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Inside The World Of TOPS News: A Magazine That Helps Members Lose Weight Sensibly. A Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Team TOPS News.

February 1, 2025

TOPS News is the membership magazine for TOPS Club Inc.  TOPS stands for Take Off Pounds Sensibly. Its motto for the last 75 years since its inception is Real People. Real Weight Loss. 

In 2025, and for the first time, the TOPS News magazine started accepting advertising on the pages of the magazine. Through an agreement with the James G. Elliott Company, Inc., the magazine opened its pages to advertising in a move that is seen to add more help to their members.

I reached out to TOPS News president Rick Danforth, editor and publisher Barry Gantenbein, and senior designer Dave Zylstra to chat about the organization and its magazine.  It was sort of a roundtable about TOPS News, the magazine’s mission, and the reason they are now accepting advertising in the magazine.

Before the interview, I should note that in a recent study the magazine found out that over 90% of the members see it as the number one benefit of membership. A quarter of the membership responded, unaided, to the study in the first two days. A response rarely heard about in the magazine industry.

So without any further delay, please enjoy this round table conversation with the team at TOPS News and what is in store for the years to come.

But first the soundbites:

On TOPS News mission: “I view TOPS News as our best vehicle to keep in constant contact with our members to share success stories and give them updated information on a healthy lifestyle.” Rick Danforth.

On why they are accepting advertising: “Because things are getting more costly and it was a way of generating some revenue.” RD

On why did you add the publisher title to the editor’s title: “One of the reasons that I became publisher was just to prevent any snags in meeting our deadlines.” Barry Gantenbein

On how is TOPS News different than the rest of weight loss magazines: “I think the one thing that really separates TOPS News is the group support, from the chapter level and also from the magazine.” BG

On how to approach the design of the magazine: “Our members are basically our core demographic, trying to think and trying to tap into their minds what they want to see.” Dave Zylstra

On the hope and goal for the design of TOPS News: “Hopefully inspire them to want to keep flipping the pages and keep reading it.”

On any challenges facing him: “There’s always challenges… But no serious challenges that we couldn’t fix.” RD

On content creation : “There’s a large element of TOPS News is the member contributions. So that does definitely affect the scope of things, and the way we approach things.” BG

On the magazine being an experience: “There has to be a reason to engage with the magazine, and that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with every issue is to engage our members as fully as possible.” BG

On what he is expected to accomplish this year: “A year from now, what I would be telling you is that it would help with our revenue stream so we can provide more services to our members.” RD

And now for the lightly edited conversation with the team at TOPS News:

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Samir Husni: Rick, can you give me the elevator pitch of TOPS News? TOPS News, not TOPS as the organization, the magazine.

Rick Danforth: I view TOPS News as our best vehicle to keep in constant contact with our members to share success stories and give them updated information on a healthy lifestyle.

Samir Husni: And why did you decide after 75 years to start taking advertising?

Rick Danforth: Well, that is because things are getting more costly and it was a way of generating some revenue.

Also, too, there was a misconception by past administrations that that wasn’t allowed by a non-profit. So it took a while to convince people that this is a legitimate concern and plus Jim (Elliott) was very instrumental in helping us with that process.

Samir Husni: Why do you think members should be interested in advertising as much as they are interested in editorial?

Rick Danforth: I think it’s another way for us to show them other information without just putting it out there in an editorial format or story to prompt them that it might catch their fancy and do a little research on their own.

Samir Husni: Barry, as an editor and publisher, you wear two hats. First, let me ask you the personal question. Which of the two hats do you prefer, editor or publisher?

Barry Gantenbein: Oh, well, that’s hard to say.  I like being the publisher because then I have the final say in things. And one of the reasons that I became publisher was just to prevent any snags in meeting our deadlines.

When I had worked with publishers previously who had more than one job and did more than just be the publisher of the publication, sometimes there would be other priorities other than the magazine and I wanted to get rid of that sticking point. So that’s why I became the publisher. I like being the publisher for that reason.

But as far as the work and what I do mostly, I’m an editor and I have been doing that for a long time and I enjoy that type of work.

Samir Husni: So being the editor, let’s put the editor’s hat on. What’s the mission statement of TOPS News?

Barry Gantenbein: The one sentence is to provide our members with information and inspiration to make healthy choices.

I want to provide a variety of stories for our members. When you open up the TOC, there’s seven different headings. Those are the types of stories that we publish.

So our goal, we build a magazine on a frame and I use those seven sections to create those types of stories.

So if we have at least two in each section, then I know that we’re going to have a balanced offering for our members.

Samir Husni: Weight loss has been a topic for ages. There are so many commercial magazines and there are so many commercial drugs nowadays to help you lose weight. Where do you think you can navigate the magazine to balance between everything that’s taking place with weight loss these days?

Barry Gantenbein: I think that’s a good question. And that goes back to the start of TOPS.

We’ve always had a medical component as part of TOPS since the beginning. Our founder, Esther Manz, always wanted that component.  When she started the magazine with her friends, they were all doing the same stuff and they were losing weight, and she wasn’t. So she was wondering, why is that? Why am I not losing weight? So she wanted to get a doctor involved in this so that she could better understand why they were losing weight and she wasn’t losing weight.

We don’t really take any stance on things like the different types of injectables now that are out there. We feel that if you are considering something like that, see your healthcare professional and get their advice on that.

We’re open to the shots, but that’s part of the overall health plan. And I think the one thing that really separates TOPS News is the group support, from the chapter level and also from the magazine. We try to always provide a community for our members so that they can be themselves, make healthy choices. We just really want our members to become the best version of themselves.

Samir Husni: Your last issue that I saw, the November-December, was all about bringing balance to your life. Does this balance now include the shots?

Barry Gantenbein: If it’s helpful to that particular member, because one thing that I have learned is that weight loss is a very individual thing, that what works for somebody may not work for somebody else. So that’s why we like to have a different variety of options available for people.

Samir Husni: And Dave, let me ask you about how do you take all these, I mean what Rick said, what Barry said, how do you design a publication for members as opposed to the general audience out there, or is there no difference?

Dave Zylstra: No, that’s a great question. I do definitely take into account our members. Our members are basically our core demographic, trying to think and trying to tap into their minds what they want to see.

So I actually, when I started, I sat down with my folks who are kind of a little older than our core demographic, but I sat down with them to see what magazines they’re reading, what they’re looking at, and what they want to see, and use that and glean some of that info to try to put that into the layout of the magazine. Also, using past issues, seeing what we’ve been doing, trying to update a little bit a more current design aesthetic. But really just hopefully trying to tap into what our demographic wants to see in the magazine, and hopefully inspire them to want to keep flipping the pages and keep reading it.

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Samir Husni: Rick, hearing what Dave said about listening to the members, and you just did a survey which had a big, huge response from the members. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Rick Danforth: I was not surprised at the response as much as Jim was, because our members are very, very engaged, and I know that because every time I would meet members out at various events, the first thing they would say is, thank you for TOPS News. And I say, that’s okay. I tell them about the staff, and how Barry and Dave put it together.

I just stay out of their way. I provide content, and I get out of their way. But they say, this is the best issue ever, and I’m thinking, yeah, you’re right. I don’t know how they’re going to top this, and each time they keep on topping the previous one. So that tells me our members are engaged on what Barry and Dave are doing.  As far as Barry making decisions on what goes in the issue, and how Dave portrays it so that it’s appealing to their eyes and catches them, and they can have that, bring that magazine to a meeting to help their discussions.

Samir Husni: So has it been a walk in a rose garden?  Any challenges, or it is just a walk in the rose garden?

Rick Danforth: Nothing’s perfect. There’s always challenges, for example, our Canadian members saying, how come there weren’t enough Canadian stories in this particular issue? But there’s that balance that we try to provide all the way across. Another challenge if it’s a special theme issue that we might not have a Canadian angle into it. Others probably want more than six issues a year, but that’s our program right now.

But no serious challenges that we couldn’t fix.

Samir Husni: Barry, if you look at the images, the cover,  I know it’s a reflection of the members, but is it in any way, shape, or form a hindrance? For example, like entering a national magazine awards, or competing with the magazines that are out there that put a different image on their cover?

Barry Gantenbein:  When Dave talked about listening to our members, we rely on them for a lot of story ideas, and also for photos.

A large element of TOPS News is the member contributions. So that does definitely affect the scope of things, and the way we approach things. As far as the covers, we again talked about balance, and we try to have a balance.

We want to have balance between basically food, which is a huge part of the magazine, obviously, and then member photos. So we try to balance that, and balance where people are from. Like Rick had mentioned, our Canadian members, we always try to have at least one Canadian member featured in every story.

And then as one way to let our Canadian friends know that they are in the magazine, we started putting a red maple leaf in the TOC next to the Canadian stories. So when people say, hey there’s no Canadian stories, we’re like, there’s three in there. I can tell you that right now just by looking at those little maple leaves that are there.

So I think balance is a good way to describe what we’re trying to accomplish, and our approach to the magazine. It’s a balancing act. And do you consider TOPS News as a pioneer in the reader-generated content? Oh, I don’t know.

Like Dave said, my main goal is to provide information and make it entertaining. It has to be interesting. Dave and I both came from newspapers, and that overriding approach to newspapers was — no boring stories. There has to be a reason to engage with the magazine, and that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with every issue is to engage our members as fully as possible.

Samir Husni: And Dave, do you think this is easier or harder? I mean, having to deal with submitted photography, having to deal with submitted articles and…

Dave Zylstra:  It’s harder. It’s been a challenge because not everyone understands high resolution. Not everyone understands what makes a good photo.  And then, so just like accepting photos, sometimes it is a stab to the heart a little bit, like, couldn’t you have not taken that photo with all the stuff in the background.

So, but it is what it is, you know. We don’t have the budget nor the resources to go out and have professionals take every photo we need. So we are at the mercy of our members.

