I still walk into neighborhood houses and see a copy of our magazine on the coffee table or see another magazine on a coffee table.
On what keeps him up at night: The price of paper. That keeps me up, though I think it’s kind of stabilized a little bit. From the business perspective there’s some things that I’m working on, such as some acquisitions. And I’m diligently working through a lot of spreadsheets. And it’s dipping my toe in the water versus jumping cannonball style in the deep in and let’s go. So I think that’s the main thing that’s been keeping me up at night right now, how fast do I want to go?
And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Mike Obert, Publisher, RLM Magazine.
Samir Husni: You’re a man of many hats, including now publishing a magazine for the city of Richardson, Texas. What’s the idea behind publishing a new city magazine, and specifically in print in this day and age?
Mike Obert: I think print still resonates. And for doing city/regional type magazines, I think they’re extremely strong because I believe each city needs some sort of voice or flavor to go to for the information they want and need about some particular city. And with the decline, I think of newspapers having the daily news content, that information, there still needs to be something that is going to tell the story of a city or a region. So that’s why I’m a big fan, a huge fan of the city/regional magazines.
Samir Husni: And what about the timing? I take it you and your wife are the engines behind this magazine?
Mike Obert: We are.
Samir Husni: Why did you decide now was the right time for this magazine?
Mike Obert: I think we’ve had success in some of the community magazines that we’ve done. And we just knew that the city that we were in needed that same sort of voice and there was nothing out there. We looked at it for probably two years and just decided to go ahead and launch this thing. And we’ve had tremendous response and feedback from people saying this is awesome.
Samir Husni: From the many hats you wear, which one do you prefer? Being a magazine publisher, ad director, or an outsource guy?
Mike Obert: Probably a magazine publisher. I love that back-of-the-napkin strategy of putting numbers together. And should we do this story or this feature, and can we target these advertisers? So the publishing part to me is very exciting.
Samir Husni: Has this magazine been a walk in a rose garden for you to publish or have you faced some challenges along the way?
Mike Obert: The launch of the magazine, because of the outsourcing that we do as well, probably made it a little bit easier for us to put it together because the engine was already there to put
together a publication and get a website out. I always say when launching any type of magazine, you’ve got to have good content and you’ve got to have a salesperson. Without those two things nothing else is going to work. So just making sure that I had those two things in place, I could plug the rest of it in later.
Samir Husni: What do you surrender from an outsourcing company that helps someone launch a new magazine?
Mike Obert: I think for me, the outsourcing provided us a lot of that back office-admin type stuff. Sending invoices, tracking payments, making sure ad copy was in. All those small little details that in the past for me has kept me up late at night.
The sending out of emails, where people wake up the next morning and ask, what were you doing up till 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. Even little things like charging credit cards after an issue goes out; it’s all just a very time consuming, repetitive task. And so the outsourcing firm that we have provides me the extra time so that I can get other things done for the magazine and keep it going.
Samir Husni: Going back to the rose garden, did you have any challenges along the way and if so how did you overcome them?
Mike Obert: I wouldn’t say it was a thorny Rose Garden. There were roses there and it felt good. But every time you picked a flower you might have had a little bit of a challenge picking that flower because of the thorns on it.
How did we overcome it? I mean, I think it’s all process-oriented. Creating that process, even as you’re going through it, even if it’s an initial launch; when you’re going through that process you make sure that you’re documenting all the steps so that it’s easier for people to walk in. My take on any city/regional community type magazine that I’ve been a part of, is first off having that formula and the formula being what’s going to be my content? I stress with my editors and my content, don’t reinvent the magazine every time we go to press because it’s just going to be too difficult.
The first issue is always the easiest issue to get out. The second issue is probably the hardest one that you’re ever going to do because it just doesn’t come as easy as the first one did. Then once
you hit number three and four, and so on, then I think you get those processes down. You figure out what’s going to be easier, pieces of content to be able to do each month, and you’re not trying
to hit a home run with every issue per se, but you need to have that templated format so that you can generate that content and get that publication to print.
Samir Husni: Did you ever think after the first issue was out that we should not have had this in it or oops we failed to mention this?
Mike Obert: Yes, I think you always kind of second guess it. I’m probably not a perfectionist. To me it’s always get it out, we can fix it and correct it. Print it. I’ve had a lot of conversations with my editor about the digital side of things and it doesn’t have to be perfect to get it out, because you can always change the digital side of things. The print side of things, I get it, let’s make sure that we’re not making a huge mistake or doing something that we don’t want to be out there.
But at the same time let’s not over polish the apple on every issue. Things are going to happen. So I come from that standpoint of let’s just learn from it and move on. Where my editor was stressing all the way up to the last second, asking did I change that? Is that correct?
Samir Husni: If somebody asks you about starting a new city/regional magazine, do you encourage them or tell them they’re out of their minds?
Mike Obert: I normally say, don’t do it. That’s the first thing I say, don’t do it. And then I say, why do you think you should do this? And then it’s what I said earlier. I think there’s been a lot of great editorial and content ideas that have been out there. It all comes down to that salesperson. And how are you going to generate revenue. A lot of people overlook that.
And the ad sales part, it’s not rocket science. But it’s not easy. So just making sure that you’re aligned with that person. A lot of publishers become that salesperson because they are so passionate about their product and their market that they take that part on and people trust them. And so they’re willing to advertise with them.
But I do tell people whenever they come to me to pause for a second. Make sure that you understand the sales part of it before you just jump in.
Samir Husni: In your case, how important is it for the salesperson to be a part of the community or a resident of the community if you’re going to launch a city magazine?
Mike Obert: I think it’s pretty important that they have the contacts, that they know the people to go after. I always tell people that I’m changing the world one quarter page at a time. I still sell ads. But I think I’m doing it not in an overbearing way. People know what my product is, and they know who I’m reaching. So I’ll probably get more people calling in about wanting to reach this audience.
There’s a lot of times you can send out emails or talk to people about getting into the magazine. But I think you need to have somebody that knows the key people and the right people to be able to launch the magazine.
Samir Husni: If you and I are talking a year from now, what would you hope tell me about RLM?
Mike Obert: I would say a year from now that we’ll have a more clear formula for each issue. We’ve got a good blueprint in place. I think we’re still tweaking it a little bit, but as I said we don’t want to reinvent every issue. It doesn’t have to have something about new restaurants in Richardson or what new businesses have been launched around here.
So if you’re coming to me from a year from now, I would say that. I’ve got that formula for the Richardson Life Magazine out. I’ve got a bunch of committed advertisers that are in for a year or two years’ worth of commitments. And we’re getting content that’s coming to us through the front door, and that we’re not having to completely reach out every time.
Samir Husni: You launched this magazine; you still have your outsourcing business; you have your family to take care of; when do you sleep?
Mike Obert: (Laughs) It’s a good question. I’m pretty consistent with going to bed as soon as the kids all go to bed. I’m always the first one up around the house so that I can get some things in before things start moving around here.
And it’s summer here. Things are a little crazier than normal. But the outsourcing company has taken a ton of work off my plate. I’ve got my own personal executive assistant that does a lot of tasks for me. Before this call, I was on with her talking about the three things I need to get done today, including putting our digital issue up online and getting the social media plan ready for whenever issue number two drops. So all those kind of things are flowing through other people, which will free up the time that I have.
Samir Husni: You mentioned that the reaction for the first issue has been very positive. Did
anybody critique anything?
Mike Obert: If I had any type of critique for issue number one it was the distribution and the circulation. Richardson is a town of 100,000, and we sent it to 15,000 people. Kind of cherry picked some of the different neighborhoods, more affluent neighborhoods. So if I had any kind of critique it was why didn’t you send it to 100,000 people? And that costs a lot of money. (Laughs) But that’s the only feedback that I’ve gotten on what I could have done differently.
Samir Husni: When is the second issue coming out?
Mike Obert: The second issue is at the printer right now and it should be out very soon.
Samir Husni: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Mike Obert: There was one thing I was thinking about. I think you asked something about print earlier. And why I’m still doing print. I still walk into neighborhood houses and see a copy of our magazine on the coffee table or see another magazine on a coffee table. And I was thinking to myself why do people keep this stuff right here? Why are they referencing this stuff on their coffee tables?
I’ve had a lot of advertisers that I’ve talked to about the difference between advertising in a city/regional community type of magazine versus just direct mail. And I’m mailing all of our magazines directly to homes. My point always has been when I go to the mailbox and I pick up
everything out of the mailbox, a magazine doesn’t go straight into the trash. It usually sits out and people will flip through it.
Sometimes I don’t know if my wife wanted this magazine or not, so I’m not going to toss it out. If I go and I get those 4X6 direct mail pieces, those are typically, if it doesn’t relate specifically to me, those are going straight into the trash.
So I always think of it of like I’m impacting these local community retailers, businesses and shops by delivering the audience they want to reach. So I’m connecting businesses with consumers. And to me, I think it’s pretty powerful that people hold on to these. They collect them. They know their neighbors, they know the different businesses. So to me, that just gives me a little bit of passion to what I do.
Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night?
Mike Obert: The price of paper. That keeps me up, though I think it’s kind of stabilized a little bit. From the business perspective there’s some things that I’m working on, such as some acquisitions. And I’m diligently working through a lot of spreadsheets. And it’s dipping my toe in the water versus jumping cannonball style in the deep in and let’s go. So I think that’s the main thing that’s been keeping me up at night right now, how fast do I want to go?
“We tend to reach consumers over 40 plus or 50 plus, who grew up with magazines, loved the experience of magazines; who miss magazines. They’ll tell you stories of what their favorite magazines were and how they’ve changed.”
“I believe that there are consumers who want to guarantee that this magazine comes to them. That when they go, when the weather turns and the leaves fall and they move to their second home in Florida or California or Palm Springs or back to Boston or back to the city, they want it in their mailbox. And that consumer is absolutely going to pay for it and go to their mailbox.”
The B, a magazine of the Berkshires, is a regional title that is both very well connected to the Massachusetts area and is a new launch. Michelle Thorpe Petricca is the publisher of the magazine and brings immense talent and experience to this position. Michelle has been a fixture at Condé Nast in the past and carries a lot of deeply held beliefs about magazines, especially print ones.
The B celebrates life in the Berkshires and beyond, but also provides entertainment and knowledge about the area for people moving there or visiting. It’s a stylish title with a host of possibilities. Mr. Magazine™ suggests that you find your copy today.
So please enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Michelle Thorpe Petricca, Publisher Of The B Magazine.
But first the sound-bites:
On how it feels to work on a smaller-sized publication than she’s used to: I love a launch. And I was part of Condé Nast with the launch of Lucky magazine, from the very beginning. And it has the same energy and the same excitement. Obviously, not the depths of floors of departments and support, however it’s energizing and thrilling for me to be part of that.
On one of her Condé Nast colleagues’ starting his own media company and magazine: I worked with Alan Katz’s wife for years at Self Magazine. I think Alan and Cheryl are just two very talented people. And I think what it shows is that there are stories to be told in this region, and there’s a lot of enthusiasm and passion for this region. And the fact that both are doing very well speaks to this untapped market in many ways. There’s a real hunger to be closer to the community.
On why she thinks people like herself still believe in magazines and in print: There’s absolutely a desire for certain segments of a population to enjoy the print experience. And I would say that that segment of the population in our community is not going to be Gen. Z though they are enjoying it. We tend to reach consumers over 40 plus or 50 plus, who grew up with magazines, loved the experience of magazines; who miss magazines. They’ll tell you stories of what their favorite magazines were and how they’ve changed.
On whether only print can link the past with the future in the present: You definitely found one of the most powerful platforms that we have at The B, and that literally is the archives of the Eagle which are situated in the basement here of the Clock Tower Building in Pittsfield. And if you came to the Berkshires and I brought you down there, your mind would be blown by the files and the archives of the history of Norman Rockwell, of Tanglewood and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
On whether the magazine was an easy launch: My husband was from the Berkshires. His family has been here for 100 years. His grandfather moved here from Italy, slept in a tent, built a wonderful business that’s going strong. And I didn’t think that this opportunity was possible, to be able to tap this passion I have for print. And I feel so fortunate that the Eagle recognized and held a high value to print and that they invested in me.
Michelle Petricca, right, with editor in chief Amy Conway.
On any challenges or roadblocks they had to overcome: So what have we overcome? I would say that introducing a new print product, you really had to pass a lot of litmus tests here because I think they’ve seen other publications in the area before and they weren’t always done by magazine people. They may have been done by newspaper people ensuring that you were going to deliver what you promised.
On whether the magazine is moving from controlled circulation to subscription: That is in the works. I believe that there are consumers who want to guarantee that this magazine comes to them. That when they go, when the weather turns and the leaves fall and they move to their second home in Florida or California or Palm Springs or back to Boston or back to the city, they want it in their mailbox. And that consumer is absolutely going to pay for it and go to their mailbox.
On the wantedness factor that print inspires: Yes, exactly. I was spending some time in Barnes & Noble in Pittsfield the other day. Magazines seem to still be alive by the number of publications and special interest titles and the ones that are still available to consumers.
