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Making Digital Permanent OffScreen: The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Founder/Editor Kai Barch. A Launch Story

February 26, 2015

“There were a number of reasons (he chose print) and one of the first was really quite selfish. I was doing web designs for clients and I got really tired of producing something that didn’t last very long; whenever you create a website or some other digital design, it lives as long as the next release cycle or the next version number.” Kai Brach

Issue 10 of Offscreen magazine.

There is absolutely no doubt that we live in a digital age. From our laptops to our smartphones; being onscreen is a way of life for humans these days. But who are the people out there molding the web and building these virtual worlds that we all so embrace? Where are their stories; their tales of success and failure? Finally there’s a magazine that points to that place on the map; that continent called Cyber.

Offscreen is a print magazine all about people who use the internet and technology to be creative, solve problems, and build successful businesses. It’s an ink on paper that embraces digital – some might say integration at its best.

Kai Brach is a one man operation of Offscreen; he is the publisher, editor and art director for the publication. For ten years he was a web designer before he decided that he needed something more tangible than the virtual worlds of the internet to fulfill him. He needed to feel his work would last beyond mere pixels; he needed the collectability of print. He needed more than a software update; he needed the final version.

I spoke with Kai recently through Skype from his home in Melbourne, Australia. We talked about the life of a web-designer-turned-print-publisher; the fact that he taught himself InDesign and the basics of Magazines 101. Kai is an extremely ingenious and talented young man who knew what it would take to lift him to the next level of his creativity – from pixels to print – he found fulfillment in the printed word.

So sit back and enjoy this unique conversation with a man who learned for the first time what the phrase ‘final version’ truly means – a printed magazine – the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Kai Brach, Publisher & Editor, Offscreen…

But first the sound-bites:

On why a web designer would choose a printed product: There were a number of reasons and one of the first was really quite selfish. I was doing web designs for clients and I got really tired of producing something that didn’t last very long; whenever you create a website or some other digital design, it lives as long as the next release cycle or the next version number.

On the launch of Offscreen: It was a weird feeling because you send it off and a few weeks later this product, this magazine, comes back; especially for someone who hasn’t ever done anything in print before; it was a pretty amazing experience.

On his major stumbling block with the launch: On the editorial side, and I still find this really challenging, working with 40 or 50 different contributors and getting them to give you what you want when you need it. That was and still is the biggest challenge of making any magazine; it’s working with the contributors.

On his most pleasant surprise: The good thing was when I got the first issue in the mail, that was great, but what was even better was seeing other people get it in the mail and talk about it on Twitter and put the photos on Instagram, letting me know that opening the mail smelled amazing and that they had completely forgotten that print had these other multi-sensory experiences that they don’t get when they sit in front of a screen all day.

On whether he would ever work in the digital realms again: Sure. I think everything has an expiration date and every project we do comes to an end at some point and I would never say I would not go back to digital.

On what keeps him up at night: I think most of my worries that give me sleepless nights relate to contributors who are not getting back to me or are being late or telling me that they can’t do something at the last minute. Contributor worries definitely keep me up at night.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Kai Brach, Publisher & Editor, Offscreen…

Samir Husni: I was fascinated with your own personal digital background and the content of your magazine is all about the web and digital. Why did you choose print for your magazine?

Kai Brach, founder, editor and publisher Offscreen magazine.

Kai Brach: There were a number of reasons and one of the first was really quite selfish. I was doing web designs for clients and I got really tired of producing something that didn’t last very long; whenever you create a website or some other digital design, it lives as long as the next release cycle or the next version number. So you produce something and it’s online now and two weeks later it’s already changed or it’s gone and disappeared into the ether that is the internet.

This process was not fulfilling at all and I really wanted to produce something that lasted longer than the average website. I wanted to create something that I could put on my shelf and say, look, this is what I made, and it will last as long as I have it on my shelf.

That was one of the reasons that I decided I was going to stop doing client work and try my hand at something completely different. If it turned out OK – I knew that I would be proud of it.

The other reason was there’s so much stuff being produced online. I personally find myself either reading something on my Kindle, iPad or my iPhone, which I don’t have an iPad any longer, but when I read something on any of my mobile devices, I get probably 10 minutes of read time before I’m interrupted by an email or some other notification. Or I’ll try to scan over articles or longer reads, but I find myself never engaging with them properly. And I noticed that whenever I read a book or a magazine on my travels, when I’m on the train or on the plane, that’s when I actually enjoy reading. So, I thought that it would be nice to have the things that I care about, reading about the web and how people build companies and how people are creative with technology, to read about that in a format that I actually absorb properly and not just scan through or quickly run over because I have another 15 messages to answer.

And so print was becoming almost like this island where I could go and relax and discover the actual process of reading again. It was really nice and calming. And that was the other reason; I just wanted to create something that people would not find distracting and that they wouldn’t feel pressured to read on the go.

So those were the main reasons, I guess. And then, of course, it’s hard to charge money for digital content, where you can put it in a magazine and provide a nice product experience; you make it something people want to keep, a collectable item, it’s then easier to charge people for it. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that you make a lot of money with it, because in publishing, and I’m sure you can attest to this fact, it’s really hard to actually make a lot of money, especially when it comes to independent publishing.

Samir Husni: Tell me the story of the launch; were you in Germany or had you already moved to Australia when you came up with the idea? Briefly, recount for me the launch of Offscreen.

Kai Brach: I was already in Australia and working as a web designer, but then I decided to stop doing that and gave myself six months to figure out what I wanted to do. I started traveling for those six months. I went to Europe and the U.S. and a few other places and I actually met up with quite a few people that I knew from the web industry.

It was during that time that I actually started to enjoy the stories that happened behind the scenes. We talked to a start-up guy who was very successful, but when you talk to him personally, you realize he went through a lot of failed attempts before he became successful and those stories that I was hearing from different people while I was traveling, encouraged me to somehow put them in a book or e-book or podcast, somewhere I could publish them.

So, I came back from my travels six months later and I decided at that point that I wanted to make a print magazine. I didn’t really know where to start, but I contacted some other magazines that I had sitting on my desk and asked them very simple questions about how to get started; what tools do you use; what production companies do you use; what printer do you use; just lots of questions.

Then I emailed a lot of printers in Germany and Australia, because I know German and the Germans know a thing or two about the printing press. (Laughs) I contacted various printers and asked them quotes based on very random numbers that I thought would make sense. I asked for a quote for 3,000 copies in the beginning and then I compared quotes and pretty much decided; OK, Germany is the only place where it makes financial sense to produce a magazine because in Australia it was extremely expensive. The cost of living is really high here.

From there, I decided to make a magazine based on the quote that I had. I had a quote based on 96 pages and I knew that was my limit. I put together a spreadsheet of people that I wanted to have in the first issue. Some of the people that I met during my travels were in the first issue, but also people that I knew through Twitter and Facebook were in there too.

Basically, I emailed a lot of people just asking them questions such as whether they would be interested in doing an interview with me and have that conversation printed in a magazine.

Of course, if you ask a web designer or some other digital person if they want to do an interview for an exclusive print magazine, you usually get some frowns and some weird looks, but once they saw the first issue, they really appreciated the magazine as well.

So, I pretty much taught myself just like when I did web design. Then, I jumped online and I actually did a course on a website called linda.com, which is an online tutorial where you pay $25 and you can watch videos of people using InDesign and preparing things for print and using color management; all those sorts of things. I taught myself how to use InDesign in a couple of weeks and of course, I used a lot of magazines that were sitting on my desk as a source of inspiration. I copied a bit here and there, but tried to be creative in other ways and after three months or so I did the PDF version of the first magazine and sent that to the printer in Germany and then I waited for four weeks or so and pretty much camped in front of my mailbox for the first issue to arrive.

It was a weird feeling because you send it off and a few weeks later this product, this magazine, comes back; especially for someone who hasn’t ever done anything in print before; it was a pretty amazing experience.

Samir Husni: What was the major stumbling block with this launch and how did you overcome it?

Kai Brach, bringing virtual to reality.

Kai Brach: There’s the production side and then there’s the editorial side. The production side is, of course, figuring out how to avoid typographic issues, making the writing good, issues such as that. And that was a big challenge for me, because as a web designer I’m not used to creating something that has a final version. As a web designer, you produce something; you put it online and then you iterate and iterate and iterate until it’s as good as it can be. Coming to that final version was a big challenge for me on the production side.

On the editorial side, and I still find this really challenging, working with 40 or 50 different contributors and getting them to give you what you want when you need it. That was and still is the biggest challenge of making any magazine; it’s working with the contributors, especially if you’re trying to interview really busy people and get them to sit down and do a lengthy interview with you.

On top of that, keep in mind that I’m the only person behind Offscreen, so there’s no team. I do all the editorial, design, publishing and distribution myself. Every day I put on all these different hats and sometimes you get stuck in a certain area and it just doesn’t move forward.

So production was difficult because I was a web designer before I was a print magazine publisher and it was really hard to come to that final version and send it to the printer and be happy with it.

And the biggest challenge on creating the editorial side of it was dealing with so many different people at the same time and you have all these deadlines lined up.

Samir Husni: What was the most pleasant surprise?

Kai Brach: I think getting the magazine in the mail; the first issue, especially, was amazing. Unfortunately, other issues you get after that; you always see the things you can improve upon, instead of the things that you’ve done right. If you ask any publisher, he’ll always tell you that most of the time they always see things that are wrong with it, instead of the great things about it.

The good thing was when I got the first issue in the mail, that was great, but what was even better was seeing other people get it in the mail and talk about it on Twitter and put the photos on Instagram, letting me know that opening the mail smelled amazing and that they had completely forgotten that print had these other multi-sensory experiences that they don’t get when they sit in front of a screen all day.

Hearing the feedback from people with every single issue is what I live on and what I look forward to.

Samir Husni: Do you ever see yourself going back to web design and working within the digital sphere again?

Kai Brach: Sure. I think everything has an expiration date and every project we do comes to an end at some point and I would never say I would not go back to digital. At the same time, I’m still part of digital. I’m interviewing all these people and I also design and run my own website and I do a lot of social media activity. So, I’m still a part of digital and working within the digital industry as much as I am working in print.

But who knows what the future holds? Print is a great project and I really enjoy it, but I think every publication has a point in time where it either completely reinvents itself or it just stops. The makers or the publishers try their luck with something else.

Samir Husni: I hope you have a long life with Offscreen because the concept itself and the stories you’re telling, the people you’re profiling, is our world today. We live in a digital age, nobody can deny that. But very few people actually know those stories and I think you’re not only doing a great favor for the printed magazine industry, but also the digital world. You’re taking the fantasy out of digital and the virtual out of digital and bringing it to reality.

Kai Brach: I think there’s a lot of content that’s similar to what I do in the magazine that exists online. But for a lot of people when you put it into a magazine; first of all, it reaches a different category of readers. With magazines there is a category of readers that like to discover new things. When they go to shops or they see a magazine on a coffee table somewhere else, it’s a different type of reader that gets excited; you can’t really compare them with someone who subscribes to a certain blog or follows someone on Twitter.

But at the same time the content online is similar, there are a lot of interviews on podcasts and in e-books that everyone can listen to. Of course, my housemate who’s an architect probably wouldn’t listen to a two hour podcast about a digital product. So, for those people, they will discover that world through a magazine that they stumble upon. Would they stumble upon a podcast? Not really. (Laughs)

Samir Husni: Tell me a bit about your background. Are you originally from Germany, or did you grow up in Germany? And what’s the link between Germany and Australia?

Kai Brach: I’m German. I grew up there and lived there until 2002. I moved to Australia and settled here about six years ago. I was working as a web designer and I also did a lot of traveling and spent a few months in New York and went to other places around the world. I worked while I was on the go. I think that was one of the things that I was worried about when I started the magazine: would I be able to maintain that nomadic work pattern that I had, because I love being flexible and being able to go anywhere and work from my laptop. Luckily, I can still do that, but there are a few reasons I need to establish an address and be at home for, in terms of publishing. But 90% of it I can still do on the road, so I still travel.