So it does.  Definitely it is a challenge sometimes working with what we are sent. It’s a challenge I fully accept. At first I was like, oh man, what am I going to do with this? Because coming from, like Barry said, newspaper backgrounds, we’re using nice professional photos.

So coming here, at first, it was definitely a challenge. I mean, it still is a challenge. But I can only use what I have. I try to make them look good.

Barry Gantenbein:  And also Dave serves as our staff photographer. Dave is an excellent photographer. We have members come in for, workouts in the magazine. We’ll have members come in to do the workouts. And Dave will be the photographer for the workouts.

Dave also is a photographer for the food shoots, for the recipes. So, when we have our transformations issue, where we honor the members who lost the most weight, we will hire professional photographers to take their portraits. So it’s a mixture of submitted stuff and professional photographs.

Samir Husni: So, Rick, Barry and Dave came from a journalism background and newspaper. You came from a microbiology background. How do you fit in the organization, you’re the president of this company, but what led you to be part of this organization?

Rick Danforth: Well, first, I was a member. Well, this week, I’ll be a member 23 years. And as I got into the organization and saw the benefits of it, it really helped me a lot. I lost 30% of my weight and I maintained about a 15% loss because it’s a struggle and it’s a disease. So when I left the world of microbiology, a lot of my friends were surprised.

And I said, why would you be surprised? I’ve been fighting various diseases for other folks. Obesity is disease. Now I got a chance to help a lot more people to battle this dreaded disease.So it was a natural fit for me. And I was involved in town politics and other things and trainings for the laboratory works. So it was a natural fit.I love getting on the stage and talking about TOPS to our members and non-members.

Samir Husni: So if you and I are having this conversation a year from now, what would you tell me that TOPS News with the new advertising acceptance have accomplished in this 2025?

Rick Danforth: A year from now, what I would be telling you is that it would help with our revenue stream so we can provide more services to our members. And that’s the main goal.

Samir Husni: The question that I have to ask always is, is there anything I failed to ask that you would like to ask ?

Barry Gantenbein:  I’m thinking I’m used to doing the interviews, not being interviewed. So this is kind of an unusual spot for me. So that you didn’t ask.

I guess what I would say about the magazine, and that we’ve tried to do, is to make it a little more informal and make it more personal. That’s one thing that our members talk about. They said, since it’s become more personal and we use their first names, it’s Paula. It’s not Mrs. Livingston or Livingston. It’s Paula. And just be, I think that helps to forge a sense of community by making it more informal and more.

And one of the things that I like to explore more themes in the magazine. One of the main themes to me is after a while people figure out what works for them, but then why don’t we do what we know is good for us? We, after a while you figure out what sort of diet and what sort of exercise program you enjoy or works for you, but then sometimes people just don’t do it. Why is that? That’s something that we continually explore.

And I think that’s what makes it interesting because that’s an individual thing.

Samir Husni: So my typical last two questions are more on the personal side. If I come to visit you one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing? Watching TV, reading a book, cooking, having a glass of wine?

Rick Danforth: You’ll catch me at my desk working. And I’ve been told I’m doing that too much. They just want me to slow down a little bit. I eat with my wife.

Barry Gantenbein:  I’m really lucky to have a wife who’s an excellent cook. So if you showed up in the evening, you’d probably be served pretty nice meals. I like to read and I would probably be reading later in the evening.

Samir Husni: And on paper or tablet?

Barry Gantenbein:  Both. I do, I use a tablet, but there some books that I just like hard copy. If it’s got a lot of pictures, I like hard copy. If it is a novel, I can definitely read it on a tablet.

Samir Husni: Dave?

Dave Zylstra: That’s a great question. I have a lot of interests. I’m doing a lot of things, but on the average night, I’m usually cooking for my family.

I have two teenage daughters and I kind of am the house chef. So, with two teenage daughters, I feel like their childhood is fleeting and our family is fleeting.  I’m trying, my wife and I are making a very concerted effort to spend as much time with them as we can right now.

So spending time in the kitchen with food and dinner. And then I do a lot of painting, so there’s a good chance I’ll be doing some painting after dinner. Maybe watching a movie with my wife. Pretty domesticated at the moment.

Samir Husni: My final typical question is, Rick, what keeps you up at night these days?

Rick Danforth: Wow. I worry a lot. So I’m always trying to figure out different scenarios where if this problem hits, I got this thing. So it’s just making sure that everybody has what they need to do their job.

And you know, the expression is lonely at the top. I got support, but it does still keep me up at night.

Barry Gantenbein:  I would say just trying to figure out how to get things done. We have limited staff, so I rely on a lot of freelancers and friends of friends to do things for us. I’m always trying to figure out how we can get a story written or who can write a story for us or I joke that every single person that I know eventually ends up working for the magazine in some aspect, and that’s actually pretty true. We just signed a guy who’s a science writer, and he’s a former coworker of mine from newspaper days.

We signed a therapist to write for us, and she’s a friend of my wife. We’ve got an illustrator who went to high school with my daughter. These are the freelancers, and we’ve got just people that are friends of past staffers that believe in TOPS and work for us.

I’m always trying to figure out. I’m like a talent scout trying to figure out who can write and who can illustrate and who can help us out in any way and is willing to do it for little money. So that’s what keeps me up at night.

Samir Husni: What keeps you up at night, Barry, is TOPS.

Dave Zylstra: I love that.  It’s always on Barry’s mind. This might sound bad, TOPS doesn’t keep me up at night.  So that’s my answer is two teenage daughters.

You know, we recently, my older daughter is a junior in high school, so we recently started talking about college and basically financing college. It’s usually some type of money type of concerns, which I think is pretty standard, and very specifically like money for college. My younger daughter is talking about going to parochial school, so she did get some scholarship money for that, but also, so usually it’s some type of money.

And  I should just say, my folks are getting up in age and their health isn’t the greatest.

Samir Husni:  Thank you all for this conversation.

Posted in Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | 1 Comment »

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Hiii is the Magazine Launch Of The Year and Field & Stream is the Magazine Re-Launch Of The Year.  New Magazines 2024 Wrap Up…

January 5, 2025

“Quantity was down, but quality was up,” Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni

The aforementioned statement sums up the status of new magazine launches in 2024.  Thirty-nine new launches and nine re-launches arrived on the marketplace together with more than 1,000 bookazines and mini-zines.

Leading the launches was Hiii, For People Who Partake, magazine, the brainchild of Rob Hill and Pam Patterson.  Hiii floated to the top of the pack deserving the title the New Magazine Launch of the Year.  It is one of the best new magazines to come to the marketplace in a long time.  “Simply put, the weed genie will never be put back in the bong,” Rob wrote in the first issue’s introduction.  Pam wrote, “This magazine is not just about marijuana. It’s about freedom, creativity, exploration, and supporting those who truly honor cannabis for its power and potential.” Hiii is excellent on all fronts: content, design, and photography.

Another great new magazine is Ori.  The brainchild of Kade Krichko is a travel magazine from the source.  Slow journalism at its best.  Definitely a different, much needed, travel magazine that depends on writers and photographers from the countries it covers. “Travel is a form of connection,” reads the intro to the magazine, “not only with places and experiences, but with friends around the world.” Ori deserves to be the First Runner Up of New Magazine Launches.

The Second Runner Up of New Magazine Launches is RISE from A360 Media.  The “Women in Sports” magazine adds a much needed platform for a sports platform dedicated to a large population of female sports players, led by Caitlin Clark, and spectators, both women and men.  The magazine’s motto is a quote from Serena Williams, “The success of every woman should be the inspiration to another. We should raise each other up. Make sure you’re very courageous: Be strong, be extremely kind and above all, be humble.”

There are two other magazines worthy of note. New Christian Makers, a museum in a magazine, featuring the work of Christian makers from all fronts of life.  “New Christian Makers is an in-print juried exhibition featuring the best in contemporary Christian making.”  Highlights for Children continued its belief that children, even the under-two children, still enjoy a print magazine, thus they introduced their newest monthly mini magazine: Highlights CoComelon, “packed with all the CoComelon charm your little one adores, plus a sprinkle of extra learning fun.” 

As for those magazines who opted to return to print after halting publication for few years, Field & Stream led the pack and earns the title the Re-Launch Magazine of the Year.  Hands down, it is the best relaunch I have seen in my years of following and tracking the magazine industry.  The magazine, established in1871 (yes, you read that right, 1871), is back in print through two “Legacy Stewards”: Country music superstars, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen. Editor-in-Chief Colin Kearns writes in the first relaunch issue, “One of the things I’ve missed most about producing a print edition of F&S has been the connection to you, our readers. Back in our print-magazine days, I’d get notes from readers all the time. But during these past few years, when there wasn’t a physical magazine, I never heard from you.”

Having said that, there were also two re-launches that were very well done, both in terms of content and design: SAVEUR and Spin.  SAVEUR with its tag line, “Eat the World,” is back. “ It’s been four years since, remotely and in masks, we printed our last issue,” wrote EIC and CEO Kat Craddock in the return to print issue. She added, “But while corporate boardrooms posit print is dead, SAVEUR is one of a growing number of publications that have decided to prove them wrong.”

SPIN, “Well, it’s been a while,” writes editor Bob Guccione, Jr. in the relaunch issue, “A while since SPIN last printed an issue (12 years) and it’s then owner – I had no idea who that was, this magazine, like a haunted house, has changed hands a lot…”  He added, “Then along came Jimmy Hutcheson and his Next Management Partners and they bought SPIN from its last owner, and set about revitalizing it…”  This SPIN, writes Bob, is “the Phoeix-like rise from long cold magazine ashes.”

I started this blog by saying the quality was up and the aforementioned magazines are a testament for this. 

Two other re-launches are worthy of note: Flow and Nylon.  The Dutch import, Flow “The Magazine That Takes Its Time. Celebrating A Conscious, Slow And Creative Life,” is back on the newsstands.  Nylon celebrated its 25th Anniversary by returning to print. “ I like to think of this 25th anniversary issue, our triumphant return to print…” ,” writes editor-in-chief Lauren McCarthy.