On anything she’d like to add: As far as the B, people want a connection to the community, so much so that even on the grounds where we live there’s a massive reckoning going on with the Native American tribes that lived here. Many of the cultural institutions, like Jacob’s Pillow, which is one of the oldest historic dance sites in the country and Beckett Hits in Beckett. Massachusetts; at the bottom of every single of their email signatures, they say we are on the lands of the Munsee Native Tribes, so there’s a whole connection. The good and the painful in our community. That’s why there’s still so many untold stories here.
On what keeps her up at night: From a professional level, it would be to make sure that we got it right. That it was factually correct. We have a responsibility to do it right. And so oftentimes I circulate stories to the editors here, to other people in our community. To have them look through it to make sure it’s right, because the last thing I ever want to do is have any stain that reflects any print journalist that is here. So getting it right is important. That keeps me awake at night.
And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Michelle Thorpe Petricca, publisher The B Magazine.
Samir Husni: Congratulations on The B Magazine.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: Thank you, I appreciate that.
Samir Husni: How does it feel? Moving from magazines like Lucky and Allure with hundreds of thousands in circulation to launch a small-sized publication, a beautiful publication, but one that elevates like fifteen thousand in circulation?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: I love a launch. And I was part of Condé Nast with the launch of Lucky magazine, from the very beginning. And it has the same energy and the same excitement. Obviously, not the depths of floors of departments and support, however it’s energizing and thrilling for me to be part of that.
And then I was also part of US Weekly when it turned from a monthly to a weekly magazine. So I was prepared for the unexpected because the unexpected always happens with a launch. But I would say that being a part of the Berkshire Eagle, which is one of the longest continuously run newspapers in the country, it started in 1892, they have the same commitment to facts and credibility and to getting it right. Much like Condé Nast always wanted to do and does and still does.
Samir Husni: Your previous colleague, Alan Katz, also started The Mountains magazine. Now there’s two or three graduates from Condé Nast who started and launched magazines outside.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: That’s right. In fact, I worked with Alan Katz’s wife for years at Self Magazine. I think Alan and Cheryl are just two very talented people. And I think what it shows is that there are stories to be told in this region, and there’s a lot of enthusiasm and passion for this region. And the fact that both are doing very well speaks to this untapped market in many ways. There’s a real hunger to be closer to the community.
Alan, his focus is seven counties, so it’s broader. He’s got Sullivan County, Catskills, seven counties. I’m focused on three counties, Berkshire County, Columbia County and Litchfield County. So there is a point of difference there. And there’s a point of difference with our voices. But that being said, I think it’s fabulous. I really do. Allen and his team are doing a great job.
Samir Husni: Michelle, it’s so rare to see small, regional magazines bringing in top publishers, top editors, national folks, like in your case. Like Amy Conway, who’s been the editor of Health Magazine, and Martha Stewart Wedding. Why do you think people like you and Amy still believe in this business, in print and in bringing a magazine into the world?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: That’s a great question. There’s absolutely a desire for certain segments of a population to enjoy the print experience. And I would say that that segment of the population in our community is not going to be Gen. Z though they are enjoying it. We tend to reach consumers over 40 plus or 50 plus, who grew up with magazines, loved the experience of magazines; who miss magazines. They’ll tell you stories of what their favorite magazines were
and how they’ve changed. And maybe they’re not happy about some changes. So there was certainly a desire to bring magazines back into their life.
More importantly, they want the things that magazines are, well-written and visually appealing. And it’s interesting, when I worked at Allure and worked for Linda Wells, she would often talk about how a magazine would bring you to this magical place, and Allure would share possible visions of a different self, of all the possibilities that were out there for you. And how you want to present yourself to the world.
And so that aspiration and that inspiration is found in print, in these glossy, four color magazines. And when you come to a community, particularly like the Berkshires, you’re seeking pleasure. You’re seeking entertainment. You’re seeking visual experience of the outdoors, art, culture, theater. And so they’re pleasure-seekers and magazines bring a lot of pleasure. They’re very proud of where they live or where they have second homes, or where they’re visiting. And they have it in their homes. That is the greatest compliment. When someone says to me. I have guests coming up this weekend, and I made sure The B was in the guest room for them because they want to know more about where they’re visiting. And so print brings you closer to the experience. I think that that’s why it’s resonating with consumers today.
The other part of my experience was spending time at a company called Modern Luxury, which published 84 magazines in 22 markets. And so I worked at Modern Luxury while I lived here in the Berkshires and I commuted back and forth. I got to see just how personal it was for these city titles to these particular communities.
I remember it was Erin Lauder at Estee Lauder who wanted us to plan an event in Dallas, Neiman Marcus for a launch of one of her fragrances. And I heard from her team that these were the dates available in Dallas. So I call up Neiman’s and said this is when we’re going to have the luncheon and they said, whoa, we can’t do it that date. And I’m like, it’s Aaron Lauder, of course you can do it that day. And they explained, oh, no, that’s the Texas/OU football game day. And all the jets fly in from Oklahoma. And there are big Gala’s and parties all around his event.
So, I was able to bring that information back from the Dallas team of our local boots on the ground, and of Neiman Marcus local and go back to Estee lauder and say, well, here’s why that date doesn’t work.
So, understanding the ebbs and flows of a local community are really important and it makes you have a better event or better print project product. Or helps you connect brands and advertisers to that community in a more relevant and more powerful way.
Samir Husni: That art of storytelling is so obvious since you are also reaching to the archives of the newspaper from 1789 on and using some of those pictures. Do you think only print can link the past with the future during the present?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: What a great question. You definitely found one of the most powerful platforms that we have at The B, and that literally is the archives of the Eagle which are situated in the basement here of the Clock Tower Building in Pittsfield. And if you came to the Berkshires and I brought you down there, your mind would be blown by the files and the archives of the history of Norman Rockwell, of Tanglewood and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
You’re transported when you walk downstairs and you go into these files of pictures that you’re holding that the Eagle owns. And so I don’t have any obstacles of publishing them. And knowing that there are people here that I can turn to… in fact, they have two Pulitzer Prize winning journalists on their editorial advisory board here. And being able to get it right, which is so important here at the Eagle is to tap those archives to connect the past of our community to the present.
And so when we take a topic, the summer issue right now is at press, and the theme is music. And music plays an outsized role here in the Berkshires, as you can imagine with the home of Boston Symphony Orchestra all summer long. But it goes back even further than that.
And our goal is, when this magazine comes out, that local mavens who have lived here for generations, to the tourists who happen to be staying at the Red Lion Inn, to a second homeowner from Williams College who loves the Berkshires, is to surprise them and to educate them, to help bring them closer to this community.
So we literally went into the fields of a place called The Music Inn, which is in Stockbridge, and was part of an old gilded-age estate called Wheatleigh. The Music Inn was a home in the 1960s of something called the Lenox School of Jazz, where black musicians would teach white musicians who came over from Tanglewood at night. And that school then turned in the ‘70s into something called The Music Inn where Bruce Springsteen played, the Allman Brothers, BB King, and we literally went for the music issue and spent time in a place called the Potting Shed, which is a home to this woman now who has a plaque to all the musicians that played on those grounds.
And so being able to walk those fields and give the history and bring the photographers, such as the talented Ben Garver, who is photographer for the Berkshire Eagle really helps bring the music experience to life. And then it also happened that really well known journalists like Tony Gervino, who was the editor in chief of Billboard Magazine and is currently the editor in chief of Jack Dorsey’s Title, a streaming music platform, happens to have a home in the Berkshires, and he’s like, I’d love to write an article for The B. And so when you live in a community where you can tap this talent, it helps make it an even stronger editorial product.
Samir Husni: You sound like you’re on Cloud Nine. Tell me, has the magazine launch been a walk in a rose garden for you?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: It was really hard for me to leave Condé Nast in 2013. I mean, Allure was on fire. It was just so successful. And I loved the team. And I loved working with Agnes Chapski and Linda Wells and the whole Condé Nast family.
I moved for love. My husband was from the Berkshires. His family has been here for 100 years. His grandfather moved here from Italy, slept in a tent, built a wonderful business that’s going strong. And I didn’t think that this opportunity was possible, to be able to tap this passion I have for print. And I feel so fortunate that the Eagle recognized and held a high value to print and that they invested in me.
And then, of course, Amy Conway, our editor in chief, whose voice… it’s what she’s been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. And you can tell she was Martha Stewart’s right arm for 20 years. And Amy knows how to tell a story. She really does. And she has been a complete joy and delight to work with, and I mean it. We speak the same language, and we were able to tap a local designer here, Julie Hammil, who creates a lot of visuals for a lot of the cultural economy institutions here such as Berkshire Botanical Gardens, or the Berkshire School. And so we were able to really go local here. And that meant a lot. Yes, I am on Cloud Nine. (Laughs)
Samir Husni: Any challenges or roadblocks that you have had to overcome?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: So what have we overcome? I would say that introducing a new print product, you really had to pass a lot of litmus tests here because I think they’ve seen other publications in the area before and they weren’t always done by magazine people. They may have been done by newspaper people ensuring that you were going to deliver what you promised.
So it happened fast. I literally was at an event with Hans Morris, who was one of the saviors of the Berkshire Eagle with a few other individuals who saved this incredible historic newspaper brand. And I was at an event with him, I guess maybe September or October. And we started talking. He used to be president of Visa and now is at NYCA Partners in New York and he knew my experience in magazines. He said let’s do it and I asked, seriously? And he said yes.
So going from October to launching a magazine in basically April was fast without having hired an editor, without even having a name or an editorial calendar, the specs and the press. It was definitely a lot of sleepless nights. But it was so personal. And that would be an obstacle because I didn’t want to walk into my local grocery store and say hi to my butcher or the florist and for them to say it didn’t really work. I really wanted to make them proud and I would say that was an obstacle. Having to deliver, I would say that was a challenge.
And then advertising, people literally writing checks from their own bank accounts, ensuring that you are going to deliver on what you’re promising. And ensuring trust in you. It is helpful that they knew who I was and they knew my husband. And they knew the Berkshire Eagle. That could be considered an obstacle. But my goodness, we doubled the number of advertisers and revenue in the summer issue.
But let’s be clear. This is not necessarily a done success. We have three more issues to go with different editorial themes. We’re experimenting with a wedding issue. And so some of these things are unproven. But I do believe that we have the perfect alchemy at the moment and that things look positive, but it’s not done. You know that path, there could still be plenty of obstacles, especially as we try to figure out a formula for subscriptions versus controlled circulation. Figuring and navigating that I’m sure will be an interesting endeavor.
Samir Husni: Are you moving from controlled circulation to subscription?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: That is in the works. I believe that there are consumers who want to guarantee that this magazine comes to them. That when they go, when the weather turns and the leaves fall and they move to their second home in Florida or California or Palm Springs or back to Boston or back to the city, they want it in their mailbox. And that consumer is absolutely going to pay for it and go to their mailbox.
But I also believe that we could do a hybrid model that has some control distribution in places like Canyon Ranch or fine museums or restaurants. And that we can also still sell it in some places because there isn’t going to be an unlimited number of copies floating around. People are going to see it and they’re going to want it. And if they can’t find it, they’re not going to be happy about it. There’s a wantedness to this and there’s a scarcity model to this, so I do believe that a hybrid model will work.
Samir Husni: I think that wantedness is an important word you mentioned because. Again that’s what continues to differentiate print from the rest of the media that’s out there.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: Yes, exactly. I was spending some time in Barnes & Noble in Pittsfield the other day. Magazines seem to still be alive by the number of publications and special interest titles and the ones that are still available to consumers.
I just think that this is personal to people here. And so when it’s personal and you’re writing about their community, they’re not seeing this online. They’re not reading about this really anywhere else. That it means something different and there’s a different value to it. Especially when you’re supporting their causes that are their passion points. We live in a community that wants to give back, that wants to help out, that supports the arts. That is incredibly inclusive. And our intention is always to profile those saints and eccentrics that really romp our beloved County. And people want to support that and want to be part of that.
Samir Husni: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: I guess the question is, if you lived here, Samir, or you were a second homeowner, would you subscribe to The B?
Samir Husni: (Laughs) Of course I would. My wife always asks me, why are you still getting magazines after we donated all our magazines to the University of Missouri where they are establishing the Samir Husni magazine collection in the library?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: That’s incredible.
Samir Husni: 188,300 magazines. It took two 18-wheelers.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: Do you have photos or a video of that happening?
Samir Husni: Yes. Actually they are doing a video on the whole transfer of the magazines from my storage units to the Library of Missouri.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: Will it be on your blog?
Samir Husni: Once they send it to me, I will definitely put it on the blog.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: Thank you! That’s magical. I can’t wait to see that. As far as The B, people want a connection to the community, so much so that even on the grounds where we live there’s a massive reckoning going on with the Native American tribes that lived here. Many of the cultural institutions, like Jacob’s Pillow, which is one of the oldest historic dance sites in the country and Beckett Hits in Beckett. Massachusetts; at the bottom of every single of their email signatures, they say we are on the lands of the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, so there’s a whole connection. The good and the painful in our community. That’s why there’s still so many untold stories here.