Samir Husni: And you’re based in Melbourne now, right?

Kai Brach: Yes, in Melbourne. I spend a bit of time every year in Berlin, maybe one or two months. There is a lot of activity, in terms of independent publishing in Europe at the moment. I attend a lot of conferences and it seems for independent publishing; Europe is the place to be at the moment.

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

Kai Brach: (Laughs) What doesn’t keep me up at night? Today I actually woke up at 4:00 a.m. Not because I was worried, but because I woke up for something and then I started thinking about my emails and how I had confirmed most of the interviewees for the next issue.

I think most of my worries that give me sleepless nights relate to contributors who are not getting back to me or are being late or telling me that they can’t do something at the last minute. Contributor worries definitely keep me up at night.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

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A “Collective Quarterly” Show And Tell Travel + Design Magazine. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Editorial Director Seth Putnam. A Launch Story.

February 24, 2015

“When I deal with the internet, I don’t feel there’s a sense of accomplishment necessarily or permanence with it; it’s so fleeting. And I wonder if that’s something that my generation is responding to, in terms of something tangible. When I finish reading a book or a magazine; I can look at it and say, I finished that, rather than just moving on to the next click or page.” Seth Putnam

Issue Zero of The Collective Quarterly

Bohemian destinations and creative accomplices who revel in the art of the uncommon, if that description seems unique and intriguing, then the magazine Collective Quarterly is calling to you.

Each issue of the magazine follows select craftspeople to an offbeat location, where they design uncommon objects while the cameras and writers capture their creative processes. It’s a journey deeply rooted in the heritages of the destinations that they visit. And they are the ‘Collective.’

Seth Putnam is the editorial director of Collective Quarterly and Jesse Lenz, an accomplished illustrator, is his business partner and creative director for the magazine. The two together have spawned an absolutely brilliant and well-done printed magazine that is both aesthetically pleasing and reader-satisfying with its rich and original content.

I recently spoke with Seth about the magazine. We touched on everything from the concept to the cover price, $25, and the fact that both he and his partner are digital natives who felt the need for a printed product to bring their audience a deeper and more meaningful engagement. The conversation was fascinatingly diverse and interesting.

I hope you enjoy this trip into a world where creativity in design and travel is the focal point for everything and the motivation behind two young men’s dream – the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Seth Putnam, Editorial Director for Collective Quarterly.

But first the sound-bites:

Seth Putnam, co-founder and editorial director, The Collective Quarterly magazine.

On the background of Collective Quarterly: It basically became a travel and design magazine where the travel portion is covered by each issue focusing on one location; one region. And then the design portion is covered by the fact that we bring with us a group of artists or craftspeople and we put together an experiential, inspiration trip for them, almost like an artist’s residency.

On why as digital natives, he and his partner decided they needed a printed magazine to connect with their audience: Some parts of our business we approach with great research and thought, and then some we do simply out of a passion for something or a gut feeling. We decided to do print because, while yes, magazine subscriptions are falling and certain titles are closing, more titles are opening, particularly in independent, boutique niche genres’.

On the hefty cover price of the magazine – $25: We landed on that price based on the cost to print a thousand copies of the issue 0 – we looked at it as an experiment. And it was very expensive.

On his opinion of why the digital natives of today are finding an endurable quality in the printed product: When I deal with the internet, I don’t feel there’s a sense of accomplishment necessarily or permanence with it; it’s so fleeting. And I wonder if that’s something that my generation is responding to, in terms of something tangible.

On knowing who his target audience is: Demographically, we haven’t run a lot of surveys or specific numbers, but I would say our audience skews younger, probably that 21 to 35 age-range, with a fairly even split of men and women, from the orders that I see coming in.

On how they came up with the name Collective Quarterly: We were thinking of it as a place where, not only we could bring together really talented artists and craftspeople to go on these trips because each time the cast of characters is rotating, but also use our platform and voice as a medium for our readers to get involved as well. So, we had a sort of inclusive mindset and that’s why we ended up calling it the Collective Quarterly.

On how they decide on the destinations of each issue: Usually it’s a collaborative decision between me and Jesse, the creative director, but we try and do a pretty good job of soliciting ideas at least from the other five or six people on our team or people that we’ve met on the ground in locations that we’ve visited.

On the biggest stumbling block he had to overcome: Everything we have done so far has paid for itself and that’s been really exciting for us, but the challenge has been cash flow, for sure. Trying to make sure that when you’re working on two or three issues at a time, there’s enough money in the bank to pay your bills.

On his most pleasant moment: The reason I got into journalism is because I have a very strong attachment to hearing other people’s stories. Oddly enough; that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s been really gratifying to see that we’re sort of living in a brave new world where if you’ve got a good idea and an internet connection, you can create your own platform for doing that kind of storytelling.

On advice he would give to students who are about to graduate and start their publishing careers: If you have a story to tell, or if you want to tell someone else’s story, but there’s no obvious path to be able to do that through traditional media, then just do it; do it yourself.

On what keeps him up at night: Just making sure that we’re doing good work and we’re treating people well, our sources and our team members, and that we’re doing a better job this time than last time.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Seth Putnam, Editorial Director, Collective Quarterly…

Samir Husni: Give me some background on Collective Quarterly.

The first issue of The Collective Quarterly.

Seth Putnam: We’ve been working in earnest on it since January. 2013. My business partner and I met through the social networking site Instagram. I was working as a magazine writer in Chicago and he’s an editorial illustrator who has created covers for everyone from The New York Times Magazine to GQ to Money, and I think he actually did the Planet Hillary cover for The New York Times Magazine last year and then also the 10th anniversary of September 11th for the cover of Newsweek as well, so he’s a very accomplished illustrator.

As we looked at each other’s work on the social media sites, we became intrigued and decided to set up a call. During that call he told me that he’d like to start a magazine, so I asked him what he wanted it to be about and he asked: how about the creative process? I said that’s a little bit abstract to do an entire magazine about; how are we going to focus that?

We landed on the idea of travel, because we’ve found personally that the trips that we take and the people that we meet in these unseen, often, off the beaten path hideaways are certainly extremely inspiring to us and our passion for stories.

It basically became a travel and design magazine where the travel portion is covered by each issue focusing on one location; one region. And then the design portion is covered by the fact that we bring with us a group of artists or craftspeople and we put together an experiential, inspiration trip for them, almost like an artist’s residency. And then they go home and make something in their discipline, based on their time there, the things that they saw, and the people that they met. We chronicle those experiences and their design processes in the completed product and it’s available through our website as well.

Those are the two hooks of the magazine.

Samir Husni: When did you graduate from the University of Missouri?

Seth Putnam: 2010 – so, five years ago.

Samir Husni: You’re in your twenties?

Seth Putnam: Yes, I’m 26, as is my business partner.

Samir Husni: So, you’re a digital native; why print? When everyone is telling us that the future is digital and you even met your business partner via Instagram; why did you decide to go with print?

Seth Putnam: I guess we’re just young and foolish. (Laughs) Some parts of our business we approach with great research and thought, and then some we do simply out of a passion for something or a gut feeling. We decided to do print because, while yes, magazine subscriptions are falling and certain titles are closing, more titles are opening, particularly in independent, boutique niche genres’.

And much like we’re seeing people return to vinyl records, we’re seeing a love or an appreciation for tangible lifestyle, human interest coverage. So, sure newsweeklies and titles that rely on breaking events are probably suffering because of the immediacy of the internet, but I think that there’s definitely a market out there of people who are willing to put their dollars toward an experience or deeper stories that form another entertainment bucket for them.

But for us; it’s the beauty of being able to hold it; it’s the beauty of sending, as often as possible, reporters, writers and photographers places so that they can tell the stories in person; it’s a little hard to do sometimes, but it makes a better story. And I think the same is true for print versus consuming content on the web.

For the first few issues or the first couple of years, we focused entirely on print, whereas now we’re about to launch a journal on our website so that we can provide more daily stories for our readers, but print has definitely been the thing that we have thrown most of our energy into.

Samir Husni: I noticed that you have a hefty cover price for the print magazine.

Seth Putnam: (Laughs) That’s true. We landed on that price based on the cost to print a thousand copies of the issue 0 – we looked at it as an experiment. And it was very expensive.

What we’ve done is put out a second issue and we’re actually going for a third and we have negotiated a new deal with our printer that will hopefully allow us to get that cover price down in the $19 or $20 region, maybe not by the next issue, but in the not too distant future.

We’re finding that many of the magazines in our similar niche are charging in the $15 to $25 and sometimes up to $30 range, which is a luxury price point for sure. And we want to try and get that down as much as possible because we’ve seen that the magazines that are sticking around have come down somewhat from their original price point.

But again, when you’re printing a thousand copies, of course, we’re printing more than that now, but in the beginning we were doing a 1,000; the price per copy is exponentially higher than if you were printing 10,000 or 15,000 copies.

Samir Husni: I’m seeing more and more new magazines following your approach. The digital generation is finding some love for print or some enduring aspect of the printed product.

Jesse Lenz,
co-founder and creative director, The Collective Quarterly

Seth Putnam: Yes, I agree. When I deal with the internet, I don’t feel there’s a sense of accomplishment necessarily or permanence with it; it’s so fleeting. And I wonder if that’s something that my generation is responding to, in terms of something tangible. When I finish reading a book or a magazine; I can look at it and say, I finished that, rather than just moving on to the next click or page.

Samir Husni: And who do you view as your audience? Who bought that first issue and who’s buying the second? Do you have a sense of your target audience?

Seth Putnam: We’re beginning to get a better sense. I think the audience that adopts a magazine like Collective Quarterly in the beginning is definitely one that is sort of trend-focused; they care about travel and the story behind the destination and they might be the kind of people who shop at anthropology or urban outfitters, for example, which are some of the retailers we work with.

Demographically, we haven’t run a lot of surveys or specific numbers, but I would say our audience skews younger, probably that 21 to 35 age-range, with a fairly even split of men and women, from the orders that I see coming in.

But definitely people who have more than just one income and are able to purchase a magazine of that price point and also buy the products inside and maybe even take the trips that we’re recommending.

I suppose it’s an affluent audience, which raises some questions for us as far as how we want to make ourselves accessible to others as well.

Samir Husni: How did you come up with the name: the Collective Quarterly?

Seth Putnam: We put together a big Google document at the very beginning of our trip and the initial idea was much more focused on artists and makers than it currently is; I think we’ve achieved a little bit of balance there. We were thinking of it as a place where, not only we could bring together really talented artists and craftspeople to go on these trips because each time the cast of characters is rotating, but also use our platform and voice as a medium for our readers to get involved as well. So, we had a sort of inclusive mindset and that’s why we ended up calling it the Collective Quarterly. We toyed around with a lot of different names, but that one just seemed to fit.

Of course, since then we found out a lot of things are called collective. (Laughs) That raises some challenges for sure.

Samir Husni: (Laughs too) I noticed on the website that you refer to you and your team as ‘the Collective.’

Seth Putnam: Yes, definitely. That’s designed to create a sense of inclusion and to make it more about the group as a whole.

For example, there are certain titles out there, particularly in the independent niche genre, where they’re very much connected to a specific person, whether that’s Ben Ashby’s Folk magazine or Nathan Williams’ Kinfolk; they’re synonymous with one individual oftentimes. We wanted to start out at least by being a place where people could rise; the particular people that we find along the way and that we feature, and we’re hoping to be as active an organization as possible to help these people and give them success as well.

Samir Husni: The decisions to go to these places, whether it’s Texas or Montana or wherever you find those offbeat locations that the magazine focuses on; are they collectively decided on or are they just sudden ideas, someone saying, hey, why don’t we go to Texas?

Seth Putnam: Within our internal office structure, which is sort of a misnomer, because no one is in the same place; we have people in different cities: San Francisco, Phoenix and Chicago, also in West Virginia and Minneapolis; I don’t think any one of us is in the same city.