As long as there are new magazines launched and relaunched, regardless of the numbers, print is alive and well… Here’s to a healthy and wealthy print 2025.  Cheers.

Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, Ph.D.

P.S.:  Thinking of launching or relaunching a magazine?  Be sure to send me a copy to include the crop of 2025.  Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni, 776 Shady Oaks Circle, Oxford, MS 38655.  Thank you.

Posted in Innovation in print, Magazine Power, New Launches, News and Views | Leave a Comment »

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It’s About Time To Stop Doing More With Less.  We Need To Do More With More. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Drew Neisser, Founder & Penguin In Chief, CMO Huddles.

December 19, 2024

“I define marketing as an epic battle for mind space, period, end of story. And you’re competing against everything. Magazines are the same, right? We’re all competing for a little tiny place in a brain.” Drew Neisser

“There is a disturbing trend in B2B marketing that is threatening the long-term success of marketers and their businesses,” according to a recent research fielded by CMO Huddles.  “The study shows an over-reliance on Demand Gen (The process of increasing awareness and demand for your product or service) and “this over-reliance on it is creating a ‘death spiral.’”

The December 2024 survey of several hundred B2B marketers found that “more than half of marketers plan to allocate more budget to Demand Gen in 2025, even though many reported lackluster outcomes from similar investments in 2024.”

The data also shows:

· “Nearly one quarter plan to increase spending on brand and reputation-building, a critical area for fostering trust and differentiation.

· Almost one third are currently hiring for demand gen roles, perpetuating a cycle of reliance on short-term tactics.

· However, investments in innovative skills like generative AI and data analytics remain very limited.”

To learn more about this study and the firm responsible for it, CMO Huddles, I reached out to its founder & Penguin in Chief, Drew Neisser, and I asked him about his title, CMO Huddles, and the recent study that CMO Huddles has fielded.

What follows is my conversation with Drew Neisser, Penguin in Chief, CMO Huddles.  But first the soundbites:

On his title Penguin in Chief: “It turns out that a group of penguins is called a huddle. And that was a perfect mascot for our community, given the commonalities between penguins and CMOs.”

On CMO Huddles: “It’s a community of 450 or so marketing leaders all in business to business groups spread across primarily the U.S.”

On the business in transition: “The last two years have been about doing more with less overall, right? That has been the big theme. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to change.”

On why there will be an increase in Demand Gen although it is not working: “I only have one word for it. It’s insanity. You’re doing the same thing. You’re doubling down on the thing that didn’t work and hoping that it’s going to have better results.”

On the importance of awareness in marketing: “It’s everything. Think about it. We know anywhere between 60 to 70% of a B2B journey happens before they contact the brand.”

On how the study applies to magazines: . “I think that what consumers want increasingly are experiences.  To the extent that magazines can deliver both a physical and a digital experience.”

On what keeps him up at night: “Helping marketers overcome a malaise that’s out there. And this research kind of showed it.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Drew Neisser, Penguin in Chief, CMO Huddles:

Samir Husni: You’re the Penguin in Chief of CMO Huddles.

Tell me a little bit about CMO Huddles and (laughing) about your title Penguin in Chief?

Drew Neisser: It turns out that a group of penguins is called a huddle. And that was a perfect mascot for our community, given the commonalities between penguins and CMOs. I mean both live in a harsh environment. They really work together successfully. They’re good communicators or good problem solvers. So this parallel was.

The reason it’s funny because I think of myself as the Penguin in Chief is actually I think of myself as, “I’m bringing these people (CMOs) together and helping them succeed.” That’s sort of my mission in life is just to help CMOs inspire B2B greatness, to get them in. It’s been a very difficult time in the last couple of years for them.

Samir Husni: Tell me a little bit about CMO Huddles before we talk about the survey that you just did.

Drew Neisser: Sure. It’s a community of 450 or so marketing leaders all in business to business groups spread across primarily the U.S., although we do have some members in Europe. We gather in small group conversations, which we call Peer Huddles.

We’ve got three Peer Huddles. We also have bonus huddles and where we bring in bestselling authors like Michael Watkins, who wrote The First 90 Days, and other authors  of bestselling books and so many other big time marketing folks. So part one is the network building, and part two is the PR that we help them get. We have all sorts of exclusive properties that support their personal brands. And then we also help the folks who are in transition.

We have a small transition team of about 20 CMOs who were members then found themselves on the bench and we helped them through that.

Samir Husni: The whole business is in transition. You just did the study on Demand Gen, where do you see the marketing heading? As we move toward 2025, is the emphasis going to be on ink on paper, digital, or word of mouth? Is it online or offline or both?

Drew Neisser: So here are some things. This is, you know, my crystal ball isn’t any better than yours or anybody else’s, but I can tell you some things that I see and things that I know.

The last two years have been about doing more with less overall, right? That has been the big theme. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to change. And the forces behind that are often PI and VC firms that finance a lot of the B2B companies.

And because they’re not building businesses to last, but they’re building businesses to sell. They have created sort of this artificial marketing scenarios, right? They’re not building companies per se. So that’s not going to go away for a certain sector.

Then there’s the rest of the world, which is companies that are trying to build, establish their reputations and get pricing power. I think we’re going to see that competitive advantage is going to be to the companies in B2B that market better. If you were to look at what happened this year, more dollars went in Demand, more dollars went into digital.

It wasn’t more effective. But that’s where they went. So I think what you’re going to see is a few brands will be brave and say that shift needs back to reputation building, back to other things.

I had a conversation recently with the CMO of Gusto, who dramatically increased spending on television. Wait, what? B2B television, good old fashioned. Now, a lot of it’s linear TV and YouTube TV.

But nonetheless, they’re on sports and they’re doing what we would have called traditional media. And it’s working really, really well.

Samir Husni: Your study shows that there will be an increase on the Demand Gen, but in the same token, the results (of Demand Gen) were not that great this year.

Drew Neisser: I only have one word for it. It’s insanity. You’re doing the same thing. You’re doubling down on the thing that didn’t work and hoping that it’s going to have better results. I think these are artificial scenarios, often imposed.

So there’s what I think will happen and then what I hope will happen. What I think will happen is more companies will spend more on Demand, more on digital, more on measurable, quote, measurable things, and they’ll see diminishing returns. I expect that to happen.

And then a small group, 10 percent, 20 percent, will say, no, that’s not working. It didn’t work last year. Why do we expect? We’ll spend money differently.

There are a lot of options available for them. There’s community-led marketing, which Sixth Sense has done unbelievably well. You know, there is rising influencer marketing and B2B. I don’t want to say thought leadership because I think that’s a shallow and overused term, but there is an opportunity for a lot of brands to make the case, the business case, that they’re better at, that they can be essential parts of the purchase process for whoever they’re selling to. And that’s a key thing. What happened in 2024 was if you weren’t essential, you didn’t get to sell.

So people weren’t losing. B2B wasn’t losing to a competitor. They were losing to no decision.

Samir Husni: As a chief marketing officer, how do you ensure that your product is essential in 2025?

Drew Neisser: Well these are new things, Samir. First of all, you do it by talking to your customers and figuring out what is it that, why did they buy you? Why did they choose you? How are they getting value out of it? And you quantify that. So you can line up your customers and who will say, we’re using this and we’re getting 5x return, right? Now, very few brands can actually do that, but that’s a lot of it’s because they’re not taking the time.

If they do that work and they find they aren’t delivering that kind of value, then they have things they have to do on the product side and the service side, right?

Samir Husni: You mentioned, Gusto that invested in television?

Drew Neisser: Yes.

Samir Husni: Do you see more of those companies investing in what we call legacy media or traditional media and print?

Drew Neisser: Well, I want to caveat there because while they’re spending more on video content, again, a lot of it’s linear TV. A lot of it is YouTube. I don’t know if we call that, that’s not quite the same as buying an ad on CBS, right? I wish more brands were doing that because it works for certain types of brands. And I think it’s important B2B2C or like Gusto sells payroll services, right? And surrounding that.

Well, payroll touches everybody and they’re targeting a broad group of small businesses, which is a lot of people. When you’re targeting small businesses, you tend to see broader advertising. And so I expect that those folks with that, we’ll see, read about Gusto.

They’ll read about other brands that are having success via those channels and they go, oh, we need to do that. So yes, you still have a lot of software service brands that are going to keep trying to optimize every digital channel they can until they’ve sort of run out. Because it feels like you could measure it and it feels like a dollar in is a dollar out.

That’s the way folks want to believe. And I’m afraid a lot of CMOs have drunk the Kool-Aid of that too. You know, you’ll see that in their titles. It’ll say data-driven.

Samir Husni:  So if the Demand Gen is to increase the awareness, not necessarily increase the response or increase the revenue; how important is increasing that awareness for any product?

Drew Neisser:  It’s everything. Think about it. We know anywhere between 60 to 70% of a B2B journey happens before they contact the brand, which means when they finally contact the brand, they only do that if they were aware of you, that they discovered you and they have a short list where they’re coming to you now and they want to talk to, ironically, they want to talk to a product expert, not a salesperson.

So if they’re doing 60, 70% of their research on their own and you’re not out there covered by the analysts, if you’re not out there written about broadly, if you haven’t, and by the way, broadly is 10 to 15 different individuals in that company.  It’s not just the one buyer. You’re not going to get on the short list. So reputation, and I’m going to use reputation as the summary of awareness and trust built over time.

Reputation is everything and great marketers find a way to get in the brain to occupy some space. And if you can occupy some space and it’s time for someone to buy whatever it is, that space you’re at, you’re going to get on the list.

Samir Husni: You know, most of my audience are magazine publishers and editor, so how can we take this Demand Gen from the B2B world and from the survey that you just did, how can we apply some of that to the consumer magazine world?

Drew Neisser: It’s so interesting. I think that what consumers want increasingly are experiences.  To the extent that magazines can deliver both a physical and a digital experience that goes beyond what I see in my Apple news feed or on my Facebook feed.