Samir Husni: As long as you continue telling stories, you will continue to thrive and succeed.
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: I hope so.
Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night?
Michelle Thorpe Petricca: From a professional level, it would be to make sure that we got it right. That it was factually correct. We have a responsibility to do it right. And so oftentimes I circulate stories to the editors here, to other people in our community. To have them look through it to make sure it’s right, because the last thing I ever want to do is have any stain that reflects any print journalist that is here. So getting it right is important. That keeps me awake at night.
Even when we lay out the magazine, not being sensitive to advertisers as to where they are placed. Maybe that goes back to my Condé Nast days where, and this is probably not an appropriate story, but I was at Self magazine and we were laying out the magazine and we had a Revlon ad and the Revlon ad said, it’s a good hair day, and it was opposite of a Wonder Bra
ad that said, who cares if it’s a bad hair day. (Laughs)
And that was probably 1996 and it still haunts me to this day. You have to make sure that you’re sensitive to if I am this architect or this shop and I’m opposite this editorial, how does that impact me. And that keeps me up at night on a professional level, because I think about it. It’s their business and they care so much about this ad. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a one six or full page, this means so much to them into their budget into their marketing plans that I really
“We believe in print and the transportive nature that it can provide and disconnecting from the blue screen, from the noise, from the constant chaos of our screens in the digital world for just a little bit. And with that in mind, we really wanted to create this beautiful print product that reminds people and returns people to understanding that there is quality to be had behind those experiences and behind those products.”
“And that’s really what we’re aiming for with Full Pour. It’s not you get your subscription, you flip through it in the restroom and you throw it away after five minutes, having not really read or retained any information from it. This is a beautiful package that you see, and you just want to spend time with it. You want to give yourself the excuse and the reason to really dive into the stories, to the beautiful imagery, to the wonderful feel and smell of the paper. I still believe that there is something behind that smell that people love. (Laughs)
According to the world at large, beginning a print magazine in these days and times is a really bad idea. People want the digital experience; the instantaneous gratification they feel when they get something online in a matter of minutes, seconds even. Of course, most of you know how Mr. Magazine™ feels: the word baloney comes to mind.
To prove my point in a huge way, please allow me to introduce you to Full Pour magazine and Lauren Buzzeo. Full Pour is a new print publication about wine, beer, tea; all kinds of beverages, alcoholic and non-alcoholic.
I spoke with Lauren recently and we talked about this new magazine and her decades of experience in the business. Working at Wine Enthusiast magazine for 16 years was a position that she stepped away from knowing that she wanted to start her own magazine and do things her own way. And that she did. Full Pour is beautiful and informative. I hope you will get a copy ASAP.
Meanwhile, enjoy this Mr. Magazine™ interview with Lauren Buzzeo, editor and publisher, Full Pour magazine.
But first the sound bites:
On what she was thinking to start a print magazine in 2023: (Laughs) Obviously, I don’t know; it is a very questionable choice, I know. But honestly at the heart of it, print and magazines are my passion. It’s always been something that I’ve been incredibly passionate about. And certainly from a professional and educational perspective, that’s what I got my degree in, in terms of English and Journalism, and I’ve worked in magazines for nearly two decades now and in publishing production overall. So it’s a format that I know and love and believe in.
On her new business model and the partnerships she’s making: What I came up with is a program that we call our “Flow-Into Community” program. And what that means is our advertising partners, and we will work with only one advertising partner per category per issue. So there’s not going to be tons and tons of advertisements, that’s not the magazine format we’re looking for. We’re really looking for very specialized, high-quality partnerships with dedicated partners that we know and believe in and similarly know and believe in what we’re doing.
On what people have said about the first issue which is out: Issue one is out. It came into the world officially at the end of March, and the response has been so overwhelmingly positive. I’m so grateful for it. I think at the end of the day, I created a magazine that I really felt was needed in the space and that I selfishly, really wanted to read and see myself in. The hopes that there were other people out there like me that wanted to see the same. And the response that we’ve received from the first issue tells us that indeed we were not alone.
On the esoterica of the magazine and whether she is trying to save the world with its creation: You’re right, even down to the mailer that we ship our single issues in. It’s cornstarch-based, it’s not plastic. So it’s 100 percent biodegradable and compostable. Because again to us every little bit that we can do that makes a difference helps. We’re not going to save the world; we’re not going to really change the world, but we can change what we do.
On any challenges she has faced along the way: I don’t know any magazine that’s a walk in a rose garden. But I will say that I am incredibly passionate and incredibly happy and fortunate to have had this opportunity to create this magazine. I wake up and I work all the time, every day. But I am so energized and so happy to be putting that effort and that energy into something that I believe in so greatly. And that has received such wonderful feedback from other people who are appreciative of those efforts as well.
On the uniqueness of the cover, black and white on the front, color on the back: I think at the end of the day we take our content very seriously, and we very much believe in telling the stories behind the bottles in a very informative way. So I’m not necessarily interested in more surface-generated content, more quick takes, infographics, buying lists, things of that nature. We really believe in getting into the stories of the who, the why, the how, the history, the geographic locations, whatever it may be to really provide that information to consumers to empower them to make those purchasing choices on their own for whatever needs they may have.
On the name Full Pour: Honestly, I dreamed it. I created the logo as well. The Pour is my penmanship. The Full part is a font type, but before I designed that, I drew it. It was in my mind, came to me in a dream. And so it was always something around Pour. Singularly “Pour” didn’t really seem to, I don’t know, land or resonate the way that I really wanted it to.
On anything she’d like to add: I’ll say on a side note my favorite page to put together for the spring issue was the contributors page. It brought me such great joy to be able to work with so many wonderful writers, artists, illustrators, and talent from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives.
On being her own boss: It feels great, but it feels scary. It feels liberating, but it feels empowering. There are so many emotions that go along with entrepreneurship that are intimidating and can cause apprehension sometimes, but at the end of the day are so infinitely rewarding that it outweighs to me any of the potential downfalls. So yes, it’s been great.
On what keeps her up at night: What keeps me up at night is finding enough hours in the day. I also have two small children. I have an eight year old son and a two and a half year old daughter. So I am a mom in addition to being a business owner. And sometimes finding the balance, the work life balance and the hours in the day to accomplish all of the things that I want to accomplish, is not an easy feat.
And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Lauren Buzzeo, editor and publisher, Full Pour magazine.
Samir Husni: First, congratulations on the new magazine.
Lauren Buzzeo: Thank you so much.
Samir Husni: My first question to you is what were you thinking to start a print magazine in 2023?
Lauren Buzzeo: (Laughs) Obviously, I don’t know; it is a very questionable choice, I know. But honestly at the heart of it, print and magazines are my passion. It’s always been something that I’ve been incredibly passionate about. And certainly from a professional and educational perspective, that’s what I got my degree in, in terms of English and Journalism, and I’ve worked in magazines for nearly two decades now and in publishing production overall. So it’s a format that I know and love and believe in.
The reason that I stepped away from my former position after nearly 16 years of working at Wine Enthusiast magazine was that for so many people over the last few years there was a lot of dialogue and consideration and retrospective thinking and realignment so to speak, in terms of priorities and what you want to leave your mark on in this world.
And to me I just saw that there was a need and a desire, hopefully beyond myself, for a new print product, specifically in the drinks media space that was really more of an organic and holistic view of the modern drinks landscape. I think a lot of legacy drinks’ magazines are very much beholding to either their namesake or their legacy audience. I think there’s a tie-in between the two.
But try as they might to sort of adapt and evolve and integrate other areas in the drinks and beverage world, it just never really lands or feels completely authentic or well-received from their audience that might be expecting something more singular from them, in terms of scope and coverage.
So to me, knowing how I consumed content and my passion for quality drinks and consumables across all categories, and just seeing other people around me: friends, family, co-workers, other professionals, and how they were enjoying beverages without this sort of dated notion of category exclusivity, to me just seemed like an opportunity for a fresh take from someone who can bring a comprehensive view to the modern drinks landscape.
So what that means is basically not focusing on one category exclusively, but really
embracing all of the different beverages that are available today, whether that’s traditional beverage-alc, wine, beer and spirits, but also encompassing the new cannabis-infused beverages, as well as non-alcoholic. And that could be in sort of that bev-alc proxy sort of vein, in terms of a non-alc Negroni or scotch, or whatever it may be. But also beverages like tea and coffee and Kombucha; again, things that we all know, love and consume in social settings with people we love at different circumstances and occasions, just equal opportunity consumption. So it’s really embracing all of those categories.
Samir Husni: Lauren, you’ve been in the business, for like you said, almost two decades. Yet your business model for the magazine is not the traditional. I mean you’re not depending on advertising, you’re charging $20 per issue, which you can subscribe to the legacy magazines for a year for that price. Tell me a little bit about this new business model that you are following and the partnerships that you are making.
Lauren Buzzeo: In addition to having this perspective of leaving my former position and thinking there’s got to be another way; there’s got to be a different way, that certainly correlates to our editorial mission. And in terms of the stories that we’re looking to share in each issue, it also extends to advertising and partnerships. And so with that thinking of what could be different, what could be better, what could be a new approach to something that honestly hasn’t seen a lot of change in innovation since the invention of a print advertisement, right? What could that look like, what could we do?
So essentially, what I came up with is a program that we call our “Flow-Into Community”
program. And what that means is our advertising partners, and we will work with only one advertising partner per category per issue. So there’s not going to be tons and tons of advertisements, that’s not the magazine format we’re looking for. We’re really looking for very specialized, high-quality partnerships with dedicated partners that we know and believe in and similarly know and believe in what we’re doing.
So what the “Flow-Into Community” program encompasses is the traditional insertion of an ad space for the partner, a full page ad they’re sort of used to, but it also means that we work with. the client to identify a nonprofit organization in our space. So whether that’s food and beverage at large hospitality, that is improving our community in some relevant, tangible way.
So in the case of wine, you can look at organizations such as Wine Empowered or Wine Unify; in the case of beer, you can look at the Michael James Jackson Brewing Foundation. In the case of cannabis, you could look at the Last Prisoner Project. And in the case of food, something like World Central Kitchen or City Harvest. So we work with our partners to select a nonprofit that then gets a dedicated spotlight page about that nonprofit’s work that is sponsored by Full Pour and the partner to give visibility, promotion, and space to that nonprofit, in addition to the partner’s traditional full page ad. So both of those placements go into the issue, as well as we have a grapevine page, which is essentially think of it like Kickstarter, but for nonprofits and donations.
So the grapevine page Full Pour commits a $750 seasonal donation to, and we encourage all of our partners and readers, anybody who’s interested can also make donations into this grapevine page. And then at the end of the issue season, all of the donations received are disbursed to the nonprofit partners for that season’s issue as well.
So again, we’re talking about a traditional relationship and format in terms of print advertising. But it’s also extending to really try to do something that goes beyond maybe a more self-serving interest for that partner, for that client and really promoting, giving visibility and monetary support and contribution to nonprofits that are really working to make our drink’s world and our world at large a better place.
Samir Husni: So tell me what was the response of the first issue. The initial one is out. Did people say wow, or something else?
Lauren Buzzeo: Issue one is out. It came into the world officially at the end of March, and the response has been so overwhelmingly positive. I’m so grateful for it. I think at the end of the day, I created a magazine that I really felt was needed in the space and that I selfishly, really wanted to read and see myself in. The hopes that there were other people out there like me that wanted to see the same. And the response that we’ve received from the first issue tells us that indeed we were not alone. That people were ready and excited for something new, a fresh take on drink’s journalism, and ready to embrace all of these varied categories that really did not necessarily have a home. A consistent home in a print format like they’ve experienced before.
So it’s really about building that community. An equal opportunity drinking for everyone, no matter what fills your glass, whether it is wine or a cocktail or a non-alc drink or an infused beverage. We have the content and the space for all of it. And I think it also speaks to just drinking with that category, cross category. I like to say I’m a proud cross drinker, and I think many of us in this modern beverage landscape are. We are enjoying a cup of tea or a great cup of coffee at one point with friends or over a meeting. Whereas we might be sharing a bottle of wine or a special beer on another occasion or on a family outing. So I think it’s really trying to embrace that diversity and that varied landscape that’s out there today.
In the last question you had asked about the format of the magazine. I just want to touch upon that really quickly because you’re right. We did come out with sort of a different, not only a different model in terms of the editorial content and not only a different model in terms of what we’re striving for with our advertising partnerships, but a different model in terms of the product itself.
We believe in print and the transportive nature that it can provide and disconnecting from the blue screen, from the noise, from the constant chaos of our screens in the digital world for just a little bit. And with that in mind, we really wanted to create this beautiful print product that reminds people and returns people to understanding that there is quality to be had behind those experiences and behind those products.
I think a lot of newsstand publications, they are great and they are wide-reaching, but I think that they also have a certain connotation to them in terms of how they feel, the tactile experience the reader takeaway. Whereas if you think of something more in lines of a book that sits on a shelf or a coffee table or whatever it may be, there’s a little bit more staying power, there’s a little bit more impact, there’s a little bit more reverence for the content and the quality behind it.