So, there is no office, so to speak, but within our decision-making structure there are definitely those who provide the drive and motivation and the pushing, and others who provide the steering, for sure. Usually it’s a collaborative decision between me and Jesse, the creative director, but we try and do a pretty good job of soliciting ideas at least from the other five or six people on our team or people that we’ve met on the ground in locations that we’ve visited. See what works with our schedules and our interests and then we go and scout those places to see if they have the kind of story quality that we’re looking for.

Samir Husni: When you graduated in 2010; did you ever think that you’d be doing what you’re doing now?

Seth Putnam: I had no idea. Usually people graduating from college aren’t sure about the next job they’re getting, much less what their long-term ambitions are. When the first issue came out I spoke through Skype to a class from the University of Missouri and I just did another one after the Montana issue came out and that first time I told them that I sure wished that I had taken magazine publishing because I didn’t have the first clue about making a magazine. There’s been a lot of trial and error, to be certain.

I spent the last four or five years freelancing and there’s a lot of isolation that comes with that when you’re working for yourself or rather, for 15 or 16 different editors or publications at a time, but you’re doing it from the comfort of your own home. So, I spent a long time as an individual rather than a manager or part of a team and I think that has been a really exciting challenge, and also transitioning from thinking that I’m not someone’s employee anymore, I’m a boss or an owner. That quick wired a definite mindset shift that I didn’t predict when I was in college.

Samir Husni: What has been the biggest stumbling block since launching Collective Quarterly and how were you able to overcome it?

Seth Putnam: When we all went to Texas, there were about eight or nine people on the trip, and everyone who was there paid their own way; we covered our own lodging costs and expenses, because as I said earlier, sometimes we make decisions without doing all the research that we could have. We started the magazine with no funding and we just paid our own way.

When we had gathered all of the content for stories and the photographs, and it became time to actually take it to print, we knew that we couldn’t foot that bill ourselves, so we considered whether or not we should do a Kickstarter. But we decided that if we were going to be a magazine that sells for that cover price, we wanted to establish ourselves less as needing help and more as something people would want to get in on early and be the first to get a copy.

We made a video and sort of styled it after a Kickstarter campaign and we ran that through our own website and we sold pre-orders rather than donations. And with what we earned in the first month or two, we were able to take it to print and the sales from that issue covered many of those expenses that we had paid out of our own pockets for the next one. So, it covered travel costs and lodging and some meals here and there.

Everything we have done so far has paid for itself and that’s been really exciting for us, but the challenge has been cash flow, for sure. Trying to make sure that when you’re working on two or three issues at a time, there’s enough money in the bank to pay your bills.

I think that’s one of the things that come along with not taking funding at the very beginning and obviously, there are tradeoffs. If you take funding then your investor owns part of your company and you lose a little control, but if you keep that control you may not have the liquidity to be able to do some of the things that you’d like to. We’re very much in that challenge mode right now and trying to figure it out; we’ve put out two issues now and we’re about to do a third; how do we stick around long enough to be able to keep this going for a while?

Samir Husni: What has been the most pleasant moment?

Seth Putnam: The reason I got into journalism is because I have a very strong attachment to hearing other people’s stories. I kept track of how many days I was on the road between this magazine and my other assignments last year, I was on the road for about 125 days, and most of the time was spent going to small hamlets around the country.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Georgia Rambler; he was an Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist a few years ago, but he would go to small towns in Georgia and find someone and then ask them who was the most unforgettable person they knew. Then he would go and write about that person.

It’s funny because I corresponded with him; his name is Charles Salter, after hearing him on This American Life a few years ago; actually, when I was working in Mississippi, and we corresponded a little bit and I asked him as a naïve 21-year-old: how do I get a job like yours? And he said there aren’t that many out there anymore because you would need to be on a newspaper staff for 15 or 20 years to gain the experience, credibility and cache which would allow your editor to say: OK, go do this column. And then you’d have to write a daily column in the newspaper and the bottom is falling out of newspapers and that’s just not possible anymore.

But oddly enough; that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s been really gratifying to see that we’re sort of living in a brave new world where if you’ve got a good idea and an internet connection, you can create your own platform for doing that kind of storytelling.

Samir Husni: What advice would you give to students now who are reaching the graduation stage?

Seth Putnam: That’s a great question. I don’t generally have one go-to piece of advice where I say: if you’re a young journalism student, you need to know this, but one of the things that I really loved about my education, and still see at the University of Missouri when I go back and talk to students there, is that there are no limits on what they think is possible. And I think that’s worth reminding ourselves and them about to. If you have a story to tell, or if you want to tell someone else’s story, but there’s no obvious path to be able to do that through traditional media, then just do it; do it yourself.

Start a website or start some sort of platform online that allows you to tell that story and realize that it’s highly possible that you may have to do it for free because as a young student no one may be willing to pay you to do that.

But I think it’s a really powerful truth that when there’s something a person feels compelled to do or a story that someone feels compelled to tell, that’s inside and just has to come out, doing it on your own and doing it well; eventually, somebody is going to find a way to pay you for it. It’s an exciting time because there have never been fewer barriers to those of us in the storytelling industry to be able to seek our own path.

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

Seth Putnam: Right now what’s been waking me up at 3:00 a.m. is the closing week of our Vermont issue. As I said; I’ve always worked as an individual and now I have a team of writers and colleagues and they’re depending on me to get things done, on time, and make sure all of the loose ends are neatly tied up, particularly when you’re about to send it to print. There are a lot of things that appear to be falling through the cracks and need your attention.

Just making sure that we’re doing good work and we’re treating people well, our sources and our team members, and that we’re doing a better job this time than last time.

It’s such a beautiful magazine and I am in such awe of our photographers and designers and the guys that are making sure it all happens. Another thing, from my standpoint, that sometimes keeps me up at night is trying to figure out how to elevate the quality of the writing, for sure, and to get people involved with us that are much better than we are, and can lift us to greater heights with the actual content.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

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Crossing Over From The Virtual World Of Digital To The Real World of Print: My Wedding, The Magazine Debuts…

February 20, 2015

I guess the trend of websites and digital entities discovering print is continuing with full force. After Pineapple, Porter, Ponder, Unmapped, Atlas, Sneaker News, all recipes, delish, and many others, mywedding.com is the latest crossover to the real world of print from the virtual world of digital.

The editors of My Wedding, The Magazine write in the first issue, “Welcome to the first print edition of mywedding. A year ago we were just beginning to dream about this day, much like many of you are dreaming about a certain day in your own near future. The past twelve months have led us through a world of growth and change as we’ve navigated new trends and fallen more deeply in love with the art of sharing love stories. All of our careful preparation and planning has brought us to this place: a brand new magazine devoted to authentic, original representations of love and the celebrations that accompany it.”

The premiere issue of My Wedding, The Magazine comes in at a hefty 228 pages and $12.99 cover price.

Welcome to the world of magazines mywedding.com and keep in mind “If it is not ink on paper, it is not a magazine.™”
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Magazine Launches: “Magazine Power By The Numbers.” A Mr. Magazine™ Exclusive

February 11, 2015

I’ve always said that the vivacity and life’s blood of the magazine industry is in its new launches, as in ink on paper new launches. There is nothing, be it human or otherwise that can continue its species without new birth. And that certainly applies to ink on paper in every way.

The very essence of growth and sustainability is within the confines of creation itself. And Mr. Magazine’s™ Launch Monitor was born from that idea. It is the nursery window where proud parents and relatives or friends of the family can stand and admire the beauty and potential of each newborn ink on paper at their leisure.

For the year 2015, I’m adding a new feature to the Launch Monitor: yearly comparisons. From the Top 10 categories to the Average Cover Price – each month will have the numbers for 2015 and 2014 for you to parallel and consider. The numbers will speak for themselves and the information will be available along with the usual new magazine launches and their covers.

I hope you enjoy this new feature and I hope it brings another detail of our fascinating world of magazines into a clearer focus and understanding, because it’s a given; we can’t know where we’re going until we know where we’ve been…

It goes without saying that I have each and every one of the magazines posted on the Mr. Magazine™ Launch Monitor and remember my soon to be trademarked phrase “If It Is Not Ink On Paper, It Is Not A Magazine.”

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Yoga Digest Magazine: A Launch Story. The Lifestyle Of Yoga Comes To Life In Print – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Co-Founder Cody Groth.

February 2, 2015

“Honestly, I think people are out of their minds to get out of print. I still think that the majority of people are just so engaged with something that’s in-hand and they look forward to getting something in the mail or seeing it on a newsstand; it’s just more appealing to them and to me too honestly.” Cody Groth

In June 2014, an online community of yoga enthusiasts and practitioners was born – yogadigest.com. Within that realm of digital connection a yearning for a deeper engagement with the lifestyle of yoga was communicated and in November 2014, the print version became a reality: Yoga Digest magazine.

Jenn Bodnar is a yoga teacher/trainer and Cody Groth, a former college basketball player who had his aspirations and career cut short by a back injury, co-founded the online site and the magazine. Jenn had been following the yoga lifestyle for some time, while Cody experienced the restorative power of yoga when his involvement with the practice healed his back injury completely, without surgery. Even though every doctor he saw said he would eventually need surgery to find relief from the injury.

I spoke with Cody recently about the ink on paper addition to the website and why it was necessary for the fulfillment of their mission. From the engagement factor of print to the tangible quality of the paper itself; the 26-year-old digital native confessed his obsession with print and his belief in its power to engross today, even with a myriad of digital screens at people’s disposal.

The interview was vibrant with positivity, the power of the dream, and a never-ending hope for tomorrow, all brought about by the birth of a printed magazine, proving once again that reality complements virtual quite nicely.

I hope you enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Cody Groth, Co-Founder, Yoga Digest magazine. I know I did.

First, the sound-bites:

On the decision to do a print magazine: We initially started as an online community just to build a foundation. Then after a couple of months and after reaching out to many contributors in the industry, we were getting feedback from people who would much rather be in print. There’s still something about being in print that’s appealing to people.

On the conception of the magazine: It was a natural flow that stemmed from the feedback that we were getting. The online community was doing great, we were getting a lot of hits to the site, but again, we sat down and decided that if we wanted to reach the amount of people that we did; we had to be in print.

On the biggest stumbling block they had to overcome: The biggest stumbling block for us is was our unfamiliarity with the publishing business. We had no backgrounds in the magazine industry at all.

On what the future of Yoga Digest looks like: It’s looking very promising. We’re getting a lot of interest from the financial world. So, we have a lot of connections in place.

On how they hope to compete with the more established yoga magazines for advertisements: As for advertising, right now we’re just working with the small range of products that you see in the magazine: the yoga lifestyle products and we want to keep it that way. We don’t expect to compete with the bigger magazines when it comes to advertising.

On whether they were out of their minds to start a print magazine in a digital age: Honestly, I think people are out of their minds to get out of print. I still think that the majority of people are just so engaged with something that’s in-hand and they look forward to getting something in the mail or seeing it on a newsstand; it’s just more appealing to them and to me too honestly.

On what they will be concentrating on over the next 12 months with the magazine: We will be trying to increase our brand recognition over the next year to go along with our magazine. We have a lot of fun things in place to counter our brand that’s known as a magazine right now, but we hope to expand on that with different events and involvements.

On anything else he’d like to add:The main thing that we really want to emphasize is how we separate ourselves from the bigger magazines. They have their own audience, their own niche that they appeal to, but we really are trying to appeal to the everyday person who maybe wants to start yoga but thinks they need to be able to touch their toes before they begin. That’s not the case at all.

On what keeps him up at night: I would have to say Yoga Digest keeps me up at night because it keeps me so busy.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Cody Groth, Co-Founder, Yoga Digest…

Samir Husni: Take me through the journey of Yoga Digest. You started the website first and then you decided to do the print magazine. With the multitude of yoga magazines already out there; why did you decide to do a print magazine now? Tell me the story of Yoga Digest magazine.

Cody Groth: We initially started as an online community just to build a foundation. Then after a couple of months and after reaching out to many contributors in the industry, we were getting feedback from people who would much rather be in print. There’s still something about being in print that’s appealing to people. So, we sat down and we thought it through and in order for us to reach the amount of people that we wanted to reach for our mission, we decided to go into print as well.