Let’s face it, it’s a hard business because the younger generation did not grow up reading magazines. So I would be, if I were in the magazine business, I would be thinking about how do you resample. In the old days when you sampled a product, you would go out and it was a food product and you would put it in front of people. You’d hand it to people, say, try this.

Magazines need to reintroduce themselves to the world, to a younger generation who has no idea what that is and the joy of actually turning the page. I think that’s an interesting opportunity for them.

There are places where you still see people reading magazines in airports and in lounges and in doctor’s offices and so forth, but expanding that and then connecting the experience of reading the magazine to the digital thing. It’s so funny because barcodes initially were used by magazines to try to do that and it was a failure, but now they’re back. So there’s got to be a way for them to create a connected experience that has ongoing value. I think AI is going to play a role in this too.

Samir Husni: Before I ask you my typical last two questions is there anything you would like to add or anything I should have asked you?

Drew Neisser:  At this very second, I think probably the thing for me in 2025 is the rallying cry that I want to get out there is not more with less, but more with more.

Because the notion of more with less is saying, well, whatever you did last year, you weren’t that efficient. You could be more efficient. That’s not what we need to do.

We need to be, in order to own mind space, to get in the brain, I define marketing as an epic battle for mind space, period, end of story. And you’re competing against everything. Magazines are the same, right? We’re all competing for a little tiny place in a brain.

Without it, you have no pricing power. And without it, you have no loyalty. Without it, you don’t have, you do not get recurring revenue.

So more with more says, how are you going to get more mind space? I think you’re going to do it. I think in your industry, you’re going to do it by creating new experiences that bridge physical and digital. And I know it’s been talked about for years and tried, but I think it’s going to be better.

Just imagine any magazine, they take 20 years worth of their data and create the GPT of that magazine. And then we say, I know a little bit about you, Samir. And you’re really into certain things.

I can look back at the pictures and the art and the family and so forth. I create a new digital experience for you with my GPT when you come arrive that gives you five things that you would find fascinating because it just know you based on some other things. And it could pull all that information from a massive database we already have.

Anyway, I think it’s going to be there’s some exciting opportunities for longtime publishers that they may be terrified about. I think magazines are going to end up finding that digital sales reps, that gen AI powered bots are going to play a role in marketing and conversion. Again, I go to a website now, I expect to see a bot.

But what I don’t expect to see is one that’s really, really intelligent and can actually interact with me in a way that is helpful.

Samir Husni:  My typical last questions, if I come to visit you one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing, reading a book, watching TV, cooking, having a glass of wine?

Drew Neisser:  Let’s see. Well, it depends on exactly the time that you arrive. If it’s about between 4:30 and six o’clock, it’s me walking with my wife and our dog in Central Park. Then we come back from that. This is the Friday routine.

We then go to a wine tasting nearby. We then we catch up on the week, watch the news, kind of an old fashioned thing. And then, you know, one hour of television of some show.

That’s our main evenings. I probably listen to 20 books a year. So I do that. I probably only read, physically read 12.

Samir Husni: And what keeps Drew up at night these days?

Drew Neisser:  Helping marketers overcome a malaise that’s out there. And this research kind of showed it.

The CEO of Kickstarter said, CMOs are going to have to do more with less. And that, I just I had a visceral reaction. So why are you saying that? Are you saying that’s a product? Are you saying that? And so that’s what’s keeping me up at night is how do we elevate marketing again to a place where it’s not this cost center that can be cut all the time?

Samir Husni: Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time.

Posted in News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview, Words of Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

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Spacely: A New Platform To Help Sustain Print & Out-of-Home Media.  The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Founder and CEO David Coker and Co-Founder and COO Beth Mach.

December 11, 2024

What if there were a platform that lets you buy an advertising page in a magazine as easily as buying an airline ticket? Well, there is an answer in one word: Spacely.

You will ask, what is Spacely? In the words of its founder and CEO, David Coker,“Spacely is a two-sided market for offline media. It was born from the idea that it should not be any more difficult to buy a page in a magazine or even a billboard ad than buying an airline ticket.”

David shared the idea of Spacely with me almost a year ago and I fell in love with the idea that someone planned to create a digital platform to help magazines and billboards find, access, and place advertising pages in the magazines and on the billboards.  I loved the platform so much that when David asked me to join the advisory board of Spacely I did not hesitate to say yes.

Spacely is still in its infancy but has grown in a way that even surprised its founder. “We thought we’d launch with 20 or 30 publications and grow it from there,” David told me in a recent interview,  “but now we’re at over 600 media partners in more than 40 countries.”

I took the opportunity to chat with David and his COO, Beth Mach, to learn more about Spacely and provide my audience with an in-depth look at a platform that is created to help them sustain their business in these difficult times.

So, please enjoy my interview with David Coker, Founder and CEO, and Beth Mach, COO, of Spacely.  But first the soundbites:

On what is Spacely: “Spacely is a two-sided market for offline media. It was born from the idea that it should not be any more difficult to buy a page in a magazine or even a billboard ad than buying an airline ticket.”

On why creating a platform to help print in a digital age: “We could see that the print industry was an underserved market. A lot of innovation was happening on the digital side.”

On the ease to use Spacely: “The platform is built is also very intuitive and familiar in the way that somebody would buy toothpaste or clothes or an airline ticket.”

On how Spacely works: “As Spacely is a tool for print and out-of-home, there are different mechanisms for making this possible for both. The ultimate goal is to make it transactable to the extent that it can be.”

On the early reaction to Spacely: “Early reaction is a lot of excitement. People are very excited for the opportunity to have their content discovered — easily discovered — and to be able to connect directly with media buyers.”

On the most important factor in Spacely’s platform: “We know that this industry is built on relationships, and this is truly to help encourage deeper, more valuable relationships.”

On the goals of Spacely: “We would be remiss if we didn’t say that Spacely helps everybody achieve a positive upside, whether it’s efficiency or sales, as well as create a really positive environment between both the seller and the buyer.”

On challenges facing Spacely: “Our challenge is how much do we get done in a short period of time to be truly viable and to be the product we envision for our customers and for our clients and users.”

On the role they envision Spacely plays: “Spacely certainly gives us an opportunity to play a role in the positive growth and resurgence of the print environment and print industry.”

On whether Spacely is selling content or space?: “Honestly, Spacely is not selling anything. We’re helping your sales team to do the selling. And sometimes there are advertisers who want as much space as they can get, and sometimes there are advertisers who want to be next to certain content.”

On how is Spacely different than other platforms: “Digital has become easy to buy, even programmatically bought in many cases. We’re careful to point out that Spacely is not programmatic, but our platform lends itself very nicely to other offline media.”

And now for the lightly edited interview with David Coker, founder and CEO, and Beth Mach, COO of Spacely:

Samir Husni: Tell me, what is Spacely?

David Coker: That’s the best question to start off with. Spacely is a two-sided market for offline media. It was born from the idea that it should not be any more difficult to buy a page in a magazine or even a billboard ad than buying an airline ticket.

Samir Husni: We live in a digital age. Why are you trying to help print?

David Coker: Number one, we believe in the value of print media, and beyond that, we believe in the value of the talents of print journalists and the necessity to continue to sell local and personal stories in print media.

We could see that the print industry was an underserved market. A lot of innovation was happening on the digital side. There are hundreds of DSPs and SSPs, and different tools for selling digital media. But those tools really had not been created yet for helping print media to be able to be sold as easily as digital media is to be sold and bought. So, it appeared to be a white space.

Candidly, I thought this was already being done. I thought, Surely this has been done, it’s been tried, and someone else is perfecting it right now. When I was at the BBC, I went to Beth and said, “Hey, does this thing exist already?”

Beth Mach: I was like, “Nope, it doesn’t. And it needs to.”

I will say, too, that bringing digital to both print and out-of-home — but in this discussion today for print — this is how people buy everything online. There shouldn’t be any reason why you couldn’t also in our industry buy these two channels online. It’s very familiar.

And the way the platform is built is also very intuitive and familiar in the way that somebody would buy toothpaste or clothes or an airline ticket, like David said.

Samir Husni: Can you briefly explain how it works?

David Coker: As Spacely is a tool for print and out-of-home, there are different mechanisms for making this possible for both. The ultimate goal is to make it transactable to the extent that it can be.

We connect directly into a publisher’s layout via proprietary technology, pulling through the issue architecture, so partners are able to see what positions are available, what positions are taken, and what the adjacent content is. So, if an advertiser wants to be next to an article on a summer concert series, or if they want to specifically find people who are writing about Harry Styles or Rihanna, they would simply search for that content on our platform and see what is upcoming. 

It is not historically, “Who does typically write about pop culture,” “Who does typically write about female fashion,” but, “Who is going to be writing about New York Fashion Week in the winter,” “Who is going to be writing about a new art exhibit opening in May,” “Who is going to be writing about Harry Styles’ new album,” and knowing where that content is going to be within the magazine and being able to advertise within the proximity to it that they want to be.

Samir Husni: So, you’re working with the publishers and the advertisers?

David Coker: Yes. As a two-sided market, we’ve actively over the past year or so been recruiting partners on both the supply and the demand side.

On the demand side, we’re fortunate to have a number of early partners who we’re already working with and transacting with as the site continues to move through our launch phase.

On the supply side, we thought we’d launch with 20 or 30 publications and grow it from there. But now we’re at over 600 media partners in more than 40 countries. Some of these are really well-known titles like Nat Geo, Fortune magazine, Rolling Stone, and other major national titles.

But then, a lot of them are regional, local, and niche titles like San Diego Magazine, Hour Detroit, Cherry Bombe, and all the Edible titles. We’ve been fortunate to have had a ton of traction with our partners.

Samir Husni: How is the reception from the publishers? Are they happy with what they are getting? What’s the early reaction?

David Coker: Early reaction is a lot of excitement. People are very excited for the opportunity to have their content discovered — easily discovered — and to be able to connect directly with media buyers.