And that’s really what we’re aiming for with Full Pour. It’s not you get your subscription, you flip through it in the restroom and you throw it away after five minutes, having not really read or retained any information from it. This is a beautiful package that you see, and you just want to spend time with it. You want to give yourself the excuse and the reason to really dive into the stories, to the beautiful imagery, to the wonderful feel and smell of the paper. I still believe that there is something behind that smell that people love. (Laughs)
Samir Husni: (Laughs too) You’re preaching to the choir here.
Lauren Buzzeo: So this is what we’re trying to offer in terms of the experience of a print product. And it is very much in that sort of independent magazine or zine, which is very hard to define because there is such a variety in terms of formats and quality. But it isn’t that independent vein in terms of quality and that almost middle ground between a newsstand floppy and a hardcover book.
Samir Husni: You wrote a lot about the sustainability and the type of paper, and even the mailing envelope that the magazine is sent in. Are you trying to save the world? Or what are you doing?
Lauren Buzzeo: (Laughs) I would love to save the world, but I don’t think I could do it. But I think at the end of the day everything that I did in creating this magazine was with the question and with the frame of mind of there’s got to be a different way, there’s got to be a better way there’s got to be another way. What can that look like? What can that be? What can we do differently to make a better impact? And that is absolutely extended to production.
I think a lot of people might not necessarily know the impact that a lot of treatments, in terms of newsstand’s glossy magazines has on our environment, in terms of the laminates that are used for those covers, for those genes, the sourcing of the paper if they’re not environmentally friendly, if they’re not post-consumer waste.
So yes, we did very intentionally look for production partners that were in line with that thinking. So we do source 100 percent post-consumer waste recycled paper; we do use natural vegetable or soy based inks for all of our printing. There’s no chemical toners. There’s no plastic laminates or chemical laminates that will affect recyclability.
And you’re right, even down to the mailer that we ship our single issues in. It’s cornstarch-based, it’s not plastic. So it’s 100 percent biodegradable and compostable. Because again to us every little bit that we can do that makes a difference helps. We’re not going to save the world; we’re not going to really change the world, but we can change what we do. We’re not going to save the world. We can try to change the world. That’s what I’ll say.
Samir Husni: You’re so excited about the magazine and that’s great and you’re passionate about it. Tell me, has it been a walk in a rose garden or have you had some challenges?
Lauren Buzzeo: (Laughs) I don’t know any magazine that’s a walk in a rose garden. But I will say that I am incredibly passionate and incredibly happy and fortunate to have had this opportunity to create this magazine. I wake up and I work all the time, every day. But I am so energized and so happy to be putting that effort and that energy into something that I believe in so greatly. And that has received such wonderful feedback from other people who are appreciative of those efforts as well.
So no, nothing is a walk in the rose garden. And certainly as an independent magazine, and as a woman-owned, self-funded startup, nothing has been easy and I am wearing more hats than I ever thought I would have been.
But I am also a Taurus, and thank God for that because I love the challenge and I love to be stimulated. I love to learn new things and to have the opportunity to really dive into all aspects of print production. That part has been a pleasure and a joy and something that keeps me going every single day.
Certainly from a content perspective, that’s something that I was very comfortable and used to. And even from an overall direction, working with artists and writers was familiar territory. Things like setting up tax considerations. And to even sourcing some of those materials, like the mailing bag, which I did myself as well. There’s a lot of considerations, every step of the way that you don’t really know until you dive into it. But if you believe in it and if you’re passionate about it, it is infinitely rewarding.
Samir Husni: Tell me about your cover. It’s black and white on the front, but the same thing in color on the back. It looks like you want to enter the psychedelic word, but you don’t.
Lauren Buzzeo: (Laughs) I love that interpretation of it. I think at the end of the day we take our content very seriously, and we very much believe in telling the stories behind the bottles in a very informative way. So I’m not necessarily interested in more surface-generated content, more quick takes, infographics, buying lists, things of that nature. We really believe in getting into the stories of the who, the why, the how, the history, the geographic locations, whatever it may be to really provide that information to consumers to empower them to make those purchasing choices on their own for whatever needs they may have.
This isn’t something where we want to dictate what we believe people should be drinking. Because I don’t think that’s the way to go. I don’t think that that’s what people are generally interested in. And I think that in building our community we want to empower them with the information.
So in terms of the imagery we’re hopefully supporting a tone that is informative and serious with our content, but still fun and approachable. And I think our cover extends to that intent in terms of wanting to give a wide representation of all of the categories that we cover. So you’ll see representation of all the various main categories in that illustration and in every color illustration to come as well. But again in a very playful, vibrant, energetic format that we hope engages people to dive in, regardless of how serious the content might be.
Samir Husni: How did you come up with the name Full Pour?
Lauren Buzzeo: Honestly, I dreamed it. I created the logo as well. The Pour is my penmanship. The Full part is a font type, but before I designed that, I drew it. It was in my mind, came to me in a dream. And so it was always something around Pour. Singularly “Pour” didn’t really seem to, I don’t know, land or resonate the way that I really wanted it to.
So after a lot of deliberation with a lot of words to combine with it, I sort of landed on Full because that’s what we’re about, embracing the full category of drinks, beverages available to us. And also living a full and satisfying life. And the way that the beverages intertwine with our lives to give us that feeling of fullness and satisfaction.
Samir Husni: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Lauren Buzzeo: I’ll say on a side note my favorite page to put together for the spring issue was the contributors page. It brought me such great joy to be able to work with so many wonderful writers, artists, illustrators, and talent from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives.
And that is something that I am so keen and happy to continue doing with every issue of Full Pour, which is working with a wide range of contributors who bring different perspectives and energy to all of these different stories because we all come into various drinks and opportunities at different points and from different experiences and perspectives in our lives.
And I think that it’s important to give platform to all of those various capabilities and potentials in terms of entry points. So I love working with so many diverse voices and talents, and I really can’t wait to share more in the issues to come.
Samir Husni: How does it feel to be your own boss?
Lauren Buzzeo: It feels great, but it feels scary. It feels liberating, but it feels empowering. There are so many emotions that go along with entrepreneurship that are intimidating and can cause apprehension sometimes, but at the end of the day are so infinitely rewarding that it outweighs to me any of the potential downfalls. So yes, it’s been great.
And that is also largely reason why I did want to do this as an independent, self-funded project. I did want to just answer and speak to myself. I had a very clear vision. I didn’t want it to be compromised in any way, whether that was editorially, financially, or partners commercially. I really wanted to be true and authentic to what I believe this should and could be. And will work my hardest to keep that up for as long as I can.
Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you at night?
Lauren Buzzeo: What keeps me up at night is finding enough hours in the day. I also have two small children. I have an eight year old son and a two and a half year old daughter. So I am a mom in addition to being a business owner. And sometimes finding the balance, the work life balance and the hours in the day to accomplish all of the things that I want to accomplish, is not an easy feat. But I think that those are the struggles that we all live with day to day in terms of finding our balance and staying true to ourselves and trying to be our best selves as possible. So I try not to keep myself up too much or for too long at night worrying about that and just do the best I can to meet all of those needs as best as I can.
My friend and co-panelist on the Pandemic Round Table Joe Berger, who is founder and president of Joseph Berger Associates Magazine Marketing and Consulting, also publishes a weekly newsletter every Tuesday. Included in this week’s edition there was an interview with me. Thank you Joe, and thank you for giving me permission to repost the interview. You can find a link to the entire newsletter at the end of this blog.
But now, for Joe Berger’s interview with Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni:
Five Questions With: Samir Husni, Ph.D. AKA, “Mr. Magazine™”
It’s the second Tuesday of the month so let’s go and meet someone in the magazine media world that you should know. Who is Samir Husni and why should you know him?
The Chicago Tribune called Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, Ph.D. the “man who loves magazines.” What started as a hobby at the age of 10 turned into an education and later, a profession. Samir is an expert in the field of magazine publishing and has extensively traveled the world preaching the love and importance of magazines in a digital age. Fun fact: Husni has spoken and consulted on six of the seven continents. He’s still waiting to go to Antartica to help launch Ice Quarterly.
Samir is an expert on new magazine launches and re-launches. His experience is based on years of studying the magazine industry and collecting publications. In fact, his hobby led to a collection of more than 40,000 first edition magazines and over 125,000 other notable publications that he recently donated to his alma mater, The University of Missouri-Columbia.
When Samir is not in his home office studying magazines, he’s out at the newsstands buying them.
Note: This conversation was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Samir Husni (Photo by Robert Jordan)
Here’s our conversation with Samir Husni
#1: When and how did you begin working with magazine media? Did you have any specific training that helped to prepare you for your first job?
I started working with magazine media at a very young age. As far as I recall it was as early as the age of 10. I fell in love with the art of storytelling after purchasing the first issue of the Arabic edition of Superman in my birthplace Tripoli, Lebanon in 1964. The idea that you can capture a story on the pages of a magazine, illustrate it, and read it at your pace was a transforming moment for me. The powerful impact that had on me at that young age, led me to start my own magazines with the concept that I later used in my consulting career, “the audience of one.” I would create a magazine, using sheets of paper, crayons, pens and pencils, write, edit, and design, and at the end of the day sit down and read it. I was the publisher, editor, designer and reader all in one. All my training came from imitating other magazines, studying their content, their design, their audience. Magazines were my candy and any time I visited a newsstand, I was the kid in a candy store. So when I applied to my first job, I had a lot of passion to add to my resume, and that passion with my resume gave me the opportunity to work in the field that 60 years later I still love and practice.
#2: What are some of the big challenges you see the industry tackling this year? What do you foresee as the big challenges coming at us over the next few years?
The magazine media industry is an industry of challenges, big and small. This year is not any different. Finding a willing and capable audience who wants to and can afford the price of the magazine. Ensuring that you can find a way to put the magazine in front of its intended audience is still a major challenge.
With the disappearance of many newsstands and the shrinking of available space to display your magazine, it is harder than ever to find the title of your choice. Simply stated, if you can’t see it you can’t buy it.
#3: Do print magazines have much of a future over the next decade? Will there be print magazines twenty years from now?
I always say: There are only two people who can tell you the future: God and a fool. I know, for sure, I am not God, so here we go…
Print magazines are here to stay. And, by the way, I do not believe there is any other kind of magazine. If it is not ink on paper it is not a magazine. Folks must find a new name for all these fancy digital entities, maybe “telezines” or such. We never call television radio with pictures. We created a new word for it. So, are we going to have magazines 20 years from now? Yes we are is the simple answer. As long as we have human beings, we are going to have magazines that people can hold, touch, flip through, relax with and enjoy their “me time” with. Human beings thrive on three ships that cruise through them: ownership (you can’t own virtual), showmanship (you can show off what you own and carry) and membership (a sense of belonging that you know has its benefits, think AARP).
#4: If you hadn’t had a career in magazines (or journalism), what would you have wanted to do? Is that still something you’d want to do?
When your hobby turns into your education, into your profession, you never work a day in your life. I can’t see myself outside the world of magazines. That’s why after I retired from teaching, I did not retire from my studying and working with magazines. In addition to magazines, I always enjoyed photography and taking pictures (needless to say, an essential part of magazines), so I am now honing my skills in taking pictures and focusing on God’s beautiful creatures: birds.
#5: Did you have a mentor when you started out in your career? What was a good piece of advice that they gave you?
I was blessed to have too many mentors in my life. Almost every professor in my undergrad and grad school was a mentor. But two, way back in my days in Lebanon were truly my mentors. My editor in chief of the first newspaper I worked for in Beirut, Walid El-Husaini, who took me under his wings and showed me the art of making sense of what you write and design. Also, my university professor Walid Awad, who was a practicing journalist who helped nourish my career and asked me to work with him on many projects. There are too many to name, but one advice from them all: always remember your audience and remember you are never the audience.
Samir regularly publishes a blog with incredible interviews of magazine leaders. You can find it here.
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“I think print is so unique. I’d love to tell you that we’ve grown our readership and we’re bigger than ever, but the truth is our readership has stayed boutique and that has really worked for us. We decided it would be better to serve a loyal, smaller group of people, a specific lane of humans who want to be talked to in a certain way than to try and go spend money everywhere, because shelves are so hard.”
“I think it’s about meeting the audience where they are. And what that looks like to me is not saying that one is harder than the other; it’s just knowing your audience and serving them in the right way.”
From Good Grit magazine to Good Grit Creative Agency, Good Grit the brand is going strong and promises to continue that upward swing. Laura Quick is the founder and CEO of the business and believes that the print version of the brand has the Southern niche in inspirational and aspirational storytelling.
I spoke with Laura recently and we talked about the magazine and how the creative agency ties perfectly into the brand. She is an admirer of Garden & Gun and Southern Living and believes that Good Grit falls easily into the same Southern culture type read with an emphasis on great storytelling.