From there, regarding the other magazines in the industry, we really wanted to separate ourselves by being an approachable resource, as opposed to what’s already out there, which is mainstream, Ph.D. yoga and kind of a naturalist, hippie-type yoga. We wanted to be the middleman between the everyday person and a resource that reaches all populations of yoga. Not everybody needs to wear high-end yoga gear or buy the most expensive mat in order to do yoga. Yoga is a lifestyle that contributes to overall health and wellbeing, not just an ego or materialistic-type of practice.

Samir Husni: You started on the web in June and then you launched your first print issue in November; what changed in that time frame, besides your contributors telling you that they wanted to be in print? Can you take me through the conception of the magazine through its status today?

Cody Groth: It was a natural flow that stemmed from the feedback that we were getting. The online community was doing great, we were getting a lot of hits to the site, but again, we sat down and decided that if we wanted to reach the amount of people that we did; we had to be in print.

The transition from online to print was just a steady flow. And it really did go very naturally in the direction that it did. We were accepted by the printer and the distribution company that we wanted. The other things sort of fell into place for us and are still going smoothly.

Samir Husni: What was the biggest stumbling block for you during this journey and how did you overcome it?

Cody Groth: The biggest stumbling block for us is was our unfamiliarity with the publishing business. We had no backgrounds in the magazine industry at all.

But everything just fell into place, from getting the right designer to set our style to getting accepted by the distributor. And we didn’t have anything to show other than a few mock-up articles and a website demographic. So, we were very surprised to be accepted by the distribution company that we did.

Samir Husni: Do you consider that the most pleasant moment in the launch of Yoga Digest?

Cody Groth: Yes, absolutely. The most difficult or something that almost stopped us was the funding. We had really hoped to raise some money to get it going, but we ended up having to self-fund it ourselves and it’s still 100% self-funded.

Samir Husni: You have two issues under your belt; what does the future look like for Yoga Digest now?

Cody Groth: It’s looking very promising. We’re getting a lot of interest from the financial world. So, we have a lot of connections in place.

Nothing is set yet, but there’s a good possibility that we’re going to be expanding our distribution to a broader audience, not just the targeted audience.

We have a lot of things in place, both with the magazine and a bunch of fun, external things that we’re getting involved with.

Samir Husni: Magazines have two major sources of revenue: circulation and advertising. With your circulation as it is now; how will you compete for advertisements with some of the more established yoga magazines out there?

Cody Groth: That’s a good question. Our current distribution is just over 10,000, that’s just in Wholesome Foods and Sprouts and what’s in the house markets and that’s with just one distribution company.

As for advertising, right now we’re just working with the small range of products that you see in the magazine: the yoga lifestyle products and we want to keep it that way. We don’t expect to compete with the bigger magazines when it comes to advertising.

Obviously, when we increase our circulation in the next couple of issues, we’ll have to hire an advertising team. But we want to make sure that our magazine is offering advertisement that is relevant to our reader. We don’t want to sell anything that isn’t relevant to our audience and our content within the magazine.

Samir Husni: Do you think that being a novice in the magazine business helped to make the transition from digital to print easier for you in an age when everyone says that print is dead or declining? Are you out of your mind to start a print magazine in today’s digital world?

Cody Groth: Honestly, I think people are out of their minds to get out of print. I still think that the majority of people are just so engaged with something that’s in-hand and they look forward to getting something in the mail or seeing it on a newsstand; it’s just more appealing to them and to me too honestly. I’d rather have something in-hand that I can take with me wherever I want to go as opposed to reading it on a screen.

Samir Husni: And if I may ask; how old are you, Cody?

Cody Groth: I’m 26.

Samir Husni: So, we can’t count you as a digital immigrant; you are a digital native.

Cody Groth: Right; I’m within the digital generation, but I’m still obsessed with print.

Samir Husni: Good to know. Tell me a little about the future of Yoga Digest; if I take a sneak peek into your business plan, what will I find you doing within the next 12 months?

Cody Groth: You’ll see a lot of brand recognition, not just in print; we’re trying to expand the Digest into festivals, retreats, and featured classes around the country, and also into the Quarterly partnership.

We will be trying to increase our brand recognition over the next year to go along with our magazine. We have a lot of fun things in place to counter our brand that’s known as a magazine right now, but we hope to expand on that with different events and involvements.

Samir Husni: Why did you opt to name the magazine Yoga Digest when you’re publishing a standard-sized magazine rather than a digest size?

Cody Groth: Yes, a lot of the digests and catalogues are smaller-sized, but we see “digest” as reading. Golf Digest also does a full-sized magazine, so that was helpful to us when we named the magazine. It let us know that we wouldn’t be completely out of the box by going with a full-sized magazine but calling it a digest.

When choosing our brand, the Digest, we were very surprised that it was available. If you look at all the major industries, any kind of niche digest is either well known within the industry that it’s in or it’s been around for 50 or 60 years.

But to have a growing industry like yoga have the brand “digest” available was very appealing to us.

Samir Husni: That was a surprise to me as well. With all the yoga magazines out there and none of them having the name Yoga Digest was amazing. But sometimes the obvious is the one thing people don’t think about.

Cody Groth: Yes, agreed.

Samir Husni: You have a partner and the two of you are publishing the magazine; did you both quit your day jobs?

Cody Groth: (Laughs) No, we do this as a…well, I was going to say hobby, but I guess it’s turning into a full-time gig. It started as a hobby; we both have a passion for yoga; we love doing and sharing it. Jenn Bodnar, my co-founder, is a yoga instructor and a yoga teacher/trainer, so she teaches people to become yoga teachers. She’s very knowledgeable in the industry and very well connected.

I’m just a product of how yoga feels. I was a college basketball player and I had a back injury that forced me to quit my college basketball career and every doctor I saw told me that I needed surgery. After doing some research myself and talking to quite a few people who had opted for yoga over surgery; I decided to start yoga. And even though it was a slow transition over the course of the last three years, yoga has completely healed my back. So, I’m very passionate about sharing that with people.

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

Cody Groth: The main thing that we really want to emphasize is how we separate ourselves from the bigger magazines. They have their own audience, their own niche that they appeal to, but we really are trying to appeal to the everyday person who maybe wants to start yoga but thinks they need to be able to touch their toes before they begin. That’s not the case at all. Yoga is for everybody and everybody can do yoga.

I think it was Zig Ziglar who said: you don’t have to be great to start something; you have to start something to become great. So we’re trying to share our passion with everyone and separate ourselves into that audience.

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

Cody Groth: I do sleep very well, but I would have to say Yoga Digest keeps me up at night because it keeps me so busy.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

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It’s A Bird, It’s A Plane – No, It’s A Drone! The Skies & Newsstands Are Making Room For The Latest Buzz – The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Tim Kidwell, Editor-In-Chief, Drone 360

January 22, 2015

“I am not one of those people who think print is dead; I think print has a place and a role in publishing.” Tim Kidwell

They are an unknown quantity in so many ways, yet becoming more and more used each and every day. From law enforcement to agriculture, photographers to a fascinated public; drones are captivating common interests all across the country.

Drone 360 is a new launch from Kalmbach Publishing, the company that brings us the science-based magazine Discover and a host of hobbyist magazines. Drone 360 pays tribute to the compelling world of multirotor aircraft and attempts to assist in answering some of the tougher issues about the flying machines, such as how the FAA plans on regulating their commercial use. While the magazine is only scheduled for this premiere issue, Editor-in-Chief Tim Kidwell is hopeful the special interest ink on paper product does well and he’s given the green light to fly his drone again, many times. But for now, the first issue will land on the nation’s newsstands on March 24.

I reached out to Tim recently to talk about the engaging world of drones and we discussed the many facets of the aircraft. From the hobbyists whose enthusiasm comes from a different level of curiosity, to the commercial world that would love to uncover the vast array of possibilities drones offer; Tim talked with an enthusiasm of his own about the aircraft.

So, sit back, relax and enter a world of alternative flight as you enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Tim Kidwell, Editor, Drone 360.

But first, the sound-bites:

On the genesis of Drone 360: I guess by now drones have become a part of everyday life. They’re affecting our culture and pushing technology. They’re becoming a part of our businesses as people try and figure out how they can use them for all sorts of commercial and scientific efforts. They’re everywhere.

On the concept behind the magazine: Right now it’s a special interest publication that we’re putting out in conjunction with Discover. We really thought that it was the perfect time for us to get in there and talk about a lot of the issues.

On the intended audience of the magazine: The people that this (magazine) will probably interest the most are men, aged 18 to 39; I think that’s probably where the sweet spot is. However, when we were putting the magazine together I told our team that while 18 to 39 year old men might be where the sweet spot is, I want this magazine to be easily read by anyone who is interested in tech and gear.

On the major stumbling block he faces in launching the magazine: Our biggest challenge to me is just making sure that we get market penetration and eyes on the magazine. If we can get eyes on the magazine I think that it will go.

On why print was the best format for the magazine’s message: I am not one of those people who think print is dead; I think print has a place and a role in publishing. I believe there are ways to still get information out there on the internet, but I think the internet is very good at disseminating information but it’s all up to the reader when it comes to trying to cull down and decide what’s good and what’s bad.

On the most pleasant moment he had when putting the magazine together: The coolest thing so far, I think, has been when we came up with the feature story list. We said the stories on that list were what we wanted to see happen. And what we started to see were these threads, these concerns and comments that were linking all of these stories together and it really made the entire magazine gel.

On what keeps him up at night: If I had to pick one thing; I really love tech, but I worry about how tech is used. And that’s what keeps me up at night.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Tim Kidwell, Editor, Drone 360…

Samir Husni: My first question to you is why did you decide to launch your magazine now? Do you believe drones are going to be a more integral part of our near future? Tell me about the genesis of Drone 360.

Tim Kidwell: I guess by now drones have become a part of everyday life. They’re affecting our culture and pushing technology. They’re becoming a part of our businesses as people try and figure out how they can use them for all sorts of commercial and scientific efforts. They’re everywhere.

And as far as whether it’s a fad or not, I don’t think that drones are a fad in the sense that I believe we’re going to see them used more frequently for law enforcement and in commercial endeavors. I think maybe we’ll see a drop off in their popularity as something that the hobbyist would use. What we’re seeing right now is, especially with quadcopters, they’re a lot easier to fly than fixed wing or traditional helicopters in RC circles. So, we’re seeing this surge of, “Wow, I too can fly something and it doesn’t take very much for me to get it into the air.”

We’re seeing a real fervor behind that, but I also think that will die back a little. I’m not saying it’s going to disappear, but I don’t think it’s going to remain as hot and as trendy for hobbyists as it is right now. Something else will come along and take that up. But for the foreseeable future, drones, multirotor aircraft, these sorts of things are here to stay.

Samir Husni: What is the vision behind Drone 360.

Tim Kidwell: Well, right now it’s a special interest publication that we’re putting out in conjunction with Discover. We really thought that it was the perfect time for us to get in there and talk about a lot of the issues, not only on the hobby side, because I think there is some space there for us to talk about beginning hobbyists and how they can get into multirotor aircraft and how they can fly safely, those sort of things.

But we also thought that, again, there is so much going on with the science end of tins and culturally with law enforcement that we really needed to get in there and touch on these different topics.

The other thing that really spurred us was the FAA was coming out with rules in 2015, so we thought this was the perfect time to get in there and start really talking about them and giving balanced coverage. You can get a lot of rhetoric on both sides, where they are extremely pro or extremely against, and I thought what we needed to do was come in and give a balanced approach and say there are some valid opinions on both sides and let’s explore both as we move along.

Samir Husni: Who is the intended audience; whom are you trying to reach with the printed magazine?

Tim Kidwell: If we’re going to be honest, the people that this will probably interest the most are men, aged 18 to 39; I think that’s probably where the sweet spot is. However, when we were putting the magazine together I told our team that while 18 to 39 year old men might be where the sweet spot is, I want this magazine to be easily read by anyone who is interested in tech and gear and RC, even casually, and who just want to find out what is going on with the drones. We wanted it to be open and accessible to everyone, but we do understand that our target audience is men, 18 to 39.