Right now, it’s often a challenge to get in front of the right media buyer at the right time. Spacely eliminates a lot of the friction points, allows you to easily be discovered, and allows your sales team to cover more ground than they would have otherwise.

We often say that the Spacely platform makes a team of five perform like a team of 15. What our platform is meant to do is create a virtuous cycle between the publishers and the buyers. So, the more the publishers use the platform, the more valuable it becomes to the buyers, and vice versa.

What our platform cannot do is make a team of zero perform like a team of five. We’re very careful to say that this is not a programmatic solution. This is not something you flip on the switch and flip off your day-to-day relationships.

The platform is meant to give your team more time for the relationships, so they spend less time doing manual work, less time doing data entry, automating the tasks that can be automated, allowing them to do higher-value work, managing relationships, and presenting high-value, high-concept ideas for proposals.

Beth Mach: The big thing that David hit on is about the relationships. We know that this industry is built on those relationships, and this is truly to help encourage deeper, more valuable relationships. And at the end of the day, people want to move a bit faster, and people want to make a little bit more money all while feeling like they are connected with people they trust.

We would be remiss if we didn’t say that Spacely helps everybody achieve a positive upside, whether it’s efficiency or sales, as well as create a really positive environment between both the seller and the buyer.

Samir Husni: What’s in it for Spacely?

David Coker: A couple things. Obviously, there is a massive financial upside and obtainable market here. Our business model is transactional, kind of like Airbnb. 

There’s a small transaction fee on both sides — the supply side and the demand side — but it’s not an overstatement to say that we certainly have a goal of enabling and creating sustainable business models for local, regional, and niche publications. We think that’s important.

We believe that the erosion of local journalism imperils our overall national discourse, so supporting local journalism — making local journalism a sustainable business model — was very much at the core of our intentions.

Beth Mach: I will also say, we would be remiss, again, if we didn’t mention that we want to build something that helps create an environment of economic stability for the print side, but we’re also not a charity. We do want to make sure we’re creating a positive upside for everyone involved.

Yes, there is an exit plan at some point, but we’ll know what that looks like over the course of time. We’re here to drive positive economic growth for the print industry.

Samir Husni: Are you working with media agencies, ad agencies, or you’re working directly with advertisers?

David Coker: Primarily with the ad agencies. We do have some relationships with advertisers directly. Mostly those have been advisory relationships. We have an advisory relationship with LVMH. We have an advisory relationship with Marriott International, as well as L’Oréal.

Then, we have a handful of other brands that we have friendly relationships with, and they don’t have agencies. So, we’re happy to work with either, but the agencies are really a key part of our overall focus. We want to help the agencies be efficient in their media buys, have transparency in their media buys, and be able to service their clients.

Beth Mach: We also found a new cohort of agencies, meaning digital agencies who don’t have this capability in-house.

There are a lot of advertisers who want the capability of a really smart digital-first agency, but also have print and out-of-home needs, and don’t want to have to go to multiple agencies to be able to do this work.

We’ve found that there’s a bit of a niche of some of the digital agencies coming to us, where they are now with their current business, and with Spacely’s help, have the capability to go in market for existing clients as well as win new business.

Samir Husni: Since the inception of the concept of Spacely and then the actual platform itself, has it been a walk in a rose garden, or have you had some challenges?

David Coker: Like any start-up, there are challenges.

I come from a start-up background, so I’m not unfamiliar with the high highs and the low lows, which is a pretty common story across the founders Beth and I speak with all the time. I tell people, every week is a net positive, and we’re really blessed to have a product that has had such really incredible traction.

I can say in modesty, it’s rare that we hear someone say, “No, this isn’t for us.” It just simply doesn’t happen. Are there things to figure out? Certainly, but almost uniformly, people are excited to use our platform.

People see the promise of Spacely, and we move pretty quickly to an agreement. But candidly, every week is five steps forward and three steps back. We just don’t know from one week to the next what the next challenge is going to be.

Beth Mach: We have a really incredible team, honestly, and that’s been crucial to being able to navigate any challenges.

Every morning, we get together with the leadership team, which I call the Core Four, and our dev team. We debate internally. We debate with the dev team and our business analysts about what should be done, how it should be done. We ask for outside counsel from folks who are in our cohort.

There are challenges. Timing is a challenge. Investment is a challenge. But like David said, we’ve had such a great response. I don’t think we can move fast enough. Our challenge is how much do we get done in a short period of time to be truly viable and to be the product we envision for our customers and for our clients and users.

Samir Husni: What would you consider the major stumbling block, if there is any?

Beth Mach: Money, money, money. Yeah. We’re largely bootstrapped.

David Coker: We’ve been fortunate to raise a nice round among our friends and family, and right now, we’re in the middle of an angel raise, and that’s tricky. A lot of VCs we speak to like us, but we’re too early on in our traction to have a case for VCs to fit their theses.

Almost always, we end up going back to angel investors, who, for us, are former agency leadership, former global publishing house leadership, and people who are within out-of-home currently.

Continuing to raise, finding the right people, finding the right timing, all in the right balance — that’s been a challenge.

I would also say, there’s not just one major stumbling block. It’s a two-sided market. The phrase herding cats gets overused, but what we’ve created is an extremely complicated piece of software. It would not make sense for any one publisher to build it for themselves. It would hardly make sense for one global publishing house to build it for only their titles.

We often compare our platform to Kayak, like the travel booking engine. While it certainly makes sense for Delta Airlines to have its own booking engine on its own site, there’s still need for a third party that sees across the market. We’re that third party that gives macro-market data across the industry, both print and out-of-home.

Our ambitions, let’s say, are grand. Our vision for the product is robust. Getting there, I think our Spacely:Transact product is far more advanced than what we even expected an MVP would be.

We’re very happy with the work. We’re constantly surprised every day at the level of complexity that we can achieve and that we can solve for. That’s quite frankly essential.

Samir Husni: Does it make a difference — working with a large company, large magazine publisher, or an individual local niche magazine?

David Coker: To an extent, it does. I think both have different wants out of Spacely, and we’re able to accommodate both.

A large publisher has existing relationships and they want to maintain those relationships; they want to make the process of working with them efficient, and they want to support their print products.

The local companies, sometimes their print product is their main source of revenue and they want to find incremental revenue. They want to be able to be discovered by Pepsi or Chevrolet, which would normally have a lot of trouble even finding out that they existed, let alone that the content they’re writing is the perfect content for the upcoming Chevrolet campaign. Discoverability is a major factor for the local publishers.

The national publishers, I don’t think they feel like they have to be discovered. To an extent, they do though, because a sales team can only make so many calls and have so much reach, but they don’t feel like that discoverability is a major problem for them. Efficiency is what they are constantly striving for.

Beth, would you say that sounds right?

Beth Mach: Yes, and uniformity.

As David mentioned earlier, our platform gives a team of five the ability to work as a team of 15. You have to have process, you have to have some level of uniformity in the process, but then also in how people are trained.

Using our tool gives them the ability to do that without a ton of training, without a ton of preparation. They can start using Spacely almost immediately.

Samir Husni: So, are you in the business of selling content or filling space?

David Coker: What an interesting way to phrase that question. I would actually say both.

I say that because everybody’s approaching this — each advertiser and each seller is approaching this a little bit differently. If we said we were selling only space, we would be overlooking the benefit of what print brings to a reader.

We would also not be looking at a business in a way that content creates more readership, that it attracts more advertisers, and again, creates that goodwill and the opportunity for us to help stabilize an industry.

Again, I say “help” — it’s not that we’re coming to save the day, but Spacely certainly gives us an opportunity to play a role in the positive growth and resurgence of the print environment and print industry. I would say, the number one bit of feedback we get is, “Why doesn’t this exist already?” We get it from the demand side; we get it from the supply side.

Beth Mach: You asked, “Are we selling content or space?”

Honestly, Spacely is not selling anything. We’re helping your sales team to do the selling. And sometimes there are advertisers who want as much space as they can get, and sometimes there are advertisers who want to be next to certain content.

I think we’re all surprised that a solution that seems as simple and intuitive as what we’re creating has not really existed yet in the way that we’ve built it out.

Samir Husni: Before I ask you my typical personal questions, is there any question that I failed to ask you or anything you would like to add?

David Coker: We touched briefly on out-of-home as part of our business. We often refer to Spacely as the Kayak for offline media — offline being print and out-of-home media. But there are other products on our road map, products that are shown to be necessary by our conversations and discovery with our agency partners — anything that’s necessarily not digital.

Digital has become easy to buy, even programmatically bought in many cases. We’re careful to point out that Spacely is not programmatic, but our platform lends itself very nicely to other offline media, and you’ll see some of that coming to the fore in the not-too-distant future.

One other thing I always like to touch on is this, it’s important to know that while we have products, Spacely is a machine-learning platform. Our system works 24-7, understanding the demand-side patterns and supply-side behavior of our users.

Some of our products include inventory management products, as well as the transaction product, Spacely:Transact itself. But I always consider — and I think Beth would agree — that our number one product is our culture. It’s the culture of our team, and how we work with each other, and how we work with our partners that we’re proudest of.

We really rely on two core values, and those are curiosity and kindness. And valuing disagreement is a key part of our everyday process. So, I always like to call out that who we are as a company is very much a product of wonderful people, and not just the products that we’re creating.

Beth Mach: Well said. Thank you.

Samir Husni: So, Beth, tell me, if I come uninvited one evening to your home, what do I catch you doing? Reading a book, watching TV, cooking?

Beth Mach: My husband is the chef of the house, and I am a great sous-chef. So, a little bit of cooking, but lots of conversation and hanging out with my husband.

We don’t see each other all that much, because we both travel quite a bit. So, an evening of cooking and drinking a nice bottle of wine is always welcome. And we always welcome strangers and friends to our homes for dinner. It’s a lot of fun. It’s kind of a bit of our love language here.

Samir Husni: And David?