According to the website, Good Grit is using ink on a page to give a voice to the people and places and things that most closely articulate ‘The Character of the South.’ Now without further ado, the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Laura Quick, founder and CEO, Good Grit.
But first the soundbites:
On how she’s still publishing today, even after the naysayers thought she’d never make it: Well, I’ve always said you have to be a little bit crazy to be in this business. (Laughs) You probably agree with that. The main thing that’s happened over the last eight years is I have learned to be a student of this industry and I had to do that because I didn’t come in with a vast knowledge of it. I really knew nothing about the industry. But I felt there was a hole in the market place.
On some of the challenges she’s faced and how she overcame them: Well, the pandemic was a huge challenge, obviously. And if I’m being honest, I think we were on the cusp of needing to make some hard decisions in 2019 going into 2020. We were already thinking of ways to evolve the brand. To make it more like a brand and less like a magazine.
On what she thinks the role of print is in her brand: I think that print plays the role of telling the story of Good Grit, who we are as a company and our value. How we see our value is that we are damned good storytellers. We love what we do and we’re really good at it. We feel that the unique position that we bring to the marketplace shows that we consider ourselves students of the clients; students of the brands that we get to serve, and I think people see that in print first. And they say why wouldn’t we at least consider hiring them for our branding agency.
On how she wants to celebrate her 10th anniversary: We haven’t thrown any really big parties in a long time, but we plan to. (Laughs) We’re probably do popups in our biggest cities. We’ll do a popup on 30 A. Obviously 30 A has been a huge supporter of our brands since the very beginning. We have a lot of loyal subscribers there and a lot of loyal partnerships there. So doing something really cool down on 30 A; doing something big in Birmingham as our flagship, where we started and were founded. I think we’ll do something in Atlanta as we have, and possibly Nashville.
On whether it’s easier to tell a story digitally or in print: I think it’s about meeting the audience where they are. And what that looks like to me is not saying that one is harder than the other; it’s just knowing your audience and serving them in the right way.
On letting go of things now that she has people working for her: I’m proud to say that I have let go and what that looks like is getting to a place of profitability where you can hire great talent and trust them. We’re an all-female core team at Good Grit and our initiative is that every female on our core leadership team makes over six figures by 2025. And we are 80 percent of the way there. When you can invest in great people with high capacities and who believe what you believe, you can do anything. I’m convinced of it.
On whether diversity and inclusion is a part of her brand: We didn’t set out to be an all-women’s team, but it happened over time. And we have great chemistry. And we have over 200 freelancers that are very diverse. We have men and women, people of all races and color.
On anything she’d like to add: This is really hard work and it’s a very difficult business. But it is not impossible. I believe there are still meaningful jobs to be had. I do think you have to be well-rounded. Once every two or three months I have somebody reach out to me if I can go to lunch or for coffee to talk about a magazine they want to start. And I reserve 30 minutes per week for just that. Anyone that asks me to coffee or lunch, I’ll go with them because I think about the Sid Evans’ and the Marshall Mckinney’s and the Kristen Paine’s of the world who would take my calls and pull me back off a cliff. (Laughs)
On what keeps her up at night: I sleep pretty good. (Laughs) There’s not really one thing. I think if I’m ever stirring and don’t have peace, I can typically point back to not living within the habits that really work and keep me on track. Because if you’re staying up at night it means that you’re probably not on track or someone you know or work with.
And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Laura Quick, founder and CEO of Good Grit.
Samir Husni: We haven’t talked since 2016. And the first year after you published, people were saying there was no way you could make it, you’re crazy, etc. Now, eight years later and through a pandemic, you’re still publishing. What gives? How are you still doing it?
Laura Quick: Well, I’ve always said you have to be a little bit crazy to be in this business. (Laughs) You probably agree with that. The main thing that’s happened over the last eight years is I have learned to be a student of this industry and I had to do that because I didn’t come in with a vast knowledge of it. I really knew nothing about the industry. But I felt there was a hole in the market place.
I think over the years the reason that we’ve survived has been primarily because we’ve stayed and maintained our ability to be nimble. But we’ve also been compelled to evolve, to give people what they want, not what we think they want. So, we’ve stepped a little further into that hole that we thought existed and people have resonated with that.
I mean, we know that Garden & Gun is so good at helping us with aspirations, where we aspire to go. And Southern Living has done a great job of being a constant of ‘this is the place where you’re learning about the best recipes you need to be making.’ From Grandma’s Church Cookbook to what they see as quintessential Southern. And we felt like there was a progressive lane for Southern culture and we could really own inspirational storytelling. How do we tell a story that can inspire you to know that if you have failed or fallen down, you can get back up and you can come out of this thing with something good.
And that’s what we’ve been focusing on and we still feel like we don’t have it quite where we want it to be. When I talked with you before, I was so hell-bent that I wasn’t going to have any coffee on the cover. It was going to be this clean, beautiful cover with great imagery. I was so convinced that we wouldn’t be sponsored content, which is so laughable now because there is absolutely no way to survive this industry in my opinion without doing some creative, sponsored content. You can live inside of your brand and do it really well and invite clients and partnerships into that. And that’s what we’ve done.
So those are the big changes. I have implemented sponsored content and I definitely have copy on my covers. (Laughs)
Samir Husni: If you look at the status of magazines today, very few new magazines are launched like they used to be. Almost everything that’s launched is like a bookazine, with a $15 cover price. Yet in our Southern region, you gave the examples of Garden & Gun and Southern Living, and of course, there’s Hoffman Media. So there’s quite a bit of Southern magazines still being published on a regular basis. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced and how did you overcome them?
Laura Quick: Well, the pandemic was a huge challenge, obviously. And if I’m being honest, I think we were on the cusp of needing to make some hard decisions in 2019 going into 2020. We were already thinking of ways to evolve the brand. To make it more like a brand and less like a magazine.
So how do we become more of a household name than just a magazine that publishes six times per year? We had already made the decision prior to the pandemic that we would go from six issues to four issues. That felt logical to us; it felt easy; it felt seasonal; which we really loved to speak to our community in a seasonal way, because we want to be a tastemaker in that inspirational lane.
We walked into 2020 knowing we were going to four issues, had already made that announcement, had already presold half the year, and then the pandemic hit. Every one of them, not some, but every single advertising partner that we had said they were out. That wanted to leave. They were calling and wanted to pull.
Something we did in that moment as a proactive measure, knowing that was coming, was we made a decision to tell every sponsor and advertiser that we had to not pay us, but don’t pull out, to stay. Number one, the only way you make it in this business is by forging incredible relationships with partners and advertisers that believe similarly to you. And there are lots of them out there who want to tell a great story and have great stories to tell that we’ve been able to do and they have partnered with us in a purely advertising way.
We went to them proactively and said please don’t pull out, just don’t pay. Stay and you don’t have to pay if you don’t have the money. We understand. Most of our advertising partners are tourism-driven, so they get paid because of heads and beds tax. If they don’t have heads and beds in hotel rooms, then they don’t have money to advertise with.
And it was tricky. We had intentional conversations with every advertiser on what is the message? Are you curating a message; do you have one; do you need help with one? How can we help you tell the story of what is true in your area; what are the laws where you are; what are the mandates? How can people still come to your city or your town and enjoy it in a safe way? So we went to work. That was our main job during that season.
The interesting thing that happened in 2019 was we had already made the decision to launch a storytelling, branding, and creative agency that would go along with what we were doing. We have had this expertise that we’ve proven. We’ve definitely had more than 10,000 hours of telling powerful stories and we thought there was a lane in that. We did these incredible stories in the magazine for advertising partners and we looked at their branding and marketing and see the opportunity to take the momentum they had to the next level.
So we launched a creative agency in 2019. My first paying client was Southern Living, they hired us. One of my mentors is was the vice president for Southern Living on partnerships and sponsorships and she became my first client. And she hired us to do something really cool.
In March 2020 when the pandemic hit, the creative agency had already outgrown the magazine in six months. And so we had momentum. I think in those moments, people believed that our message mattered more than ever and they were more likely to spend marketing dollars because of a sense of urgency that they had to communicate with their audience whoever they were.
And this happened: the creative agency was going to the stars, which was awesome and all of our partners deeply valued the fact that we were proactive when it was to support them. We were saying we’ll put skin in the game; don’t pull out; create consistency; just don’t pay us. And they all paid; they all ended up paying. And none of them left. We retained 100 percent of our advertisers during that time.
I feel like the pandemic did act somewhat as a driver and gave us some momentum to rethink everything we were doing, tear down anything that wasn’t working and rebuild it in a way that would better support ad dollars and sponsorships and what those look like. In short, I believe that’s why we survived the pandemic, but it was also a jump off point for us. And we’re so grateful.
Samir Husni: What role does print play in the scheme of things concerning your brand?
Laura Quick: I think print is so unique. I’d love to tell you that we’ve grown our readership and we’re bigger than ever, but the truth is our readership has stayed boutique and that has really worked for us. We decided it would be better to serve a loyal, smaller group of people, a specific lane of humans who want to be talked to in a certain way than to try and go spend money everywhere, because shelves are so hard. You’re not making money, you’re losing money. I don’t know anyone in the business that I have a relationship with that’s just killing them on shelves.
The truth is that the group of people we serve is under 20,000 copies. We have strategic partnerships with about 30 high-end hotels around the South and we have a really good subscriber base. The thing that we’ve learned is that they love print. And as long as it’s not a bad guy on my P&L, we’ll stay in print.
When I say we own a creative agency called Good Grit Agency and people ask, what, the magazine, it’s great. Just the fact that people know our name is a huge deal and I am so grateful. It is the number one marketing collateral that we have and when I say we are expert storytellers, we have eight years of data in print to prove that. Everybody still wants to be in print. If you have a business or a nonprofit, or you have something you’re launching, whatever the case may be, getting a print story is still a really big deal. And now maybe more than ever because that slice of real estate is getting smaller and smaller, not just with Good Grit, but with everyone.
I think that print plays the role of telling the story of Good Grit, who we are as a company and our value. How we see our value is that we are damned good storytellers. We love what we do and we’re really good at it. We feel that the unique position that we bring to the marketplace shows that we consider ourselves students of the clients; students of the brands that we get to serve, and I think people see that in print first. And they say why wouldn’t we at least consider hiring them for our branding agency.
Samir Husni: How do you want to celebrate your 10th anniversary?
Laura Quick: We haven’t thrown any really big parties in a long time, but we plan to. (Laughs) We’re probably do popups in our biggest cities. We’ll do a popup on 30 A. Obviously 30 A has been a huge supporter of our brands since the very beginning. We have a lot of loyal subscribers there and a lot of loyal partnerships there. So doing something really cool down on 30 A; doing something big in Birmingham as our flagship, where we started and were founded. I think we’ll do something in Atlanta as we have, and possibly Nashville. We have five big date markets, but those are our top four.
So we’ll do some popups there and probably boutique dinners. And really invite subscribers to that. We do have a lot of people who buy off the shelves too, but who usually find out it’s cheaper to subscribe, but there’s something about standing in front of magazines in a grocery store or a bookstore and choosing one resonates with a lot of people. We want to invite all of those people to come and celebrate telling the stories.
We’re also considering doing an awards ceremony there where we talk about contributors. We are nothing without the people who share their gifts with us: the writers, photographers; the cinematographers, and social influencers that really believe in our brand. We’re already talking about how we want to celebrate 10 years and honestly, I can’t believe it will happen. And I really do believe it will happen and it will happen with us having a print publication still.
Samir Husni: Is it easier to be a storyteller on the digital sphere or the print sphere?
Laura Quick: That’s a great question. I think they’re different. How you tell a story digitally is so dynamically unique from how you tell one in print. It’s odd, but with print you have someone who says, hey, I want to take this journey with you and I’m willing to invest the time, I’m willing to take time to sit down with you and read a 12 or 13 hundred word story.
What we know to be true with digital is we have about nine seconds at the most to grab someone’s attention. I think from a digital perspective, stories are different and they’re shorter. You have someone who is saying to you because of the platform you’re meeting them on that may not have as much time as they might on the swing on their porch.
I think it’s about meeting the audience where they are. And what that looks like to me is not saying that one is harder than the other; it’s just knowing your audience and serving them in the right way.
Samir Husni: When you first started you did everything at the magazine; you were that founder, the editor, etc. Today you have people working for you; you have an editor in chief. How does it feel to let go a little bit? Or have you let go?
Laura Quick: I’m proud to say that I have let go and what that looks like is getting to a place of profitability where you can hire great talent and trust them. We’re an all-female core team at Good Grit and our initiative is that every female on our core leadership team makes over six figures by 2025. And we are 80 percent of the way there. When you can invest in great people with high capacities and who believe what you believe, you can do anything. I’m convinced of it.
I would put my team up against anyone. They’re the most impactful and incredible humans that I’ve ever met and worked with. If I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t touch the magazine, those women run it and I focus solely on the creative agency and forging relationships with current partners and future partners. We don’t even want to do work on the agency side that wouldn’t be a good fit for the magazine. We’re looking for people who equally believe what we believe to do work with.