Samir Husni: Tim, what do you anticipate to be the major stumbling block when it comes to the launch of the magazine and how are you planning to overcome it?

Tim Kidwell: The major stumbling block is where magazine publishing and publishing in general is right now. It’s going to be penetration into the market and getting seen that will be our biggest challenge. I think the content and subject matter is great and I believe it’s pertinent and exciting. So, our biggest challenge to me is just making sure that we get market penetration and eyes on the magazine. If we can get eyes on the magazine I think that it will go.

Samir Husni: Do you think print is the best vehicle to reach that audience today?

Tim Kidwell: I am not one of those people who think print is dead; I think print has a place and a role in publishing. I believe there are ways to still get information out there on the internet, but I think the internet is very good at disseminating information but it’s all up to the reader when it comes to trying to cull down and decide what’s good and what’s bad, whereas I think a magazine like what we’re doing here, you have to be very judicious in putting together what stories we do. We only have so many pages; in this case, we have 92. We only have 92 pages, so we have to make sure those stories are as concise and as good as we can possibly do them. And a printed magazine is a great way to get that information out.

Samir Husni: As you were putting this magazine together; what was the most pleasant moment that you had? Or the “aha” moment as you were putting this first issue together.

Tim Kidwell: The coolest thing so far, I think, has been when we came up with the feature story list. We said the stories on that list were what we wanted to see happen. And then we began getting them assigned and as they started to come back in and we were reading through them, we started to notice common threads developing. And that was the neatest thing.

On one of the initial stories it was maybe just a reference or two to something like situational awareness. Then we see in another story that situational awareness come up again, but somebody else has a different take on it. And what we started to see were these threads, these concerns and comments that were linking all of these stories together and it really made the entire magazine gel.

Samir Husni: How often do you plan to publish Drone 360?

Tim Kidwell: We hope that there are going to be more of these. Like I said earlier, it’s a special-issue publication that we’re doing in conjunction with Discover. So, right now this is the one, this is our premiere; we hope we’ll get the green light to do more. But right now this is the only one that’s planned currently. We’ll see how well it does and if it does well, then we will consider what we can do next.

Samir Husni: Looking at the cover; this magazine is rooted in science; it’s rooted in Discover and it’s rooted in a company known in the field of special interest publications, connectivity to its audience and hobbyists in different realms of things.

Tim Kidwell: Yes, we’re pushing it in conjunction with Discover, so it’s going off of Discover’s bipad. However, we aren’t necessarily targeting just Discover’s audience. We’re looking at a broader mix of hobbyists and general interest, people who are interested in drones or people who are interested in the tech of drones or those interested in getting into the hobby of quadcopters or multirotor aircraft. So, we’re looking at a much broader audience than just the science end, which would be more of an interest for the Discover audience.

Samir Husni: Anything else you’d like to add about Drone 360? Is it going to be delivered via drone? (Laughs)

Tim Kidwell: (Laughs too) It will not be delivered via drone because we’re still waiting on the FAA decision on how to use them commercially. (Laughs) All I want to say is that we’ve been extremely excited about this project. We put it together and turned it around very fast and it’s been a great experience for all of us. Drones are here to stay and they are something that we’re going to have to live and cope with and figure out just where they fit in when it comes to our everyday life.

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

Tim Kidwell: What keeps me up at night? (Laughs) I have a lot of things that keep me up at night. I have a new baby on the way, so worrying about that keeps me up. (Laughs)

If I had to pick one thing; I really love tech, but I worry about how tech is used. And that’s what keeps me up at night.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

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Love Life; Live Big: It’s All In BigLife Magazine! The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Ryan Waterfield – Co-Founder, BigLife Magazine…

January 21, 2015

“I love print magazines and I will never give up the fight or the belief that I have in their value. I was just at the beach with my family and everyone that I saw there had a print magazine. I mean, you just don’t read on an iPad when you’re at the beach.” Ryan Waterfield

Fun – just think about the word for a minute and the images it conjures up in your own mind. Everybody’s “fun” is a little different, but the emotion is the same: a carefree sunshiny day and the passion of a child filling your heart, causing it to beat out of your chest with expectation of what the day might bring.

When you pick up the magazine BigLife for the first time and each subsequent moment thereafter, that’s the response you feel from the virgin touch. It’s alive with fun and passion and content so dynamic it fairly reaches out from between the pages and grabs you along for the ride.

BigLife could be described no better than in the words of the woman who co-founded it and also serves as its editor-in-chief, Ryan Waterfield:

“I like to tell my friends (or anyone with a sense of humor) to imagine BigLife this way: Garden & Gun and Esquire meet in a dark bar. They have a torrid one-night stand. One-night stand results in a love (lust) child. Love child moves west and sets up shop in a mountain town. Falls in love with the ways of the West and starts a magazine. That’s BigLife (at least our idealized version of ourselves b/c I love G&G and Esquire. We have fewer nearly-naked chicks telling funny jokes and less of the garden stuff, more of the backcountry skiing stuff. But, you get the idea.)”

And that, my friends, sums up BigLife very well. The passion that ignited this love (lust) child comes from deep within Ryan Waterfield. Wife and mother of two; Ryan had a dream to turn her Sun Valley Focus magazine into something bigger, something that displayed the type of larger-than-life environment in which she lived. And after seeing and feeling the ink on paper product of that dream, Mr. Magazine™ is impressed. Very impressed.

This is a magazine where you can actually feel the emotions of each page, each word and each photograph emanate in a resounding fashion. And the element of mischievous fun is never farther than the masthead – where Ryan tongue-in-cheek pokes fun at the Hemingway-approved way of getting the creative juices flowing: alcoholic libations, while her creative director Britt Johnston just dreams of having the time to clean her house. Each member of the BigLife team has their own humorous blurb designed just for them. It’s unique and it’s fun. Just like the magazine itself.

So, sit back, mentally dig up your snow skies, and enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Ryan Waterfield, Co-founder & Editor-in-Chief, BigLife magazine

Ryan Waterfield with her son Townes Van Der Meulen (5). Ryan writes " my wonderfully stubborn and inventive son... and has an under-documented 18-month old sister."

Ryan Waterfield with her son Townes Van Der Meulen (5). Ryan writes ” my wonderfully stubborn and inventive son… Townes has an under-documented 18-month old sister.”

But first the sound-bites:

On what she was thinking to launch a print magazine in this day and age: I love print magazines and I will never give up the fight or the belief that I have in their value. And there are a lot of places where you don’t want to read a magazine on a digital device. So I believe in print.

On the concept of BigLife: BigLife was born from this idea that in the mountain west, there really isn’t a magazine that captures the big life that we live here. There are magazines that do a great job of capturing the adventure side of it, but there is so much more to living in the mountain west. It’s a very rich life with commitments to causes and with a hunger for its culture.

On her own description of BigLife as the love child of Garden & Gun and Esquire: You’ll probably think it wasn’t such a one night stand between those two; I mean, Vanity Fair played a big role. I’m a huge reader of magazines, so there are so many that have inspired me over the years.

On the biggest stumbling block she had to face: As for stumbling blocks; I’m a teacher by trade and I experienced 15 years in the classroom. I don’t have a background in publishing, but I have a love of magazines. So, the stumbling block for me is that I’m a novice in many ways.

On her most pleasant and surprising moment: The thing that was the most surprising and the most pleasant and the most encouraging was the amount of people I heard from. I heard from so many people that I knew and didn’t know.

On what she would tell someone who wanted to launch a new magazine: I’d say: number 1 – make sure that you have a team that is willing to jump off the cliff with you and doesn’t mind figuring out how to fly on your way down together

On what keeps her up at night: I am so excited about what we’re doing that I can’t sleep because of that excitement. And then of course there is the terror of things like: do I have the right stuff in this issue of the magazine; have I talked to everybody I needed to talk to.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ interview with Ryan Waterfield, Co-Founder, BigLife magazine…

Samir Husni: My first question to you has to be are you out of your mind launching a print magazine in this day and age and with the added responsibilities of a family?

Ryan Waterfield: Absolutely, yes. (Laughs) That’s something my husband asks me all the time; what are you doing? Are you sure this is something that you want to do? I was laughing the other day because I moved to Sun Valley from Kentucky when I was 22-years-old. I had a job as a teacher at private school and took a very safe route for most of my life. And I loved teaching while I did it, but I always had this desire to write and to do something creative. Not that teaching isn’t creative, it definitely is. But writing was something that I wanted to do that was different. I got into writing and then the magazines came after that.

I love print magazines and I will never give up the fight or the belief that I have in their value. I was just at the beach with my family and everyone that I saw there had a print magazine. I mean, you just don’t read on an iPad when you’re at the beach. And there are a lot of places where you don’t want to read a magazine on a digital device. So I believe in print.

Samir Husni: Tell me a little about your new magazine, BigLife.

Ryan Waterfield: BigLife was born from this idea that in the mountain west, there really isn’t a magazine that captures the big life that we live here. There are magazines that do a great job of capturing the adventure side of it, some are very specific; they capture the skiing or the mountain biking side of it. “Powder” and “Outside” magazines are very adventure-based and they have wonderful writing and just do a great job.

But there is so much more to living in the mountain west. It’s a very rich life with commitments to causes and with a hunger for its culture. There is great architecture and design, especially now that the architecture scene is so exciting. There’s just so much going on.

And there seemed to be such a lack when it came to a magazine that encompassed all that. I just couldn’t find one that showcased the kind of life we live here. So, that’s what I wanted to do with BigLife.

Samir Husni: With BigLife, it seems as though you’re combining the power of photography with typography. Did you have a magazine in mind when you were creating yours?

Ryan Waterfield: A very good friend of mine, Britt Johnston, is the art director for BigLife. She and I worked together for three years on a property-based magazine here in Sun Valley; we weren’t the owners, but we helped the publisher launch the magazine. And she and I just had this great creative energy together.

So, when we started talking about what we wanted to do with the magazine BigLife; she brings the design and I bring the voice, to me the magazine reading experience is very elliptical, it’s not just the words. I mean, I love reading Harper’s and Atlantic Monthly for the articles, but I don’t get much in the way of design from those magazines. So we really wanted to put together smart, sassy editorial with a really great, energetic design.

Samir Husni: There are a few unique things that I’ve noticed in the magazine, including the way that you introduce your team and yourself.

Ryan Waterfield: It’s funny that you mention that – I wanted to do something like that with the property-based magazine that we did before, but we were kept on a much tighter leash. But since this is our own magazine and we don’t have to answer to anyone but ourselves, we just thought we’d have a lot of fun with it. And I have to say that I’m a big fan of McSweeney’s and Dave Eggers and I used to use Dave Eggers’ books in the classroom when I was teaching and just loved how playful he got with the copyright page and it was something that I had always wanted to do.

Reading is such an intimate experience; why not get to know the people who are putting the magazine together for you.

Samir Husni: In your description about yourself, it sounds as though you’re trying to channel Hemingway’s drinking lifestyle. (Laughs)

Ryan Waterfield: (Laughs) Yes, I’m mostly joking about that, although I’ll have an occasional drink here and there. (Laughs again)

Initially, we did two issues of a magazine called Sun Valley Focus and they were basically our test magazines. We wanted to make sure that our idea had legs and that advertisers would get behind it and readers would enjoy it. So we did the two test issues, only distributed in Sun Valley and only written about things going on in Sun Valley. But very similar to what we have going on with BigLife. And the response was overwhelmingly positive.

When we decided to make the move to cover our entire region and go after our natural audience, we obviously extended the editorial scope. There are so many things that tie people who choose to live in these towns, or who dream about visiting them, or just visit them on a regular basis. There is definitely a sense of adventure and a commitment to causes and an appetite for the culture. And I wanted all of these things in the magazine. And when it came to establishing a voice, I wanted to express a sense of playfulness to people as well.

When I think about our ideal reader, I don’t think of an age. Our reader is somewhat ageless. But what they do have is a sense of adventure and a sense of fun. And we try to play to that in everything we do.