David Coker: So, any night of the week, you’ll definitely find me working late.

If you walked in, you’d see me lounging with my cats, playing chess, and answering emails. My wife will have something on the TV. She’s an entertainment writer and editor, so she’ll have two or three different things on various screens and a movie playing on the main TV here.

So, cats, chess, and cranking out correspondence almost with 100% certainty. That’s my routine.

Samir Husni: Beth, what keeps you up at night these days?

Beth Mach: Well, I would actually like to reframe that a little bit. I like to talk about what gets me up in the morning.

I think what energizes me — and we talked about it a little bit — no two days are the same in start-up land, right? You’re faced with something different every day. That is very exciting to me.

And I know this sounds a little Pollyanna, but figuring out how to make the world of advertising exciting and enjoyable, and figuring out ways to create more space and time and deep opportunities to think beyond what’s in front of you — Spacely gives me that opportunity. I just look forward to it.

I’m also part of some other start-ups and roundtables, and getting energy from each one of those and applying it in ways that make the world a little bit more enjoyable is super fun to me.

Samir Husni: And David?

David Coker: Caffeine, full stop. That’s what keeps me up at night.

Samir Husni: Thank you.

Posted in A Launch Story..., Innovation in print, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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Flow Magazine: A Dutch Favorite Returns To The United States.  The Mr. Magazine™ interview with Irene Smit, Co-Founder and Creative Director.

November 17, 2024

Flow, the magazine that was born in an attic in the Netherlands in 2008, gained the world’s attention for its beauty, elegance, and giving its audience a time for themselves in a very slow but conscience and creative presentation. 

What can easily be described as a magnet to paper lovers, returns to the shores of the United States and another 20 English speaking countries after suspending publication in English following COVID 19 in 2020.

The articles in the magazine, the photography, and the illustrations are all printed on paper that corresponds to the nature of the article or illustration.  The genius idea of Irene Smit, the cofounder and creative director of Flow, with business partner Astrid van der Hulst, cofounder and former editor in chief of the magazine.

When the magazine arrived on the newsstands in the Netherlands, the skeptics who doubted a “me time magazine,” will survive were stunned by the sales numbers.  Flow continued to grow in the Netherlands and beyond.  Now in four languages(Dutch, German, French and English) and multiple international editions, the magazine is back on the United States newsstands.

I had the pleasure of chatting with Irene Smit, the cofounder and creative director of Flow via Zoom in her office in the Netherlands.  What follows is the lightly edited interview with Irene Smit, but first the soundbites:

On the elevator pitch of Flow: “Flow is about slowing down and living a conscious life.”

On the challenges that forced the suspension of Flow in 2020: “The challenges brought by COVID-19 proved insurmountable. Skyrocketing paper prices and exorbitant distribution costs, combined with widespread shop closures worldwide, made continuing the magazine untenable.”

On the timing of the return of the English edition of Flow: “Last year, Flow Magazine was sold to another publishing house, Roularta Media. They were enthusiastic about restarting the international edition, which was exciting for us.”

On the feedback during Flow’s suspension: “What’s truly heartwarming is that even during the years we were away, we continued to receive letters and messages on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.”

On Flow’s target audience: “In a time of increasing polarization, many found comfort in Flow’s community—people who cherish crafting, paper, and positivity.”

On the genesis of the Flow idea: “People were growing tired of the “more, better, quicker” mentality. Instead, they seemed to crave a simpler, more authentic way of life.”

On the power of print in a digital age: “After years dominated by digital devices like iPhones and iPads, people are rediscovering the value of paper. It resonates particularly with Gen Z and millennials, who are increasingly seeking ways to step away from their screens.”

On Flow’s mission: “Flow has always been about: nurturing your mind through creativity and incorporating positive psychology into everyday life.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Irene Smit, cofounder and creative director of Flow magazine:

Irene Smit

Samir Husni:  What’s the elevator pitch of Flow? 

Irene Smit: Flow is about slowing down and living a conscious life.

When we started Flow (myself and business partner Astrid van der Hulst) in 2008 magazines weren’t about those topics. They were all about more, better, like what social media is now. We already knew what the world wanted before the world wanted it, a place to slow down and to live a conscious life, and that’s what we still offer in the magazine.

Samir Husni: You publish several international editions. You have one in France, you have one in Germany, and you brought an edition to the States.  Because of COVID, you had to suspend the International edition. Now you are bringing it back. Why now? And what are some of the reasons for this relaunch? 

Irene Smit: Shortly after launching the Dutch version, we began receiving numerous letters from people who had come across it at the airport. They all praised the magazine, saying it looked stunning and had a unique tactile appeal due to the variety of papers used. However, many added, “We don’t really understand what it’s about.” This feedback prompted us to create an English-language edition in the Netherlands.

At its peak in 2020, just before the onset of COVID-19, the magazine was published and distributed in 34 countries. We had licensed German and French editions, while the English edition was produced in-house. This version was developed in the Netherlands with support from English-speaking translators and editors.

However, the challenges brought by COVID-19 proved insurmountable. Skyrocketing paper prices and exorbitant distribution costs, combined with widespread shop closures worldwide, made continuing the magazine untenable. A new publishing company had just acquired us and we decided to stop producing the English issue, and unfortunately weren’t able to start it up again.

But last year, Flow Magazine was sold to another publishing house, Roularta Media. They were enthusiastic about restarting the international edition, which was exciting for us. This summer, we finally made it happen. The magazine will now be published twice a year and distributed across 20 countries. This allows us to gradually grow and adapt to modern distribution methods.

What’s truly heartwarming is that even during the years we were away, we continued to receive letters and messages on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Our Facebook group for Paper Lovers has been especially active. Fans would often ask, “Can you please bring back the English edition? You’re my paper inspiration, my ‘Paper porn.’ I miss you so much!” Some even joked about learning Dutch or French just to stay connected with us. Whenever we posted updates, our many international followers would respond, urging us to return to the U.S., New Zealand, or Australia.

Last year, more and more people were expressing that the world truly needs Flow. They emphasized the importance of spreading a positive message of hope and offering ways to care for ourselves in this fast-paced, often overwhelming world. Flow Magazine has always been about fostering a sense of community, bringing people together, and celebrating creativity. In a time of increasing polarization, many found comfort in Flow’s community—people who cherish crafting, paper, and positivity.

With so many asking for Flow’s return, we realized that now is the perfect time to bring it back.

Samir Husni: If you can go back to 2008, tell me a little bit about how you and your business partner came up with the idea and how did you start this magazine? My understanding that you were in your attic? 

Irene Smit: Yes, we were. We were both working for Marie Claire, a glossy magazine that was part of Sanoma Publishers.

One day, we were on the attic when Anita Mooiweer, the new business manager of Sanoma, mentioned, “We feel there’s a need for a different kind of magazine, but we’re not sure what. Could you help us think of a new concept?” Inspired, Astrid and I gathered a variety of paper goodies—things we loved, like stationery and notebooks—from children’s bookstores and sat down to brainstorm.

Both of us shared a deep love for paper. After years of working on glossy magazines, we felt that by 2008—just before the economic crisis—society was shifting. People were growing tired of the “more, better, quicker” mentality. Instead, they seemed to crave a simpler, more authentic way of life.

We noticed that people no longer yearned for more designer clothes or extravagant vacations. Instead, they valued meaningful gestures, for example, like a homemade apple pie from a friend. Those personal, heartfelt moments held more worth than expensive luxuries. Inspired by this, we set out to create a magazine that we would want to read ourselves—something entirely different from what was already available.

At the time, we had just completed a mindfulness-based stress reduction course. It taught us profound life lessons: letting go of perfectionism, accepting ourselves, cultivating a beginner’s mind, and appreciating the little things in life. We realized our magazine should reflect these principles. It should celebrate life’s small joys and offer guidance on navigating lessons that traditional schooling never taught us.

We wanted to learn and share these life lessons with others. That idea became the heart of our magazine. It combined everything we loved—poems, stories about inspiring women, history, and articles that helped us better understand the world and ourselves better.

Samir Husni: And you decided to use a variety of paper in the magazine. It was not one paper stock. The magazine is known for the variety of paper from tissue paper to glossy paper?

Irene Smit:  Yes.

Samir Husni: Why do you think this was the choice and what’s the power of print today in this digital age? 

Irene Smit: We decided to use a variety of papers because paper is so much more than just a medium for printing text. The tactile feel, the scent—it evokes emotions and can transport you to a different state of mind. For instance, when presenting an article filled with images, glossy paper is ideal. Its shiny, eye-catching quality adds a sense of indulgence, almost like visual candy.

On the other hand, if the article is about confronting personal challenges or pitfalls, a rougher paper feels more appropriate. The texture itself mirrors the subject matter—it’s a bit raw, a bit tough—adding a layer of depth that complements the article’s tone and content.

Today, paper has re-emerged as a luxury product. After years dominated by digital devices like iPhones and iPads, people are rediscovering the value of paper. It resonates particularly with Gen Z and millennials, who are increasingly seeking ways to step away from their screens. Many of them feel the need to reclaim their time and reduce their reliance on phones, often spending hours daily glued to their devices.

This reconnection with paper is beautiful. Younger generations, who grew up immersed in the digital world, are finding joy in treating themselves to offline moments. Whether it’s reading a magazine, journaling, or crafting a mood or vision board, they’re rediscovering the simple pleasures of print. It’s akin to the resurgence of vinyl records; just as people have fallen in love with playing records again, I believe the next step will be a revival of magazine reading.

Samir Husni: That’s good. So, tell me, was it more like a walk in a rose garden or you had some challenges you had to overcome? 

Irene Smit: We had a lot of challenges. I wish it was a walk in a rose garden.

In the beginning, it was almost amusing how few people believed in our potential for success. Critics scoffed, claiming we could only fill two or three issues with content. Many doubted it would work long-term.

Some even complained about the empty pages, saying they weren’t willing to pay for blank space. But we stayed true to our vision, deciding to do things our own way.