My confession is that the greatest gift that I’ve ever been given was the ability to let go and let people who are even better at it than I am take the lead and go with it. And they have far surpassed any work that I have ever done on my own.
I have a mentor who always said my ceiling is another woman’s floor. I always say that. My goal for these women is that in the next several years they’re making more money than they could make anywhere else and they don’t want to leave. And that they feel like they’re impactful and that we are busting through some glass ceilings that exist so that our ceilings may be other women’s floors eventually.
Samir Husni: Is diversity and inclusion a part of the tapestry of your brand?
Laura Quick: We didn’t set out to be an all-women’s team, but it happened over time. And we have great chemistry. And we have over 200 freelancers that are very diverse. We have men and women, people of all races and color.
One of the big initiatives we made in 2019 that we’re really proud of was to diversify our content. It’s really easy to be a white person who makes content about other white people because they are in your sphere. And so it takes some intentionality to really think about how we diversify; how do we really represent the South?
We’re proud to say that 60 percent of our content, creatives and contributors are diverse. They are not white. It was a big deal for us to do that and it took a lot of hard work because it’s just easier to do business and think about things through the lens in which you see the world. It takes extra effort to be intentional and invite other people into share how they see the world, and to say this is cool, pitch content into us. We want to do that type of work.
And that has been a big deal and a big accomplishment and I’m really proud of our team for making that an initiative and then doing it.
Samir Husni: Is there anything you’d like to add?
Laura Quick: This is really hard work and it’s a very difficult business. But it is not impossible. I believe there are still meaningful jobs to be had. I do think you have to be well-rounded. Once every two or three months I have somebody reach out to me if I can go to lunch or for coffee to talk about a magazine they want to start. And I reserve 30 minutes per week for just that. Anyone that asks me to coffee or lunch, I’ll go with them because I think about the Sid Evans’ and the Marshall Mckinney’s and the Kristen Paine’s of the world who would take my calls and pull me back off a cliff. (Laughs)
I think about those people and try to be really generous with my time. And when I sit down with people who want to get into the magazine industry, whether it be for career’s sake or they want to start one themselves, I try to be as brutally honest as I can because I wish someone would have done that with me even though I was crazy and didn’t ask anyone.
But I always admire people who are willing to ask questions and I’m as brutally honest as I can be in telling them that this is really freaking hard. (Laughs) And there is a reason why not very many people make it. But it can be done. I just believe you have to have a niche. The more niche you can be, the better.
And we’re constantly thinking about the filters in which we’re building content in and making sure it makes sense because lifestyle is really hard. It’ a hard lane to own. It isn’t as niche as you’d like it to be. We try and niche it down, with progressive Southern culture and storytelling being two of the ways that we do that. We’re willing to talk about things that not everyone who would say they’re Southern would be willing to talk about.
So, I like to have those candid conversations. I would say to anyone thinking about starting a magazine, you need to know really why the hell you want to do it and be willing to give a big portion of your life for it. And that’s most entrepreneurship. I would say that about almost any business. Now I own three businesses and between my husband and I think we own 15 or something. So, we’re a very entrepreneurial family. But this is hard work. I gave up a lot pf things for this brand. A lot of time with my son; a lot of money I could have been making working for someone else. I was almost living in my car the first two years. It was scary.
Samir Husni: My typical last question, what keeps you up at night?
Laura Quick: I sleep pretty good. (Laughs) There’s not really one thing. I think if I’m ever stirring and don’t have peace, I can typically point back to not living within the habits that really work and keep me on track. Because if you’re staying up at night it means that you’re probably not on track or someone you know or work with.
I’ll be 40 in a couple of months and I have learned is that you have to find habits and rituals that work for you and you have to live within them. Truly, the only thing you can control is yourself. And if you model great behavior as a leader, people with usually go with you if they’re the right people.
“I’m sure some people will say these guys are crazy for launching a new title, but we feel very strongly there is a need for us, for our expert guidance on all things streaming. People today watch shows on various platforms – mobile phones, tablets , computers and tv screens. They want too know what to stream next. And this is what you get with TV Insider; the best and most comprehensive guidance to the world of streaming.”TV Insider president, Tony Frost.
“The future for us is TV Guide magazine maintaining its presence as a relevant guide for traditional TV while TV Insider grows over the next three to five years as a relevant guide for everyone who streams. Because streaming is everything these days. If you watch TV streaming is it.” Tony Frost.
Today streaming is one of the most important ways to watch your favorite shows, be they on a specific streaming service or a primetime network. But the need for a guide to what streaming has to offer has become something we may all need.
Enter Tony Frost and TV Insider. This great new print magazine features streaming in its complete form. And talking to Tony I have found another human being as bullish about print as I am. He believes strongly in it. In fact, the entire company – NTVB Media – feels there is a need for this new printed magazine with a direct link to their successful digital entertainment website, tvinsider.com.
First issue of TV Insider on the newsstands today….
The first steps to creating TV Insider, a monthly title, came last April after TV Guide Magazine carried out its biggest-ever reader survey. Seventy-four per cent of respondents said they now streamed. Soon after Neilsen reported that viewers were spending more time steaming than watching cable or broadcast programming.
At a business meeting in New York City, Tony presented the idea for a streaming magazine independent of the regular TV Guide Magazine to NTVB owners Andy DeAngelis and Larry Mckenzie. After discussions with subscriptions guru Ed Fones, the project was green-lighted.
“Ed was very bullish,” says Tony. “He felt it could attract a significant number of subscribers.”
After several mock covers using the instantly recognizable TV Guide logo for the “special Streaming Edition” failed to impress, , fast-forward to September when TV Guide EIC Michael Fell came up with the idea of calling the new title tvinsider magazine.
DeAngelis and Frost loved it and the tvinsider website team gave it their seal of approval.Thus tvinsider monthly was born.
So, I hope that you enjoy this great conversation with a man who really knows his way around a television. Without further ado, the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Tony Frost, president, TV Insider magazine.
But first the soundbites:
On the story behind TV Insider: TV Guide readers have doubled their interests in streaming. And we decided to do something about it. We had various meetings with the owners of the company, Andy DeAngelis and Larry McKenzie who fly in once a month from Michigan for executive meetings, and managed to convince them that there is a marketplace for a streaming magazine. And we talked about how it would look; how it would affect TV Guide magazine, and we tried various iterations of the TV Guide logo, which is one of the most recognizable logos in America and still a very strong brand.
On why they didn’t just change TV Guide instead of launching a new magazine: Michael Fell, the editor in chief of TV Guide magazine, asked why didn’t we call it TVInsider? We have a very successful website called tvinsider.com that we own and Michael’s idea was let’s spin off the title of our website with all the obvious advantages and synergies. But on the first cover we locked up we used the TV Guide logo close to the UPC stating From The Publishers of….., The TV Insider logo, created by our Creative Director Paul Aarons is very different and distinctive in its own right.
On whether he feels there’s a need for a printed publication about streaming: You hear many people tell you there’s so much to watch on TV these days, but what do I watch? What’s worth watching? And the slogan of our magazine is “Know what to stream next.” That slogan comes from Barb Oates who runs our custom publishing unit in Milwaukee. She’s overseen our industry-related TV magazines for a number of years. And she believes the one thing regular streamers want to know to know is what to stream next. So yes, we really do believe that there’s a market for this.
On the shrinking newsstand today: Obviously, the newsstand today has shrunk. Not just for TV Guide magazine but for every title. We’ve been putting out less than a 100,000 copies of TV Guide on newsstands and we’re there will be approximately the same number of copies for TV Insider. They will be at the newsstand side by side and readers will have a choice between the TV Guide magazine or TVInsider. Some hopefully will want both! Maybe streamers who buy TV Guide magazine use TVInsider as a companion guide.
On launching the magazine monthly: It’s a monthly, yes. TV Guide remains biweekly and TV Insider will be monthly. It’s larger than TV Guide with an 80lb cover with pages and pages of advice on all things streaming: articles, interviews, features and more highlighting the newest shows specials and movies. It’s a very nice-looking book, which Michael Fell and the TV Guide editors have put together, designed by Paul Aarons, who is our creative director, with uncut from Barn Oates in Milwaukee and Marcie Waldrup, NTVB’s marketing director in Troy, Michigan. It’s been real teamwork and we’ve had great support from Samantha Westfall, chief content director at tvinsider.com. You know, Samir, it’s really great when it all comes together!
On today’s magazine ownership being people with really no interest in magazines at all: That’s a very good point. The fact is that Andy and Larry, who own the company, and myself the president of it; we all have a huge and sustained interest run print and magazines and love magazines. We’re not going to walk away from print when there is still great opportunity like this.
On whether their belief in print is their age or their convictions that it’s still necessary: We think print is viable to so many people. TV didn’t kill the radio, did it? Radio adapted and so will we. We have one million TV Guide magazine subscribers. TV Insider can be successful with 100,000 subscribers. You talk about venture capitalists and hedge finders owning media, well they would want to see a million dollar return in the first couple of months. We don’t expect that. We are realists and know it is going to take time to build the audience and to make consumers aware of this excellent product. And that’s what we’re doing now..
On the magazine Stream + and any other competition: That’s encouraging in itself, the fact that a360 believes there’s a market for this type of magazine. Stream + is a nice magazine, but it’s not a guide, it’s an entertainment magazine. We’re a guide. We’re the experts and we provide the expert knowledge and utility. From my standpoint, it would be great to think that a360’s title and TV Insider could co-exist at the newsstand. Nothing would please me more.
On his biggest fear with the launch of this new magazine: I don’t think fear plays into it. We want to remain relevant in 2023 and in going forward. TV Guide has been relevant for 70 years. Let’s hope tour new title heralds the start of another 70 year cycle.
Tony Frost, president, TV Insider.
On the future of magazines in print: The future for us is TV Guide magazine and maintaining its presence as a relevant guide for traditional broadcast TV. And TV Insider growing over the next three to five years and becoming a relevant guide for everyone who streams. Because streaming is everything these days. Practically everything on regular TV ends up on a streaming service eventually.Streaming is it.And we feel that this guide is both vital and relevant in this day of the streaming revolution. People can read it leave in their coffee tables, pick it up again several times during the month and keep finding something fresh to watch.
On TV Insider having no grids or listings: The grids and listings still appear in TV Guide. There are still a lot of people who love the grids and listings. They’ll continue to get those. The audience for TV Insider are those people who perhaps rely less on grids today, but are frustrated because they can’t find anything to watch. And they channel surf for two hours without finding anything worthwhile. With TV Insider magazine they will be getting plenty of options
On what keeps him up at night: I go to bed at 10pm most nights but if Arsenal – my favorite English Premier League football team – lose it takes me a while to get to sleep. I get up at 5:30 most mornings and my staff see a lot of early morning emails from me. I read the pages – headlines, full text and photo captions – of all the magazines we produce. I’m invested in making sure TV Guide, our SIPs, Puzzler magazine and now TV Insider are the best they can be.That’s why I sleep so well.
And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Tony Frost, president TV Insider.
First issue of TV Insider….
Samir Husni: It’s one month away from 70 years and the launch of TV Guide. So tell me the story behind TV Insider.
Tony Frost: The story is that last April 2022, TV Guide magazine carried out its largest reader survey ever. And we had thousands of replies, both online and by mail. And most of them were loads of interesting information. One of the most fascinating discoveries was that at that time, a year ago, 74 percent of TV Guide readers were now streaming. And that compares to our previous TV Guide survey in 2018, where 35 percent were streaming.
So in that four years, TV Guide readers have doubled their interests in streaming. And we decided to do something about it. We had various meetings with the owners of the company, Andy DeAngelis and Larry McKenzie who fly in once a month from Michigan for executive meetings, and managed to convince them that there is a marketplace for a streaming magazine. And we talked about how it would look; how it would affect TV Guide magazine, and we tried various iterations of the TV Guide logo, which is very important still. It’s one of the most recognizable logos in America and it’s still a very strong brand.
We have one million TV Guide magazine subscribers still and as you correctly said we’re about to celebrate our 70th birthday and we decided that this would be an opportune time to launch the new title. It will launch very soon.
Samir Husni: Why didn’t you just change TV Guide instead of launching a new magazine?
Tony Frost: TV Guide will continue to exist just as it is right now. What we did was try the TV Guide logo and TV Guide streaming, etc., but we needed to work on that. And we felt that, especially at newsstand, it would be hard to differentiate between TV Guide magazine, regular issue and the streaming issue if we used the logo in the same way.
So Michael Fell, the editor in chief of TV Guide magazine, suggested and asked us why didn’t we call it IV Insider? We have a very successful website called tvinsider.com that we own and Michael’s idea was let’s spin off the title of our website with all the obvious advantages and synergies. So we locked up a cover and as you can see, that’s the traditional TV Guide logo, so the TV Insider logo, we decided to make different.
But on the cover you will still see the TV Guide logo on TV Insider magazine. It’s telling people that it’s from the publishers of TV Guide magazine; it’s from the editors of TV Guide magazine. They are getting expert guidance on streaming from TV experts.