Samir Husni: If we can go back for a minute to that moment of magazine conception, when, as you told me in your email, Garden & Gun met Esquire in a dark bar and had a torrid one night stand (Laughs); can you tell me a bit more about that one night stand and how this love/lust child called BigLife was born?

Ryan Waterfield: (Laughs) You’ll probably think it wasn’t such a one night stand between those two; I mean, Vanity Fair played a big role. I’m a huge reader of magazines, so there are so many that have inspired me over the years. But, as I said, I was a disgruntled reader for a while because there just hasn’t been a magazine that spoke to what I felt the experience was living in the mountain west.

And when I thought about what magazines I was always fascinated by as a teen, Esquire was definitely one. I’m not a guy, but I loved reading Esquire, I would always steal my brother’s copy. Eventually, he made me get my own subscription. And GQ was another one; I loved their tone of voice and their sense of style.

But Garden & Gun was one that I discovered late. I was from the south and I’m always homesick for the south, even though I love living here. My husband shared an office with a southerner at one point and in their backroom was an issue of Garden & Gun and I found it. And that was really when I thought about that kind of magazine was something that we didn’t have in our area. A magazine that focuses on this region and the wealth of things going on here, not just the skiing and mountain biking, but one that focused on how rich our lives are and how big our lives are.

So, that’s when Garden & Gun came into the equation and somehow gave me a vision and showed me that we could do what it does out here too, of course, obviously differently. Having been born and raised in the south and moving to the west; the west is definitely not the south, that’s where the difference in the voice and the look comes in for us.

Samir Husni: Can you tell me between that moment of conception, that “aha” moment, and giving birth; what has been the biggest stumbling block that faced you before the magazine was born?

Ryan Waterfield: That’s a really good question. One of the first things that I was really lucky about was to have found a partner in Britt Johnson. She and I have both lived here forever and knew each other peripherally, and this is a very small town. We knew each other peripherally for years, but just never connected. And then we had our first children within months of each other and they ended up at the same daycare. We were both full-time working moms and would pick up our kids at the same time. Before you knew it, pick up time became a glass of wine here and there and we had a common spirit and felt a common creative energy. And Britt really helped give me the courage to quit teaching and try something different in my professional life. I was very lucky to fall in with her and find someone with such creative energy that matched my own.

That was the first really lucky think to have happened and then we hooked up with two other partners, Dan Willett and Diane Moberg, who had worked on another publication in this valley called Western Home Journal and it was a very different publication . It’s a home, architecture, design resource magazine.

But Dan and Diane have been in six other resort markets so they know those markets well too and we also work really well together. They are two more reasons we have to feel really lucky about.

And then as for stumbling blocks; I’m a teacher by trade and I experienced 15 years in the classroom. I don’t have a background in publishing, but I have a love of magazines. So, the stumbling block for me is that I’m a novice in many ways, but I did one magazine for three years and I was a very quick study. And I took it very seriously. And I feel like, in terms of life experience, in between when I quit my job and decided to become an editor of a magazine, I have basically gained my master’s in literature. (Laughs)

So, my inexperience would be my first stumbling block, but I’m definitely committed to solving that problem. And the second stumbling block is money. It’s an expensive endeavor. We’re very lucky in that a lot of the people who write for us are our friends, my former students, and a lot of the photographers are people we have known and have a great relationship with. And they have a commitment to quality editorial and beautiful magazines as well.

But money is a huge stumbling block. I’m in the process of writing a business plan and seeing what happens. I think we probably put the cart before the horse in a lot of ways because we had such energy for this vision and we just went and did it. And we’re writing the business plan after the fact. Now we’re going to work on getting investors. And that’s another stumbling block, I would say.

Samir Husni: What was the most pleasant or surprising moment in this whole creation process?

Ryan Waterfield: The most pleasant and surprising, I think, was to write. I am one of those writers who draft a lot; I am like Hemingway, I guess. I’ll write a draft and my first draft is always over the top and, God help me if anybody else sees it. Then I usually rein myself in a little bit and by the time I put it into print, it still has a little edge to it and not something just anybody would publish.

The thing that was the most surprising and the most pleasant and the most encouraging was the amount of people I heard from. I heard from so many people that I knew and didn’t know.

One of the things that we’re doing right now is putting together an advisory board of pros in the industry, people who know publishing and circulation; people who know the ins and outs that I don’t know.

And one of those people we’re putting on the advisory board reached out to me. She happened to get a copy of our launch issue of Focus, it came out summer 2014, and she called me up out of the blue and said, I love what you’re doing, now what do you want to do with it? I shared my vision and she and I have been talking a lot and she has been a great mentor.

The fact that people loved the voice, loved the energetic look and the sense of style, have been really encouraging things.

Samir Husni: If someone came to you and said, “Ryan, I want to start a new magazine,” what would you tell them?

Ryan Waterfield: (Laughs) Write your business plan first.

Samir Husni: (Laughs too) So, the opposite of what you did?

Ryan Waterfield: I’d say: number 1 – make sure that you have a team that is willing to jump off the cliff with you and doesn’t mind figuring out how to fly on your way down together. Number 2 – believe in your vision and be really excited. I was talking to one of my friends recently and I talk more about my magazine than I do my two children. And she said, “Wow, it’s like you just had another child.” And that’s true; this one is getting a lot of my attention right now.

I’d tell them to definitely have a team that’s willing to take risks with them and know that they can have a lot of fun together doing it. And always believe in their vision.

Samir Husni: Are you going to have national distribution, or limit it to your area?

Ryan Waterfield: It’s going to be a magazine that writes about our region and covers our region, but with national and international distribution. It’s BigLife, I have big dreams. (Laughs) We’re distributing right now in Sun Valley, Jackson Hole and Park City, but we certainly want to grow that. And we want to start with a good readership base in these mountain towns.

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

Ryan Waterfield: I am so excited about what we’re doing that I can’t sleep because of that excitement. And then of course there is the terror of things like: do I have the right stuff in this issue of the magazine; have I talked to everybody I needed to talk to. I’m constantly making lists of people that I think would want to support something like this because they believe that this magazine could be really good for a mountain town. I think that we live in a world where really smart, educated, cultured people choose to live in these towns and at the same time there is a lack of really great jobs for people in these towns. And I think something like BigLife, if it makes it, could really shine the local light on these towns.

So, one of the things that keeps me up is that I want to do something really good for Sun Valley; I want to do something really good for the mountain west and I want to be able to speak to why this is a great place to invest in and to visit, and the excitement of all that definitely keeps me up at night. Of course, the idea of finding investors keeps me up too.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in A Launch Story..., New Launches, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Tagged BigLife, print magazine, Ryan Waterfield, Sun Valley | Leave a Comment »

Putting Some “Simple Grace” In Our Lives, Bauer Prepares To Launch Its Newest Magazine For 2015. The Mr. Magazine™ Exclusive Interview With Carol Brooks, Editor-in-Chief, & Ian Scott, President/Publisher.

January 16, 2015

“Simple Grace, Your Daily Dose Of Hope. It’s Actually Something Different From Anything Bauer Is Doing Locally and Globally. It’s Very New In The Magazine Space.” Simple Grace Magazine’s Launch Story. A Mr. Magazine™ Exclusive.

In my office hangs a sign that reads: there’s always hope, a simple phrase that holds a wealth of meaning. And in a few short months Bauer Media Group U.S. will have their own message of hope in the form of their newest print launch: Simple Grace. A message of hope that is two-fold and backed-up completely by proven successes, both from the inimitable Bauer Publishing and the sentiment itself which is preached from every Christian pulpit in the country: there is always hope.

A monthly devotional magazine with daily inspirational Bible quotes and content that is geared toward the love, kindness and support of God; Simple Grace is the first digest-sized, devotional magazine, targeting a mass audience on the nation’s stands, of its kind in the United States.

Simple Grace will be released in mid-April and is the brainchild of Carol Brooks, editor-in-chief for the past 13 years of First for Women. I spoke with Carol recently and Ian Scott, president/publisher, Bauer Media U.S. The concept behind the magazine is a unique one, a character trait of most of Bauer’s original launches, past and present. Being first and going somewhere no one else dares to go, is something Bauer firmly believes in; that is, when they firmly believe in the product. And Simple Grace is something that is near and dear to their heart and has the company’s full support.

But Carol said they didn’t go into this category without doing their homework. Between readers’ response from First for Women and the intense research on the market and what was and was not out there; Simple Grace was born from their reader’s desire to include God more as a part of their daily lives. Audience first is not only a Mr. Magazine™ mantra, but a Bauer one as well.

I hope you enjoy this refreshingly “hopeful” interview with Carol & Ian as we talk about a magazine that is filled with a “Simple Grace.”

But first, the sound-bites:

Carol Brooks
On defining Simple Grace: The tagline we’re talking about is “Your Daily Dose of Hope.” It’s going to be a digest-sized, primarily monthly, devotional magazine.

On whether a monthly magazine that targets a daily read will have a different approach with advertisers: I think that our approach for one is that this is something that no one has done before; it’s totally new and a fresh aspect on the devotional.

On the moment of conception for the magazine: I observed something through my readership; I’ve been editor-in-chief of First for Women for 13 years and when we queried our readership we found that God is a big part of their lives and we’ve just been surprised in different ways when we’ve heard from the First for Women readers how important God is in her daily life.

On Bauer’s ability to make the never-done-before a success: How do I answer that? I think that we’re not afraid to try new things and I think we’ve shown that over the years.

On the launch plan for Simple Grace: Our goal is to get it into as many stores as possible for the long-term. On the short-term, we’re going to be heavily-targeted at Wal-Mart and we’re going to be putting out in total about 200,000 copies of the first issue.

On the major stumbling block with launching the magazine: I guess the thing that is very different about it, in terms of even how book publishing works in this country, and it’s surprising honestly, is that there aren’t a lot of people speaking cross-denominationally to the Christian groups.

On the launch date of the magazine: The first issue coming out for sale will be cover-dated May and will hit the newsstands mid-April.

On what keeps Carol up at night: Not wanting to unintentionally offend anybody or step on anyone’s toes. It’s a little bit daunting to enter an arena that is religious, because as much as you really don’t want to offend, maybe you might stumble into something.

Ian Scott

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Carol Brooks, Editor-in-Chief, First for Women & Simple Grace magazines and Ian Scott, President/Publisher, Bauer Media U.S.

Samir Husni: Tell me about the magazine, Simple Grace. This is something completely different from any other Bauer publication that you have in the United States.

Carol Brooks: It’s actually something different from anything globally. It’s very new in the magazine space. So, yes, it’s a definite departure.

Samir Husni: Would you briefly define Simple Grace?

Carol Brooks: The tagline we’re talking about is “Your Daily Dose of Hope.” It’s going to be a digest-sized, primarily monthly, devotional magazine. The devotional category out there is generally books, but Simple Grace will be something that you read every day for about five minutes and it’s kind of divvied into every day of the month sections. It has an inspirational reading that the reader can spend five or ten minutes with each day.

Devotionals are really big business in the book market, but haven’t really been explored, in terms of periodicals and magazines.

Samir Husni: At least, on the newsstands. I know that there are a lot of devotional publications out there that different churches give to their parishioners, but nothing as major as Bauer is doing with Simple Grace.

Carol Brooks: Right, nothing on the newsstands like it.

Ian Scott: I think that one of the great things about this is I believe this is the first time any publisher has brought a magazine of this kind to mass retail in the United States, where the reader will be out doing his/her shopping, grocery and otherwise, and there the magazine will be for them to pick up. I think most of the other titles are on a subscription model of distribution. So, this is going to be something that is obviously very new as well.

Samir Husni: Ian, Carol just mentioned that this is a magazine that people will be using or interacting with for at least five or ten minutes each day, so that there is a repeat pick-up of the magazine on a very regular basis. Will that give you a different approach with advertisers for the magazine?

Ian Scott: I think that our approach for one is that this is something that no one has done before; it’s totally new and a fresh aspect on the devotional. We’re very, very excited about the whole thing.