To our delight, the magazine sold exceptionally well. To all the skeptics, we simply said, “It’s fine to doubt us, but the numbers speak for themselves.” After the first decade of success, while many other magazines started to decline, we remained stable and even thrived.

We were thrilled to still be riding that wave of positivity. However, the past five or six years have been more challenging. The pandemic forced us to pause the English edition, and switching publishers twice added further complications. Creating this product is incredibly time-consuming, and downsizing our team has made the process even more demanding.

Despite these hurdles, we continue to pour our hearts into this magazine. We believe in crafting the best product possible, and we think our audience can feel that passion. This connection is why so many people are eager for its return.

It’s heartwarming to see such enthusiasm. In fact, the English edition seems to have gained an almost mythical status during its absence. People are eager to bring it back, and our Book for Paper Lovers has been equally beloved—it’s a magazine without articles, filled solely with beautiful paper.

We’ve collaborated with Workman Publishing in the U.S. to produce various projects, such as A Book That Takes Its Time, along with stationery and puzzles. Now, as we prepare for our return, Workman Publishing has expressed interest in new books featuring stickers and stationery.

It hasn’t been an easy journey, but we’re on the upswing. With the English edition back on newsstands, we’re hopeful it will be warmly received. Our message of comfort, compassion, and care for one another feels more relevant than ever. We believe this is the perfect moment for our comeback.

Samir Husni: When you launched the magazine, you were all alone. What was your feeling when you saw all those competitors sprouting like mushrooms on the newsstand worldwide? 

Irene Smit: Yes, it was challenging. I think in the Netherlands, the situation was manageable. However, in Germany, there were times when we faced competition from 10 or 15 rivals simultaneously. That was definitely frustrating.

Even so, I believe people can recognize when something is created with genuine passion and originality. We’ve always aimed to innovate and bring fresh ideas to the table. Over time, people continued to view Flow as the original, standing out with its unique products. I don’t think the imitations are as good as ours, and I believe people can sense that.

Samir Husni: Who’s your target audience? Whom are you trying to reach with Flow? 

Irene Smit: It’s funny, we always said we have a very broad audience, everybody that likes our topics is welcome.

These days, many young people are deeply interested in our topic. From the very beginning, Flow has been about mental health, although we didn’t use that term back in 2008. At the time, nobody really talked about mental health. Instead, we focused on mindfulness and caring for your mind.

It wasn’t until after COVID that mental health became a common topic of conversation. That’s when I realized—this is what Flow has always been about: nurturing your mind through creativity and incorporating positive psychology into everyday life.

Now, many young readers turn to Flow specifically for its mental health articles. At the same time, we continue to have a large audience of readers in their 50s and 60s, making it a truly broad and diverse community.

Samir Husni: That’s good. So what’s your motto now? Is it like “Go with the Flow?” 

Irene Smit: Yes, it’s still “Go with the Flow”. We just keep going with the Flow.

We try to sense what people want to read, what they want to hear, and how we can help them in life. Every day feels different, as the world changes so quickly.

We aim to keep up with all these changes, but we go with the flow, embracing the opportunities that come our way—like restarting the English edition. I think that approach works best for Flow.

Samir Husni: Before I ask you my last two typical questions, is there any question I failed to ask you that I should ask you or anything you would like to add? 

Irene Smit: You should have asked, “Where is Astrid?” She left. She’s now a primary school teacher. It was very sad because we started this together.

We’re still both parents of Flow, but she’s found something else that suits her life better. She loves teaching and doesn’t want the pressure of all these deadlines anymore. Now, she has found the right balance—she’s a teacher, but still writes articles for the magazine.

I’m happy she’s still involved with Flow.

Samir Husni: If I would come uninvited one evening to your house, what would I catch Irene doing, reading a book, watching TV, having a glass of wine, cooking?

Irene Smit:  I’m always striving to improve my life, just like everyone who reads this magazine.

Recently, I started the course The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, and as part of that, I’ve been making an effort to spend less time on my phone. Last night, I worked on creating a vision board.

I cut out images from old Flow magazines—both the German and French editions—because it’s difficult for me to cut out from the Dutch edition. I still find that challenging. So, I used illustrations from the French and German versions to create a vision board focused on my future—on what I want to achieve and the experiences I’d like to have with Flow.

I continue to make an effort to stay connected with paper as much as possible, but sometimes, I admit, I get caught up in my phone or the television. Hopefully, you’ll find me engaged with paper when the moment is right.

Samir Husni: My typical final question, what keeps Irene up at night these days? 

Irene Smit: I am deeply committed to supporting young people with their mental health. It’s tough to see how much they struggle, and I always try to find ways to help. 

Whether through the magazine or collaborations like the one of Flow with the Museum of the Mind in Haarlem, the Netherlands, where we have a permanent Flow Slow Art Tour, I focus on providing programs that support their mental well-being.

Samir Husni:  Thank you.

Posted in A Launch Story..., Across the Pond, Innovation in print, Magazine Power, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | 1 Comment »

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The Other Magazine:  The Latest Launch To Take You “High” Up The Hudson Valley & New York City: The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Peter Shafran, Founder and Publisher.

November 11, 2024

The legacy of cannabis and the legacy of magazines collide to introduce The Other magazine: A magazine devoted to cannabis, its dispensaries, and the customers who partake in enjoying the plant that for years has been the forbidden fruit.  With more states legalizing cannabis for recreational use, magazines devoted to the once forbidden plant are sprouting across the nation. 

The Other is the latest entry into the cannabis consumer magazines serving the audience of the Hudson Valley in New York State and New York City.  Peter Shafran, the founder and witty publisher, has high (pun intended) hopes for The Other.  His wit is evident in the cover of the first issue.  Take a look at the cover and read what he had to see about it:

“So if you look closely at the mountains, you’ll see that they’re not really mountains. It’s all cannabis. And the bridge, the base of each of the bridges are bongs, or at least the big bridge in the back is.

And this is all based on a real photograph. The big bridge is the Bear Mountain Bridge, which goes over the Hudson River, but the two boats floating on there, one is just a pipe, and the other one is a pipe, it is a boat with a puff on it.

The small bridge in the front, which is the bridge that takes you over the Taconic State Parkway, all those little side things, those are all joints. So when I bring this into the dispensary and I tell people, you know, so do you like the mountains? And they’re like, oh yeah, I like the mountains. I was like, do you really like the mountains?”

I had the opportunity to interview Peter, and his strategic communications consultant, magazine veteran, Stu Zakim.  But first the soundbites:

On the name of the magazine: “The title of the magazine hearkens back to a newspaper that came out in 1968 called the East Village Other. It was one of the first underground countercultural newspapers in the country.”

More on the name of the magazine: “But the reason we chose that name is because we as cannabis consumers have always felt that we were on the outside, we’re the others.”

On the reasons the magazine is regional: “We felt that the regional way was the way to go, because especially in the cannabis industry, much of the industry is vertically aligned in terms of the growing, the processing, the distributing and the retail is all contained in New York.”

On why The Other is in print: “Well, tactile. It really is. In other words, cannabis has its legacy. So do print magazines. And I think there’s a marriage there.”

On the mission of the magazine: “The conversation has changed so that we’re focusing more on the lifestyle, the alternatives, the education, the normalization and destigmatization.”

On the status of the cannabis industry: “The cannabis industry is so much mainstream now that they’re providing a portion of the revenue to these towns and villages that they never saw before, or at least haven’t seen since manufacturing was here.”

On the future plans of the magazine: “I really have no desire to go into California, Colorado, Massachusetts, or any of those places. What I’m looking for is a place like New Jersey, which has two or three years of growth. There is no magazine in New Jersey that does what we do.”

On the role of The Other: “It’s a wonderful place to be in because we’re past what we used to call the wild, wild West. But now it is a functioning, growing economy, and we’re able to be there at the ground level and helping make it flourish.”

And now for the lightly edited interview with Peter Shafran, founder and publisher of The Other:

Samir Husni: Congratulations on the launch of The Other.

Peter Shafran: Thank you.

Samir Husni: Would you please give me the elevator pitch of The Other and tell me what’s the idea behind the name?

Peter Shafran: Oh, sure. The magazine is a countercultural lifestyle magazine for people in the Hudson Valley, in New York City, for people who enjoy cannabis and other lifestyle things like psychedelics and the whole lifestyle. The magazine is a consumer magazine.

Unlike most of the magazines that are out there in the community, which are B2B magazines, this is a lifestyle consumer magazine. Though there is a little bit of a space here for another business magazine. So we’re going to add some industry focus on there as well.

I live in the Hudson Valley, which is why we started here and I grew up here. The title of the magazine hearkens back to a newspaper that came out in 1968 called the East Village Other. It was one of the first underground countercultural newspapers in the country, which spurred on the development of other countercultural magazines in Berkeley and Chicago and a couple of other places.

That became the beginnings of the underground movement in the 60s. The people who wrote for the East Village Other were all the top minds and writers of the 1960s and the anti-war and revolutionary writers. So we hearken back to that to give them some props.

But the reason we chose that name is because we as cannabis consumers have always felt that we were on the outside, we’re the others. And even in terms of where we are today in the industry, probably not before a year or two ago was cannabis really discussed among real people, among my friends. I’ve been living in this village for 18 years and people did not discuss cannabis openly, definitely because of the stigma attached to it. We are all parents and we don’t want our kids to talk about it and stuff like that.

So it really has only been in the last couple of years where that openness, and of course, the legalization in New York and the opening up of cannabis dispensaries has changed the whole landscape. It has changed the conversation. We felt there was a vacuum here and we’re hoping to fill it.

Samir Husni: Why did you decide to fulfill that vacuum via ink on paper in this digital age?

Peter Shafran: Well, basically, because I’m insane. Nobody in their right mind would do this, but the reality is that the regional magazines and local magazines are actually flourishing. The national magazines, especially in fringe areas, have a hard time in attracting advertisers and attracting money. We felt that the regional way was the way to go, because especially in the cannabis industry, much of the industry is vertically aligned in terms of the growing, the processing, the distributing and the retail is all contained in New York.