Samir Husni: As you launch this new magazine, do you still feel there’s a need for a printed publication to tell people what to stream and what to watch on TV?
Tony Frost: We’ve promoted this magazine in our publications; in TV Guide already and other publications that the company owns and we already had several thousand subscribers before it’s even launched. So the answer is, yes we do feel there’s a need for a printed magazine.
You hear many people tell you there’s so much to watch on TV these days, so what do I watch? What’s worth watching? And the slogan of our magazine is “Know what to stream next.” That slogan comes from Barb Oates who runs our custom publishing unit in Milwaukee. She’s been responsible for our industry magazines for a number of years. And she agreed that people want to know what to stream next. So yes, we really do believe that there’s a market for this. The tears were there to put out a magazine that is different from TV Guide and doesn’t confuse TV Guide readers, and one that maybe TV Guide readers will want to buy and subscribe to as a companion to TV Guide magazine.
Samir Husni: The days that TV Guide used to sell 12 million copies on the newsstand are gone.
Tony Frost: Obviously, the newsstand today has shrunk. Not just for TV Guide magazine but for every title. We’ve put out less than a 100,000 copies of TV Guide on newsstands right now and we’re putting out approximately 100,000 TV Insider, so they’ll be at the newsstands side by side and readers will have a choice between the TV Guide magazine or the average streamers who buy TV Guide magazine; will they switch to TV Insider or buy it as a companion guide.
It’s interesting that we’re launching this magazine as TV Guide’s 70th birthday approaches, but it’s even more interesting that it’s at this time when many magazines are closing and going to digital, we’re going from digital back to a magazine.
Samir Husni: Are you crazy, or is there something behind the craziness?
Tony Frost, president, TV Insider.
Tony Frost: I’m sure some people will say these guys are crazy for launching a new magazine, but we feel very strongly that there is a need for us, for guidance; for all things streaming. And this is what you get with TV Insider; all things streaming.
Samir Husni: And you’re launching it as a monthly magazine instead of a weekly.
Tony Frost: It’s a monthly, yes. TV Guide remains biweekly and TV Insider will be monthly. It’s larger than TV Guide and has 40 lb. stock for the inside pages. It’s a very nice-looking book, which Michael Fell and the TV Guide editors put together. It’s been designed by Paul Aarons, who is our creative director and he’s done a great job. We’ve worked very closely together.
We have another traditional TV magazine called TV Weekly, which is produced in Troy, Michigan. And the team at TV Weekly came up with ideas for the streaming magazine. In fact, the index look on the right side of the cover with the titles of the major streaming services, that was given to us by Marci Waldrup, who is marketing director for TV Weekly. Barb Oates, our custom publisher in Milwaukee came up with a slogo: What to stream next. Michael Fell, the TV Guide editor in chief, came up with the idea of calling the magazine TV Insider, which leads you directly to our website.
Samir Husni: You’ve sort of done some reverse engineering by taking the digital to print.
Tony Frost: You can call it reverse engineering; you can call it crazy; you can call it what you want, but the good thing about our company is we have no debt. We have Andy and Larry who own the company and they don’t have investors, they don’t have banks breathing down their necks; they don’t have to go to quarterly meetings with BS projections. When we do something, we do it slowly and steadily and we will grow this publication in a slow and steady way.
Samir Husni: Back a century ago, when magazines like TV Guide, Time and Reader’s Digest all came onto the scene, there were individual entrepreneurs behind them. Nowadays it’s more of a venture capitalist endeavor. The two largest magazine companies, Meredith and A360 Media, are both technically owned by digital capitalist folks who have no interest in magazines.
Tony Frost: That’s a very good point. The fact is that Andy and Larry, who own the company, and I’m the president of it; we all have huge interests in magazines and love magazines. We’re not going to walk away from print when there is still great opportunity like this. And this is an extension of what we do. This is something that became a natural progression for us as we worked on it. And we realized just how much knowledge the team has. And how quickly this crazy idea became a reality. And a very good one.
Samir Husni: Forgive my question, but is the love of print by Andy, Larry and yourself, is it your age or is it because you still feel print is necessary in this day and age?
Tony Frost: We think print is viable to so many people. TV didn’t kill the radio, did it? Radio adapted and so will we. We have one million TV Guide magazine subscribers. TV Insider can be successful with 100,000 subscribers. You talk about venture capitalists, venture capitalists will see a million dollar return in the first couple of months. We don’t. We know this is going to take time to build the audience and to make the consumer aware of this excellent product. And that’s what we’re doing.
Our internet marketing director is starting a marketing campaign very soon. It’ll be pretty extensive and we feel that with TV Guide and our other in-house titles and with tvinsider.com and our marketing and promotion plan, we can get word out pretty widely that this is an excellent product for everyone who loves streaming. And that’s practically everything now, everything is streaming. Even the traditional broadcast shows end up on streaming.
Samir Husni: Other than Stream +, which is published by a360 Media, is there any competition out there for your magazine?
Tony Frost: That’s encouraging in itself, the fact that a360 believes there’s a market for this type of magazine. Stream + is a nice magazine, but it’s not a guide, it’s an entertainment magazine. We’re a guide. We’re the experts and we provide the expert knowledge. From my standpoint, it would be great to think that a360’s title and TV Insider could exist close to each other on the newsstand. Nothing would please me more.
Samir Husni: As you launch this new magazine, what is your biggest fear?
Tony Frost: I don’t think fear plays into it. We want to remain relevant in 2023 and in going forward. TV Guide has been relevant for 70 years. Let’s hope this is the start of another 70 year cycle with a new title.
Samir Husni: I noticed that you’re giving away free streaming for up to 10 years.
Tony Frost: It’s a promotion, which we feel we have to offer. And we’re doing a sweepstakes. It’s just an add-on; an added value to our readers.
Samir Husni: You have been with TV Guide for years and you’ve seen the changes in the marketplace, in the industry and with the wholesalers and distributors. What do you believe is the future of magazines in print?
Tony Frost: I think it wouldn’t hurt if there were more people like Andy DeAngelis and Larry McKenzie, myself and Michael Fell, who are commissioned to the future of magazines. We believe in them and can’t imagine a world without them.
The future for us is TV Guide magazine and maintaining its presence as a relevant guide for traditional TV. And TV Insider growing over the next three to five years and being a relevant guide for everyone who streams. Because streaming is everything these days. If you watch TV streaming is it.
And we feel that this guide is relevant in this day and age and is needed by people to read from the coffee table, pick up again and see what they can watch tonight, and pick it up next week to see what’s on. It gives people options and you can’t spend your whole life glaring at a screen, whether it’s your workplace computer, mobile phone or tablet or your TV. You have to have something to read in print. And this as a guide for giving you the best advice on how to spend two hours watching something that appeals to you. There’s nothing better than TV Insider.
Samir Husni: You opted with TV Insider not to have any grids.
Tony Frost: The grids and listings still appear in TV Guide. There are still a lot of people who love the grids and listings. They’ll continue to get those. The audience for TV Insider are those people who perhaps rely less on grids today, but are frustrated because they can’t find anything to watch. And they channel surf for two hours without finding anything to watch. With TV Insider magazine hopefully they can find something to watch.
Samir Husni: Anything I failed to ask you?
Tony Frost: The interesting thing is that on the cover of TV Guide is Kiefer Sutherland who’s star of the new espionage drama on Paramount Plus. He’s the cover and we have an exclusive interview with him. He has graced 19 TV Guide magazines. But the timing was right to choose him. TV Guide magazine is one of the most important brands in the entertainment world today 70 years after it was launched.
Samir Husni: Anyone ever ask you to be on the front page of a digital product?
Tony Frost: We have a very robust website, tvinsider.com. It has 8 to 9 million users per month. And we think we can transport material from TV Insider print to tninsider.com. And readers may like the magazine and may well become subscribers.
Samir Husni; My typical last question, what keeps you up at night?
Tony Frost: I get up at 5:30 most mornings. My staff sees a lot of emails from me at 5:30 in the morning. I look at the pages, make suggestions, because we’re all invested in making TV Insider the best product possible. I run Central Park twice a week, which means that noting keeps me up at night. (Laughs)
Pierre de Villiers from FIPP Connecting Global Media interviewed me regarding the second edition of The Magazine Century. You can find the interview here and you can order the book here.
”The pandemic brought the world to a halt, but not Embrace Magazine. I decided to launch anyway, keeping all unpaid ads intact to allow LGBTQ+ owned businesses and their ally businesses a chance to bring awareness to their products and services during the pandemic while launching the magazine as it was intended…” John Sotomayor
“Publishing Embrace will always be a labor of love akin to the quote by Mark Twain, “find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life,” however, it is definitely a business venture…” John Sotomayor
What happens when you mix in a blender a creative person at heart, with a strong business sense and enjoys the aesthetic appeal of magazine design, along with the intellectual application of the editorial content that can have an outward impact on the world around us? This person also adds every personal and educational experience of his life into the mix. And did I fail to mention he is gay, and also Roman Catholic? This and all is John Sotomayor, the publisher, editor-in-chief, and executive producer of the Florida based Embrace Magazine and Media.
I met John last year at the annual conference of the Florida Magazine Association where I was speaking. His love for magazines and specifically for what he was doing with magazines, was evident in every single word he told me. I could feel the passion, the love, the excitement, but at the same time the fear of the future. How can one survive in this marketplace and how can a great magazine (my words, not his) survive in the midst of all the headwinds?
I have decided to interview John and ask him a few questions about him and Embrace magazine and Embrace media. What follows is my Q and A with John:
Samir Husni: Two years ago, you single handedly launched Embrace, tell me the story of that launch and your memories of that period…
John Sotomayor: After the success of a previous brand magazine, I decided I wanted to launch an LGBTQ+ magazine, which was more inline with my identity. I decided to make my formal announcement on June 28, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in my native New York City, which signified the start of the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement. I used the next few months on market research and development. Prepared to launch in January 2020, I had some delays that occur naturally with a startup. I was ready to launch next quarter, April 2020 when the world had other plans. The pandemic brought the world to a halt, but not Embrace Magazine. I decided to launch anyway, keeping all unpaid ads intact to allow LGBTQ+ owned businesses and their ally businesses a chance to bring awareness to their products and services during the pandemic while launching the magazine as it was intended. It paid off. We received public engagement. Emergency relief funds provided us the financial assistance we needed to get the first three issues published.
S.H. : As you reflect on the launch, what are some of the most pleasant moments that you can recall?
J. S. : The most pleasant moments involved working with the contributors and our supporters toward developing the vision and content I desired to achieve the level of publication I sought Embrace to be. Everyone brought their A game. Many contributed at a fraction of their worth, and some contributed for free. Where some might have thought print publishing was on a downturn at best, and a thing of the past at worst, those around me saw this as an opportunity to achieve a next level platform for the LGBTQ+ community. Then, there was the reveal. The premiere issue exceeded all expectations. Minds were blown, and new engagement began instantaneously. My former employer, Kendra Akers, publisher for Akers Media Group publications I wrote for, sent the following message, “Hi John, WOW, you have outdone yourself with this publication. Great job! I wish you the best of luck with this new endeavor! I think people will really love it and appreciate it.” She was right. Many others shared similar sentiments. On competition level, judges awarded us with the highest honors in every competition we entered for various journalism organizations throughout Florida and the nation.
S.H. : What are the biggest hurdles you faced and how did you overcome them? In case you did not overcome them, what are the plans to do so?
J. S. : The largest hurdle we faced so far was the COVID-19 pandemic that saw a worldwide shutdown and isolation for almost two years. As we all know, businesses were closed from most of 2020 – 2021. Even when they reopened, for their own survival, they had to drastically reduce their operating budgets. The first for most to go was advertising. That was our bread and butter. We managed to stay afloat by publishing three issues per year rather than four. We planned to publish quarterly. We also kept our operational costs extremely low, again, thanks to the generosity of our contributors. Not only did I not make any earnings for the first three years, but I also contributed financially from my personal savings. It is unwise but necessary. This leads to the next hurdle, becoming sustainable, and even profitable. The solution I am currently negotiating is an acquisition deal with a major media group that sees value in our branding. They have a vast umbrella of luxury brand magazines, but none solely devoted to the lucrative LGBTQ+ audience. Embrace is that asset. If the deal goes through, they will handle all operations — circulation, distribution, advertising, expansion — and I will retain creative control as managing partner, publisher, and editor-in-chief. We will retain our status as a certified LGBTBE (LGBT Business Owned Enterprise), granted to us by the NGLCC (The National LGTB Chamber of Commerce). That status as an LGBTQ+ owned business helps us enormously to attract businesses, including Fortune 500 companies, that wish to do business with a supplier diversity business.
S. H. : The magazine was well received by the magazine community in the state of Florida and in fact it won the magazine of the year in its first year from the Florida Magazine Association. What’s next?