Another thing is that the magazine is digest-sized, so it’s all about making it easily accessible, both in where you can buy it and also easily accessible to you, the consumer, where it can be pulled out of a briefcase or a purse and can be referred to because it’s a size that can be carried around.

And I think another one of the unique things that we’re doing with this magazine is on the inside front cover, when you open the magazine there’s going to be a detachable bookmark. The reader can literally pull it out and use it to mark their place in the magazine, so they’ll know where they are.

A lot of these magazines that I’ve seen recently appear to be quite flimsy, but this is a magazine that’s going to be 144 pages, perfect bound and it’s going to have a glossy cover with another four pages on top of that.

Samir Husni: Carol or Ian, can you describe that moment of conception? Who brought the idea to Bauer and when did that “aha” moment occur, when everyone realized that Simple Grace was something special?

Carol Brooks: I observed something through my readership; I’ve been editor-in-chief of First for Women for 13 years and when we queried our readership we found that God is a big part of their lives and we’ve just been surprised in different ways when we’ve heard from the First for Women readers how important God is in her daily life. So, when we looked into that we found that there is currently 250 million Christians in the U.S. and out of 80% of Americans, two-thirds pray daily.

So, we’re talking about people, “OK, this is a person that we’re reaching in terms of women’s service, but she has this other dimension in her life that doesn’t really fit within the boundaries of what we talk about in First for Women, but it’s a really important dimension.”

Also, there is a book called “Jesus Calling” that has now sold 13 million units, of the original book and other pieces of its franchise, and it has been a huge publishing success. So we took a look at it and saw that this is something that works in print; it’s a hardcover book and it’s really, really well-loved. And it continues to grow. It was published in 2004 and last year it sold 700,000 units. It’s something that has staying power and it’s desirable. And when we looked at it, we saw that it was a certain kind of devotional, but it’s a book that gives you a day, but it’s not the day of your year. For example, if you read it on a holiday such as Good Friday, it doesn’t reflect that it’s Good Friday.

So we thought, wow, if we could do a magazine we could combine beautiful visuals and make each entry very specific for that exact day of the week, year, or signify a certain holiday; even things going on in the news. We could do a similar kind of devotional, but with more immediacy.

Samir Husni: You may think I’m making this up, but my daughter and her husband were with me at Books-A-Million last week and actually bought “Jesus Calling” for their daily devotions.

Carol Brooks: Really? That’s interesting.

Ian Scott: This is something that Carol and everyone on the team have been working on now for nearly two years. So, it’s been a long time and a lot of work and research has gone into it before we got to the point we’re at today, where we’re ready to go forward with the magazine. Like any business you have to make sure that you have something that is wanted by the consumers that are out there and in a format that you think they’re going to love.

Samir Husni: Since the early 80s it seems as though Bauer keeps pulling these rabbits from their magic hat and putting titles on the marketplace that are revolutionary, meaning there is nothing like them already out there. When Woman’s World magazine was introduced, there were no weekly magazines for women on the newsstands. And when First for Women was announced it was a massive launch; so what makes Bauer click and tick when it comes to all of these new magazines?

Ian Scott: How do I answer that? I think that we’re not afraid to try new things and I think we’ve shown that over the years. We’re a company of individuals that are smart, we know publishing and we’ve never been afraid of trying the new and different and going out into the market where other people are maybe afraid to go. And I believe that’s testament to our commitment to the entire magazine industry.

Carol Brooks: And I think the reason that we came up with some of these ideas is because we’re very, very trained on the consumer. We know our readers, study and listen to them. The real genesis of this happened years ago when we heard from our First for Women readers. We pay special attention to what our readers tell us that they want and we really do our homework and research these things before we go forward. But we’re very profoundly consumer-driven.

Samir Husni: Can you describe the process of launching Simple Grace and will it be nationwide on all the newsstands?

Ian Scott: Our goal is to get it into as many stores as possible for the long-term. On the short-term, we’re going to be heavily-targeted at Wal-Mart and we’re going to be putting out in total about 200,000 copies of the first issue. We’re also looking into Barnes & Noble and obviously Christian bookstores and other places we can get distribution.

Like anything, we roll it out, but we want to be in a prominent position such as checkouts; we want to be right in front of the consumer’s eye so that it does capture their attention. Obviously, for us it’s a huge investment certainly to be in those prominent spots, but to us that’s the most important way to promote these products.

Samir Husni: Carol, what do you think will be the major stumbling block you’ll face in launching this magazine and how do you plan on overcoming it?

Carol Brooks: I guess the thing that is very different about it, in terms of even how book publishing works in this country, and it’s surprising honestly, is that there aren’t a lot of people speaking cross-denominationally to the Christian groups. There is evangelical publishing, catholic publishing, but there’s not as much cross-denominational talk. We’ve done a lot of market research and we’ve done a lot of looking at how the different denominations view different kinds of content and we feel very confident that we’ve hit on an approach that is extremely appealing and non-polarizing across denominations.

And I think that’s been the biggest challenge just because there are not a lot of people doing that intentionally.

Samir Husni: And when is the launch date for Simple Grace?

Ian Scott: The first issue coming out for sale will be cover-dated May and will hit the newsstands mid-April. And it will be a monthly magazine, priced at $3.99, digest-sized, with 144 pages; plus, as I said earlier, the four page cover and perfect bound.

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

Carol Brooks: Not wanting to unintentionally offend anybody or step on anyone’s toes. It’s a little bit daunting to enter an arena that is religious, because as much as you really don’t want to offend, maybe you might stumble into something.

I would say I’m reading a lot from the Christian space and looking at a lot online and reading the comments. I’m just trying to calibrate myself so that I don’t upset anyone or offend anyone.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in A Launch Story..., New Launches, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | 28 Comments »

Made With INK (Globally): Five New Magazines Landing At An Airplane Near You! The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Michael Keating, CEO & Co-Founder, INK

January 14, 2015

Content In The Sky Has Never Looked Or Read Better

“Our particular niche, which is inflight magazines, bucks trends because more and more people are traveling each year, so in fact, where you might have a decline in newsstand titles, we’re actually getting more readers.” Michael Keating

The sky’s the limit, or so we’ve been told and in the case of Michael Keating and Ink, Keating’s company that is today’s global leader in travel media, this statement couldn’t be truer.

Michael is responsible for establishing new business relationships and partnerships with airlines and railways and began his career in radio and television, working for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and MTV. He went on to co-found Pacific, an independent television production company and co-founded Ink with Simon Leslie in 1994.

Today, with a staff of more than 400 people, Ink creates award-winning media and builds innovative technology to provide more than 100 differentiated products across airlines and rail partners.

I spoke with Michael recently about this pie-in-the-sky publishing empire of his and how the success of inflight magazines, from content to advertisement, is a positive outlook and statement to all print publishers. We talked about his beginnings, the present, and the future of Ink Global. Having just won the American Airlines contract recently; the company’s future certainly looks brighter than ever.

So sit back, fasten your seatbelts please, and get ready to enjoy the Mr. Magazine™ conversation with Michael Keating, CEO and Founder, Ink Global.

But first the sound-bites:

On the expansion of his print empire in a digital age: Our particular niche, which is inflight magazines, bucks trends because more and more people are traveling each year, so in fact, where you might have a decline in newsstand titles, we’re actually getting more readers.

On his strategy to continue the upward trend of inflight magazines: It’s true; you do have to vie for people’s attention, but just because someone may be watching a movie on their own device doesn’t mean they don’t read the magazines. You know, TV screens have always existed on the long-haul flights, so I don’t believe that people only do one thing.

On the significant differences between all the magazines Ink publishes: We never recycle the editorials; they’re really written for their own specific brand with that particular magazine’s audience in mind.

On the advertising outlook with inflight magazines: Our advertisers get a very good response; otherwise they wouldn’t keep coming back.

On expanding the presence of Ink Global in the United States: When we won American, part of the terms of the contract was to have a local presence in Dallas because their headquarters are here.

On his move from broadcast journalism to print: I went to Lebanon to do this news item and I met a gentleman who was starting a new airline called British Mediterranean Airways.

On the major stumbling block he’s had to face: Not every single magazine we’ve undertaken has been a success. In some instances, when we found it very difficult to sell advertising in a particular market, that was a big stumbling block.

On what keeps him up at night: What keeps me up at night is often what happens around a launch period. If you think about at the first of January we have to have American Way on the planes and we have to have Ronda and Excelente on the planes as well, launching three major titles in exactly the same week causes me a few sleepless nights.

And now the lightly edited transcript of the Mr. Magazine conversation with Michael Keating, CEO and Founder, Ink Global…

The global network of INK…

Samir Husni: I was recently on your website and I saw the new magazines that have been launched. In launching those titles what were you thinking about, simply trying to expand your print empire of travel-related titles in an age where everyone else is saying print is in decline?

Michael Keating: Our particular niche, which is inflight magazines, bucks trends because more and more people are traveling each year, so in fact, where you might have a decline in newsstand titles, we’re actually getting more readers. In the case of American Airlines, with the recent merger with U.S. Airways, their annual passenger numbers will reach around 200 million, so inflight readership is growing.

Samir Husni: We used to say that the inflight magazines were read by a captive audience, but now in a digital age, where people are bringing their iPads or their smartphones or tablets that is no longer apropos of the situation. So, what’s your strategy to continue this upward trend with inflight magazines?

Michael Keating: It’s true; you do have to vie for people’s attention, but just because someone may be watching a movie on their own device doesn’t mean they don’t read the magazines. TV screens have always existed on the long-haul flights, so I don’t believe that people only do one thing. They’ll get on a flight and have a nice meal, a glass of wine, read a book or a newspaper that they brought with them or watch a movie, but they’ll still pick up the magazine. We actually have a head of insight called Kevin Miller who is very experienced in doing research having worked for JC Decaux Airport,and we know that readership is exceptionally high.

Of course, I would like to think it’s just for excellent high-quality editorial, but people also love looking at the route maps and there is certain essential information that’s also in the magazines. And with low-cost carriers, when they’re selling food or drink onboard, they’ll often put a lot of the menu information into the magazine as well.

Despite the fact that I would love to think that every single passenger is picking it up only because of the entertaining features, sometimes they want simply to know how much a cup of coffee is or a sandwich and they’ll pick it up.

But once the magazine is in people’s hands, of course then it’s the job of our creative teams to make sure that passengers engage with it. Once in their hands they’ll have a flip-through or want to read the features that are presented. And in some instances, destination guides, like an EasyJet magazine, for example, there are more than 30 pages of city information in the back, so some of that is practical information, like really good restaurants and bar advice. Those destination guides are written by locals who live in each city. We have over 130 freelance writers on the easyJet network who all reside in those cities so it really is good local information.

Samir Husni: One of the things I’ve noticed is that American Way is completely different than Ronda; Ronda is different than Excelente and the same with the other magazines that you publish. Tell me about Ink Global, which you’re celebrating the 21st year of starting the company and what’s your strategy of growth and your plan for conquering the travel market?

Michael Keating: Yes, the magazines are completely different for every single airline. The first thing that we have to do is consider that particular brand, and clearly even the way in which we approach writing about a city would be completely different. For example, we do the Eurostar, which is the premium train between London, Paris and Brussels. And it’s bilingual, English and French. So, if we were writing a story on Paris for the Eurostar magazine, where there is an awful lot of Parisians traveling on the train, clearly the story would be differently positioned than if writing for American Way. What Americans want to do when visiting Paris is quite different to a local.

Again that would be different to easyJet from Iberia, for example. What might Spanish passengers want to do in Paris? Everything is completely tailored for the audience. I have a dedicated editorial team for each publication, so with any contract we’ll go out and hire dedicated editors, art directors to only work on that magazine. It’s not a shared resource. We never recycle the editorials; they’re really written for their own specific brand with that particular magazine’s audience in mind.

Samir Husni: What about the advertising market? I heard an agency executive last month on our National Public Radio saying that she doesn’t see anyone coming to her offices and asking to advertise in print. What’s your reaction to such a statement?