J. S. : Thank you, that was a major moment for us! To give the full effect of winning Magazine of the Year by the Florida Magazine Association in 2021, we need to add that Embrace Magazine won Charlie (first place) for Best New Magazine, Best Overall Magazine, and won Magazine of the Year, all in the magazine’s inaugural year. That has never happened before and some say, may never happen again. Also, we took top honors in all four Best Overalls, including Charlie for Best Overall Writing and Best Overall Magazine, and Silver (second place) for Best Overall Design and Best Overall Digital Innovator, the latter a new category. No other magazine has ever accomplished that either yet. In total, we were honored with 22 awards, the highest any startup magazine has ever garnered. We also made history at the FMA as the first ever LGBTQ+ magazine member in 2021, the organization established in 1953, and the highest awarded startup. We made history with the Associated Church Press, being the first LGBTQ+ magazine member in 2020 of that Christian-based journalism organization, established in 1916. This year, we added a national award from the NLGJA: Association of LGBTQ Journalists for Photo-journalism Excellence, and a national board position for me, as publisher, with the NLGJA as well. Both occurred in Chicago. The FMA also added me as a board member. As a result of these achievements, Embrace Magazine was approached by the Poynter Institute of Media Studies to do a profile on us as a successful startup LGBTQ+ magazine. That by itself, is a high honor given the status in media the Poynter Institute carries. What’s next in 2023? I have already entered us in the GLAAD Media Awards. We should know the results in early 2023. If we are a finalist, I will attend the ceremony in either Los Angeles or New York City. If we win, anything is possible, as that will indeed be a high honor.
S. H. : Is publishing Embrace still a labor of love or more of a business venture now?
J. S. : Publishing Embrace will always be a labor of love akin to the quote by Mark Twain, “find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life,” however, it is definitely a business venture. Embrace is designed by Em Agency, owned by my good friend and long-time colleague, Jamie Mark. With them, we work on ads together. Our website, embracemedia.us was designed by A Great Idea, owned by my new close associate, Shane Lukas, who also contributes content to our online resource blog. We added Embrace Media, which in addition to the magazine, includes Embrace On-Air, our radio show broadcast out of 93.6 FM/1370 AM WOCA The Source, in Ocala. We create video content inhouse but are also in negotiations with Gardner Productions based in Toronto, Canada and New York City to create video advertisements. Hopefully, the acquisition deal with the media group goes through. We should see regional distribution grow to include Barnes & Noble for print, then eventually expand to other regional markets, applying national content to regional advertising. Ultimately, I hope Embrace Magazine and Embrace Media take me to a comfortable retirement, while leaving a lasting legacy.
S. H. : What makes John tick and click?
J. S. : I am creative at heart, with a strong business sense. I enjoy the aesthetic appeal of magazine design, along with the intellectual application of the editorial content that can have an outward impact on the world around us. I also apply every personal and educational experience of my life. I am gay, but I am also Roman Catholic. I made it a point to include a Religion department alongside Issues + Politics, International News, Art + Culture, and Activism + Charity. We have made many major advancements socially, politically, and culturally as a community. However, if the LGBTQ+ community is to ever be completely free of oppression, then we need to confront and unify with our largest oppressors, which are religious groups. I would like to be a catalyst of real change. I also am diversely educated. I studied mechanical engineering but have a dual bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester in Economics and Political Science with a certification in Marketing and Finance. I studied law at Howard University School of Law in Washington, DC but did not complete my JD degree due to complications from being outed as gay. I am also a natural, self-trained artist with the ability to draw. I apply all of my education and artistry to my magazine. I am hands on with every editorial and design decision in Embrace. I have been told by the COO of the media group I am negotiating with that in essence, I am the magazine. What you see within the pages are all a reflection of me.
S. H. : What are the plans for 2023 and beyond?
The immediate plans are to lock the negotiations with the media group and Gardner Productions. Then hopefully become a finalist at the GLAAD Media Awards and hopefully win. Either way, the plan is to attend the GLAAD Media Awards in LA or NYC and continue to network and bring awareness to Embrace Magazine and Embrace Media. If the deal with the media group goes through, Embrace Magazine will grow regionally, starting with states that have large LGBTQ+ communities, then expand outward. Ultimately, I would like to see a European version of Embrace, and a Spanish language version called Abrazo. There are still many areas in South and Central Americas that do not embrace the LGBTQ+ community yet. When a person comes out to their family, the family either shuns them or tries to have them institutionalized until they denounce being LGBTQ and reassimilate as straight. We need to reach those areas to promote and assist change. From there, assist those in need in other repressed areas of the world for LGBTQ+ people in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Looking further into the future, I would like to see Embrace Magazine have its own televised programming, maybe even a network, like National Geographic. Imagine the potential outreach Embrace could produce then.
S. H. : Anything you’d like to add that I failed to ask, or you’d like to mention?
J. S. : When I am asked to improvise, I see an opportunity to add my shameless plug. As a startup, Embrace Magazine still needs financial support. We welcome investors, and of course advertisers. Our 2023 Media Kit is available on our website, embracemedia.us. I also welcome story ideas. Please reach me at john@sotomayormedia.com. Finally, I welcome new contributors: writers, columnists, photographers, illustrators, and graphic artists. Two-thirds of our contributors are LGBTQ+, the remaining third are allies. One of my goals was to provide a platform for talented LGBTQ+ artists to showcase their writing, photography, and design skills toward LGBTQ+ related subjects. They may not have the opportunity elsewhere. Allies are welcomed. Why would I not include the best writer or photographer simply because he or she or they are not gay? So long as they support the mission of the magazine, their talent is welcomed in our pages. We are all inclusive, diverse, and unifying.
S. H. : And my typical last question, what keeps John up at night these days?
J. S. : I have two answers. First, I am concerned for all of our LGBTQ+ community, that our hard-earned civil rights are not torn away by the political mechanism that seems hellbent on doing so. Being from Florida, I see that already being enacted on the state level by our current governor, who has his eyes on the presidency in 2024. I have seen and heard the hate spewed by the Proud Boys who meet in rural bars to plan their next protest. They are getting louder, and forceful. They are no longer satisfied with disruption, they seek destruction. We at Embrace exist to counter, using intellect, compassion, and love to persuade people so that peace and prosperity win. These are the nightmares that keep me up at night.
Second, I am always thinking three steps ahead, as I always have played my favorite game, chess. I do not compete against others. I compete against myself. However high I set the bar previously, I focus on how I can raise the bar even higher. I think, what theme or concept can we come up with to excite our audiences? The photo-essay that won our national award in photo excellence was world renown and revered drag photographer, and Embrace Magazine contributor, Magnus Hastings’ brilliant concept for his book, “Rainbow Revolution” which we used as the foundation for “Thinking Outside the Box.” We collaborated on the July 2022 Arts issue, “Icons Gone Wild” which featured popular LA drag queens reenacting iconic Hollywood actresses in well-known scenes, with a twist. The result will surely garner more awards, as it has received world-wide attention. We have come up with another concept I will keep secret, for now. I can tell you it will be published in our summer Travel issue, and it will be our campiest drag photo-essay yet! These are the thoughts that keep me up at night, that eventually turn to dreams.
As the shift continues at the nation’s newsstands from regularly published magazines to book-a-zines, one can see as we enter 2023 that the future of ink on paper is going to be with those single topic, high-priced publications. They are everywhere: at the checkouts and at the mainlines. They cover every conceivable topic from Inside the Mind of Your Dog to Inside the Mind of Your Cat and everything in between. The cover price of these publications ranges between a low of $9.99 to a high of $14.99. Some of these publications are second, third and even fourth printing. All returning to the newsstands by “popular demand.”
So can the aforementioned be the reason for the drop in the total of new magazines published with a regular frequency? Well, the simple and short answer is YES. A crowded marketplace combined with the three headwinds (paper shortage, printing cost, and postage rates) publishers had to deal with in 2022, kept the major remaining publishers from entering the new magazine field (in fact just the opposite happened for the major publishers, they folded some of the existing magazines that they have), and those publishers focused more on the book-a-zine market.
My sources tell me that the two major publishers Dotdash Meredith and a360 media now control 60% of the book-a-zine marketplace. Well, for those of us who recall the “golden age of magazines” in the 1980s and 1990s, you will remember that Meredith used to be a leader in publishing what was called back then SIPs or special interest publications. Those SIPs were used as a test before that SIP was changed to a regularly published magazine. Country Home comes to mind as one of those SIPs later becoming a magazine with frequency. a360 media is doing now the same with their book-a-zines such as Feel Free, Steam+ and Gold Buckle (all introduced as new magazines in 2022).
So here is a recap of what I wrote in an earlier blog late last year:
The new magazine launches of 2022 were as cold as the arctic weather that hit the nation in the last few days of December. In 2020 the number of new magazines dropped to 60 titles, but then we had COVID 19 to blame. In 2021 the number of new launches doubled and some more to 122. But in 2022 the number of the brave souls who launched new titles, or brought old ones back to life stopped at 74 new titles.
I asked Doug Olson, the president of a360 Media, about his reaction to the aforementioned news. His answer, “2022 was a year of perseverance for the magazine industry. Through hard work, leadership, and continued innovation, the industry navigated input costs, advertiser supply chain issues, labor shortages, and unprecedented consumer inflation in ways that position the industry for a successful 2023!”
Whether 2023 will see an improvement in the number of new title launches or not is yet to be seen. What is for sure is that the so called book-a-zines or special interest publications have taken over the nation’s newsstands squeezing out both the established regularly published magazines and the arriving newbies.
Never in my recent memories have I walk into a newsstand and left empty handed. Twice in 2022 that happened, to the surprise of my wife. “You mean you did not find a single new magazine,” she asked with honest surprise on her face.
But, enough of the doom and gloom, let us concentrate on the bright side of the new magazine world and on the brave souls who still believe in ink on paper in addition to all things digital. Those brave souls were led by Alan Katz and his The Mountains magazine. The Mountains is an example of how a print magazine is and should be done. High quality writing, photography and design, The Mountains: From The Catskills To The Berkshires, deserves to be the 2022 Launch of the Year. Although it is a regional magazine, its content is one of the best I have seen in some time. Whether you live in the mountains or in the valleys, The Mountains and its team is the magazine for those who enjoy a lean back and relax kind of read with pages of experiences and not mere content.
As for the rest of the new magazines of 2022, here is the breakdown of the categories of the new magazine launches of last year:
Total US Print Magazines LaunchedBy Category In 2022*
16 Special Interest
10 Sex
08 Women’s
07 Arts & Literary
05 Metro & Regional
05 Home
05 Crafts/Games/Hobbies
05 Black/Ethnic
04 Auto, Motorcycle, & Bikes
03 Food
02 Children’s
01 Travel
01 Music
01 Men’s
01 Hunting & Fishing
*A total of 74 new magazines were launched in 2022 compared to 122 in 2021 and 60 in 2020.
As most of you know, I have retired from the world of academia after 37 years of teaching. Earlier in 2021 I started the Magazine Media Center with the goal to preserve the past, present and future of the magazine media. I am delighted to announce the release of The Magazine Century, a book published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, NY. The book is the second edition of Professor David Sumner’s The Magazine Century that was published in 2010. Professor Sumner asked me to team up with him to update the book and to write the last few chapter bringing the history of the American magazines through 2020.
Here is an excerpt from the book’s introduction:
At the time of this writing, American magazines are 280 years old. Andrew
Bradford’s The American Magazine or a Monthly View of the Political State of the
British Colonies was first published in Philadelphia on February 13, 1741. Four days
later, Benjamin Franklin published The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle.
Subsequently, the number of American magazines steadily increased for the next
160 years but really began to mushroom at the beginning of the 20th century.
From 5,500 magazines at the beginning of the century, the number reached more
than 18,000 by the end. It was, indeed, a magazine century…
No current books about American magazine history cover the entire 20th
century or 21st century. We acknowledge our debt to Frank Luther Mott of the
University of Missouri, who wrote the five- volume series, A History of American
Magazines, which covered magazine history until the 1930s. Mott’s Pulitzer- Prize
winning series remains the “gold standard” for research on American magazines.
Theodore Peterson’s Magazines in the Twentieth Century covered through the early
1960s and has also been useful in our research. William H. Taft of the University
of Missouri published American Magazines for the 1980s in 1982. Tebbel and
Zuckerman’s work, The Magazine in America 1741 to 1990 was an overview of
250 years of magazine history but limited in detail…
The editors at Peter Lang Publishing in New York invited me to write a
second edition of The Magazine Century, and I invited Professor Samir Husni at
the Magazine Media Center to be a co- author. For 44 years, he has tracked and
published annual books about new magazine launches.
He is the best- known magazine expert in America in the industry.
Besides new information he has written
about the years 2000 to 2020, the book contains a considerable amount of fresh
material about earlier magazines not included in the first edition…
People are generally more interesting to read about than “things.” Therefore,
we have tried to tell this story focusing on the stories of the writers, editors, and
publishers of the best- known magazines and the circumstances behind their
origins. These men and women were a colorful and controversial bunch. Some
became millionaires while many went bankrupt. Some became celebrities, others
were hated, and most were relatively obscure. They fought each other, sued each
other, and occasionally married each other. We hope you enjoy reading their stories.
Mr. Magazine 