Michael Keating: Our advertisers get a very good response; otherwise they wouldn’t keep coming back. You just have to look at the number of series advertisers, those that will take multiple issues or in some instances annual contracts with the magazine. They wouldn’t be spending the money if they weren’t getting a good response.

In fact, we had a real estate advertiser form Spain who had taken space in the EasyJet magazine and they got a better response from easyJet Traveller than the Sunday Times, a big national newspaper in the U.K.

Why, because the people who may actually want to buy a second home in Spain; they’re more likely to get a response from people who are actually flying on an airplane to Spain than someone sitting in their armchair at home. It’s putting the right message in front of the right people at the right time.

Samir Husni: I noticed that you’re opening offices in Dallas and Miami…

Michael Keating: Yes, I’m talking to you from our Dallas office now.

Samir Husni: Are you expanding the presence of Ink Global in the United States?

Michael Keating: The expansion has been very recent because we won the contract for American Airlines. We’ve had offices for the last six years in New York, in Dumbo, Brooklyn and Atlanta. Atlanta is a sales office and New York is editorial. We placed the editorial staff in New York because there is great creative talent in the city.

When we won American, part of the terms of the contract was to have a local presence in Dallas because their headquarters are here. And we had to take on some of the existing staff because American Airlines has been published in-house for the past 48 years. So, this is really quite a departure for them to outsource it. And part of the deal was that we would take on some of their existing staff and would supplement that staff base with some exciting new talent.

We decided to open in Miami because one of the American Airlines publications is called Nexos and is bi-lingual, Spanish and Portuguese. The whole South American market is hugely important to the airline, that’s why they have a Spanish and Portuguese publication. So we needed to have some Spanish-speaking staff and Miami is a great place to recruit

Samir Husni: In 1994 when you co-founded Ink Global, your background was in broadcast; if you can recall that moment where you and Simon Leslie decided to found Ink Global, what made you move from broadcast journalism to print?

Michael Keating in a picture from The (British) Independent newspaper

Michael Keating: Michael Keating: What actually happened was there was a very good friend of mine who was Lebanese and his father worked in tourism in Lebanon. After the Civil War tourism was on its knees in the country and I was working for a TV news show called “London Tonight” and his father offered us free tickets to bring a TV news crew over to Beirut to do what I call an “And Finally” story on “Londoners are Booking Package Holidays to Lebanon Once Again.” It was an unusual idea at that time given that what people had been seeing about Lebanon on the news for many, many years was bombs and bullets. So, the idea of going there on vacation was almost laughable at the time.

I went to Lebanon to do this news item and I met a gentleman who was starting a new airline called British Mediterranean Airways. They started with one plane and one route, which was London to Beirut. He was there and he said, “Oh, you know about television; I’m going to need someone to do my inflight entertainment.”

We had a discussion and sure enough, I starting licensing movies and producing some audio/visual content for the airline. I knew Simon Leslie at the time because I was doing some writing for him, and I said to him “There is this start-up airline that I’m doing the inflight entertainment for and they need a magazine. Shall we go into business together? And that was the start of Ink Global. Such humble beginnings from a bar in Beirut!” A city obviously close to your heart.

Samir Husni: Indeed. You just took the words out of my mouth, being originally from Lebanon. (Laughs) That’s a perfect story for me.

Michael Keating: And then the airline expanded. It started operating to Amman, Damascus and Alexandria and the commercial director of that airline went on to be the commercial director of Branson’s then-European operation, Virgin Express. He called me and asked, “Do you want to do this Belgium-based airline, Virgin Express?” And I said, yes, please. So, I got that one as well.

And then we also did the magazine for an African airline called Alliance Air which doesn’t exist anymore. That was an alliance between the governments of South Africa, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. So, you can probably take a guess why that airline doesn’t exist anymore.

So, we did Alliance Air, picked up easyJet and just kept adding more and more airlines. I really like the vertical. There is an argument that if you’re doing well in a particular field, then keep going and replicate success. Travel has always been a passion and being able to turn that into a career, has been a joy. The way we carved up the workload was that I focused on the creative side of the business and Simon Leslie would look after advertising sales.

Samir Husni: One thing that I’m interested in knowing is what was the major stumbling block? Your story can’t be all one success after the other; what was your major stumbling block and how did you overcome it?

Michael Keating: Not every single magazine we’ve undertaken has been a success. In some instances, when we found it very difficult to sell advertising in a particular market. Many people probably have the idea that airlines take out a nice, big, fat checkbook and pay us a huge amount of money to produce these publications. The reality is different in that they have to be 100% funded through advertising. That’s why I also think that the quality of the editorial and the design has dramatically changed over the decades in the sense that a long time ago the airlines would pay and these publications were completely created by a marketing department. They weren’t particularly commercial and they may not have been so nicely designed.

These days they have to be as good as or even better than newsstand-quality publications because the advertisers demand it. It’s also what passengers expect.

Samir Husni: From the magazines that I’ve seen it’s really great work, both editorially and in the design. My typical last question; what keeps Michael up at night, besides the time difference now?

Michael Keating: Michael Keating: (Laughs) That is often the problem with running a global operation because you literally can be chatting with one of the offices at all times of the day and night.

But what keeps me up at night is often what happens around a launch period. If you think that on the first of January American Way, Ronda and Excelente, all had to launch on the same day, that caused a a few sleepless nights. But I was delighted with the results.

I think in the case of Ronda and Excelente, the team has produced something that’s really quite different and it’s a great accolade to them; the fact that they’ve created something very unique. Especially with Excelente, as it’s not like any other inflight magazine that I’ve ever seen before. I think there are some really clever ideas in there.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in New Launches, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

2014 Was A Great Year For New Magazines. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Mr. Magazine™…

January 1, 2015

“With all the troubles on the newsstands, 2014 proved to be a great year for new magazines. In fact 234 new magazines published with a regular frequency, putting this year’s numbers at 21% more titles then 2013.” Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni.

Mr. Magazine™ 2014: Traveling the World Preaching the Gospel of Magazines, Magazine Media and the Power of Print in a Digital Age.

First ever Mr. Magazine™ interview with Mr. MagazIne™[/caption] As we usher in a new year, the numbers are in and the totals look phenomenal. In customary Mr. Magazine™ style, new titles are lovingly collected and meticulously counted in order to bring the most accurate set of numbers of available new magazines to the world of magazine media and people interested in the industry.

Striving throughout the year to locate as many new magazine titles that are attainable through my extensive travels, I bring to the table some of the best reasons in the world for our industry to look forward to a very bright future. And while my endeavors aren’t a mystery to anyone that is familiar with Mr. Magazine™; I felt an interview with the man himself was necessary to clarify a few of the rules and regulations that lead up to the annual year-end publishing of the new launch numbers.

And who better to interview Mr. Magazine™ than Mr. Magazine™ himself. Why not? 2015 is a brand new year and we journalists are nothing if not innovative and willing to cultivate new ideas for the New Year.

Up first, the numbers for 2014 and the comparisons to its predecessor, 2013, and in the words of the inimitable Frank Sinatra: It was a very good year…

The Numbers of New Magazines

2014 by the numbers: There were a total of 855 new magazines published in 2014. The new crop of magazines was divided into 234 magazines with an intended frequency and 621 specials, annuals and book-a-zines.

2013 by the numbers: There were a total of 838 new magazines published in 2013. The new crop of magazines was divided into 185 magazines with an intended frequency and 653 specials, annuals and book-a-zines.

The total number of magazines published in 2014 with a frequency represents an increase of 49 titles which is an increase of 21% in the number of new titles compared to those published in 2013. The total number of specials and book-a-zines decreased by 32 titles.

By the categories: The top ten categories among the magazines published with a regular frequency in 2014 are:

The interview with Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni as it appeared in the New York Post.
o Special Interest Publications: 39 – Examples: Raw Bike, CiderCraft and Vapor Lives

o Metro and Regional: 19 – Examples: Old Port, Sugar & Rice Magazine and Makena Magazine

o Pop Culture: 19 – Examples: Reserved Magazine, Churn and East on Pop

o Crafts and Hobbies: 15 – Examples: Knit Purl, Mollie Makes (U.S. Edition) and Hoop-la

o Children’s: 10 – Examples: Peppa Pig, Bible Fun for Children and Animal Tales

o Sports: 9 – Examples: All Things Sports, Maroon and Chicago Football

o Art and Antiques: 9 – Examples: Acrylic Artist, Artists & Makers and Art on Cuba

o Fashion: 7 – Examples: Porter, Eyelash and No Tofu

o Gay and Lesbian: 7 – Examples: Lei, Winq. and Men Addicted

o Health and Wellness: 7 – Examples: Mantra, Naturally, Danny Seo and Dr. Oz The Good Life

And now the Mr. Magazine™ exclusive interview with Mr. Magazine™… please enjoy!

The Story Behind the Numbers

Samir Husni: How do you know that you have every new magazine?
Mr. Magazine™: I don’t… these numbers are for the titles that I was able to acquire and have in my possession. I only include in the numbers the magazines that I have physical copies of. I am sure there are some local and regional magazines that I did not find or acquire. Also, when I hear about a new magazine that is not available on the newsstands, I do not include it in the count. For example, the new travel magazine Pineapple was published in Dec. but I do not yet have a physical copy of the magazine, so it is not included in the numbers. So, needless to say my numbers are the minimum number of magazines published.

SH: What magazines are included in your numbers?
MM: First and foremost my definition of a magazine is a printed product. It must be a print entity to be included in the numbers. The numbers are then divided between those magazines that are published with the intention to appear four or more times on the stands, and those that are specials or a one time publication. All the magazines included in my numbers are distributed on the nation’s newsstands with a U.S. bipad and UPC code.

SH: Where can we find a list of all the magazines?
MM: I publish a monthly update on my http://www.launchmonitor.wordpress.com blog where the cover of each and every new title I acquire is presented.

SH: How long have you been tracking the new magazines?
MM: It started as a hobby in Lebanon at a very young age. I used to buy every new magazine and every possible issue afterward of the new magazine. When I arrived in the United States in 1978 to pursue my graduate studies, I immediately knew that on a student’s budget I couldn’t buy every issue of every magazine, so I opted for collecting only first editions. In 1985, I published my first Guide to the new magazines, and since then I never stopped.

Of course, now with a little better budget than I had as a student, I can buy more magazines and I can add to my collection of more than 30,000 new titles that I currently own.

SH: Magazines are becoming more and more expensive. How much do you spend on magazines annually?
MM: You know people think that I must receive my magazines for free and I do receive a lot of them gratis. But in addition to the free magazines, I still manage to spend close to $28,000 a year buying magazines… Well, at least those numbers reflect the magazines that I have receipts for…

SH: Besides being your hobby turned profession, why do you do this?
MM: Well, I am a firm believer in print and the power of print. I know we live in a digital age and all the digital gadgets that I own (plenty of them) are a testament to that. Yet, I also believe that there is something unique about print and its power and how it relates to human beings… As long as we have human beings we are going to have print.

SH: What’s next for Mr. Magazine™?
MM: Well, putting my money where my mouth is, I am working on a new book/event that will celebrate the 30 most notable launches of the last 30 years. Some of those new magazines that were launched in the last 30 years have added life and longevity to the magazine and magazine media industry. It is yet more evidence that any industry that does not give birth is a dying industry. The magazine industry, with all its problems, is NOT a dying industry. New magazines are the life’s blood of the industry and this new book and event will celebrate those 30 titles and their stories of beating the odds and thriving in a digital age.

I also finished a new book with two of my colleagues that will be published this summer. The book, Audience First, covers all the media and aims to introduce new theories and practices for both professionals and students of the news media industry.

And of course, I will continue nourishing my hobby of buying, receiving and reading magazines… let the good life continue.

Happy New Year to all. Keep on magazine reading…

SH: Thank you. Same to all.

Editor’s Note: The numbers of new magazines were released exclusively in the New York Post in Keith Kelly’s Media Ink column yesterday, Dec. 31, 2014. Click here to read Keith’s column on the 2014 Magazine Boom.

Posted in New Launches, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | 2 Comments »

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