The New York focus was really helping us to find that we want to make a regional magazine. But the eventual goal that “if we can make it here, we can make it anywhere,” to quote Frank Sinatra.

Samir Husni: Besides the fact that regional magazines are doing well, what do you think is the power of print in this digital age? What do you offer your readers, your customers?

Peter Shafran: (Holding the magazine in both hands) Well, tactile. It really is.

The response has been unbelievable. I’ve been driving around to dispensaries within a half hour, 45 minute radius. The magazine’s been out a week.

Every place I go, I wear my shirt or I wear my hat (with the magazine name on them). I walk into the dispensary and one of the workers in the dispensary says, I know that logo. Where did I see it before? Is this where you saw it? And every single bud tender, every single person in the dispensary is like, wow, this is really cool.

Why hasn’t somebody done this before? We’re seeing that from across the spectrum, from the readers to everybody we’ve seen. We went to, Stu and I, and a couple of members of the team went to Reveille Buyers Club a couple of weeks ago when we started talking about the magazine. The magazine hadn’t even been out yet, and the buzz around it was huge because nobody else is doing it.

Stu: There’s another cannabis title out here, but it’s newsprint. Unlike Peter’s point of a tactile and the beauty.  A slick, glossy, four-color publication in an era where, to your earlier point, things living digitally is amazing, number one.

It’s an emotional attachment, which I think we all have. The newsprint book has never taken off. You know, it’s not well designed.

It looks like a high school project.  When people see The Other at the retailers, at the point of sale, where they pay for the products, curiosity will definitely attract them. They’ll see this gorgeous cover, which in itself has a little gimmick built into it.

Peter, I don’t know if you’ve explained that or not. And, you know, the demographics of the cannabis consumer are me and Peter. And, you know, not that we’re old men, but we grew up in the, we grew up with magazines and the role they played in all of our lives was very central.

So it’s, in other words, cannabis has its legacy. So do print magazines. And I think there’s a marriage there. That’s one thing that’s going to work to their advantage.

But the reality is that community with a big C is really what we are looking forward to becoming the community focus for this region.

Samir Husni: How is The Other different than the cannabis magazines of the 70s and 80s, such as High Times, Inside Dope, The Weed Journal and all these titles that were published before it became legal?

Peter Shafran: Very easy answer. Before we didn’t have dispensaries. So the curiosity, ooh, let’s see what cannabis looks like.

And you’ve got these beautiful pictures, now we call it cannabis, but the whole industry has become such that the curiosity to see something in a magazine, first of all, you can see anything you want on the web. So you don’t need to see beautiful pictures of a bud. Now, of course we have, but I have buds in my background of my pictures, more of a joke than anything else.

The realization is that we have evolved from that point where we’re curious about what bud looks like, because you can walk into any dispensary and see exactly what bud looks like. The conversation has changed so that we’re focusing more on the lifestyle, the alternatives, the education, the normalization and destigmatization.

Also one of the things that New York has going for it that some other states don’t have, is a very strong social justice part of the industry where specifically it was designed to let mom and pops come into the dispensaries and to the growers and the processors and not the multi-states which are coming in, but the mom and pops have the stronghold.

They’re already in here. They’ve been nurtured and they’re growing and developing. So it’s a lot different than it was in the seventies.

Samir Husni: You mentioned in your magazine introduction that the Hudson Valley have changed from what used to be a pumpkin growing area to a cannabis growing area. What’s the reaction of the consumers? Has it been accepted now? Is it just a matter of fact?

Peter Shafran: Number one, New York has the highest use of cannabis than any other place in the world, in terms of per capita. Number two, growing up in the Hudson Valley, my father was a home builder. And the three things that they used to say are going to bring this area back is an international airport.

Well, we have that in Newburgh. High-speed rail, we don’t have it. Casino gambling, we don’t really have it. There’s one or two places around here, but all the things that they promised were going to happen to revitalize the economy in New York, never really happened in those terms.

What’s going on now in cannabis in New York is just incredible. Between the processes and the growers and everybody else that’s coming in here, the jobs and the local towns, the villages, the municipalities, the development corporations, they’re seeing real growth.

It’s not just the dispensaries. They’re employing 500 people at a facility when nobody else is putting these shovels in the ground to build processing plants, to build grow houses and things like that. So even the most right-wing conservative politicians and people who follow them are saying, well, wait a second, you’re building construction jobs, permanent jobs, money coming into the community, both in terms of sales and retail, but also in terms of taxes.

The cannabis industry is so much mainstream now that they’re providing a portion of the revenue to these towns and villages that they never saw before, or at least haven’t seen since manufacturing was here. But going back to the pumpkins and apples, there are still plenty of pumpkins and apples, but several of the smart people in agriculture, like the Hepworths, for example, realized that this is coming and had the foresight to say, let’s start growing. So people who were worried about surviving in the agricultural field now have a secondary and sometimes a primary source of income that is not related to pumpkins and apples.

There’s a company called Ayrloom, which started out as an apple grower, one of the most successful apple growers. And still is. They make delicious apple cider. Well, now they make really good apple cider with a little bit of a hint inside. And I’m a fan.

I happen to love their honey crisp apple cider, which is just absolutely delicious. But here’s a company who been growing apples for a hundred years, and all of a sudden grew into one of the major players in the region. So from the economic standpoint, it’s fantastic for the Hudson Valley. It’s fantastic for the state of New York.

Samir Husni: Do you envision seeing more of lifestyle advertisement or are you on purpose sticking to the advertisement from the cannabis industry?

Peter Shafran: No, we’re actually going about 50-50. That’s our focus now.

We’re hoping to do that in the next round of advertising. But we’re looking at our magazine as more of a lifestyle magazine rather than a cannabis magazine. And the difference is that we’re talking to advertisers and saying, we have a base of probably 250,000 readers geographically in this region.

And that’s not to mention New York City, but just 250,000 people who can read the magazine in the area. And guess what? They buy cars. And guess what? They buy cookies, and they buy candy, and they buy all kinds of things that they want to eat after they smoke.

So we’re approaching the snack companies, the insurance agencies. I mean, we are a niche lifestyle brand, but the numbers are just too hard to ignore.  

Stu Zakim : If you look at the other categories, Samir, for advertising, one of the biggest growth areas as an ancillary to the cannabis is cannabis tourism, where they’re taking people from the city or wherever.

They pay a lot of money to go on this tour bus. They come up. They check out the farm. They get to see the fields. And there’s hospitality. There’s hotels that are, since it is legal, welcoming this new population for them because it’s a new customer base.

And rather than having a chocolate on your pillow at night, you may have an infused chocolate on your pillow. And they can serve infused beverage. All this stuff is an offshoot of what Peter’s been talking about with the growth in the industry.

And the other categories, to his point, if we just restricted ourselves to dispensaries and farms, there won’t be any revenue. It’s these ancillary categories that are more normal to regular publications that are actually, as the consumer, it’s not cheap to be a cannabis consumer. So you have to have a lot of extra income, which is the same logic when Rolling Stone transitioned from their newsprint and they became a slick glossy, they went after cars and autos and fashion and beauty and other lifestyle categories who felt more comfortable living in a magazine that had that feel to it and also the kind of customer readership that they had.

Samir Husni: Peter, before I ask you my typical personal last questions, is there any question I failed to ask you or anything you would like to add?

Peter Shafran: Good question.

The growth model that we see here is, you know, in answer to one of your previous questions about why we go regional, I think that this model can be replicated in other areas. I’m not looking to become a national magazine. I’m looking to make The Other something that can be duplicated in certain areas, especially in new growth areas.

I really have no desire to go into California, Colorado, Massachusetts, or any of those places. What I’m looking for is a place like New Jersey, which has two or three years of growth. There is no magazine in New Jersey that does what we do.

There are very few places that do this kind of magazine, which is why I go back to the point of being insane. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, but the reality is the buzz around the magazine has been huge. And we’re just seeing fantastic replies and the growth in just in our Instagram page in the last couple of days has just been explosive.

Our model was providing free magazines and putting them in every single dispensary in our region. So we distributed 5,600 magazines in one week to dispensaries and ancillary places. And in one week, we’re already getting responses: We need more magazines.

In addition to being a magazine, we have realized that what we can become and what we’re really launching towards is becoming the backbone of a community. There are groups out there that have networking events and they have little things in here, but there is nothing here that is really containing in terms of the lifestyle and the advertising and the culture for this region.

What we’re finding is when we talked to a couple of dispensary owners in the last couple of weeks, and I floated the idea about starting a dispensary owners roundtable. Every single one that I spoke to said, I’m in, tell me when you want to do it. And last week, in bringing the magazine to different places, I said to the bud tenders, what do you think about having a bud tender event of the month? Like, yeah, you want to do it? If you’re going to be providing something free, we’ll all come.

But the reality is that community with a big C is really what we are looking forward to becoming the community focus for this region.

Samir Husni: Excellent. Well, my typical last two questions are if I come to visit you unannounced one evening, what do I catch Peter doing? Smoking a joint, drinking a glass of wine, watching TV, reading a book?

Peter Shafran: Well, so the easy answer is that I have become over the last year or two, more of a, maybe not a connoisseur, but I’m learning how to become a connoisseur.

But what I found is that prior to my involvement in the magazine, and prior to probably two years ago, I used to have a glass of wine with dinner every night. I haven’t opened up a bottle of wine unless company is coming for about six months, maybe more. I’ve had a sip of beer just to taste it in the last couple of months.

So one day I’ll roll a joint and smoke it. And the next day I’ll smoke out of a pipe or a bottle or I’ll do a gummy. The wonderful thing is that we live in a society right now where choice is unbelievable. It was whatever the guy had is what you got for 40 bucks. You got an ounce of whatever he had, whether it was terrible or not, it was what you got.

And now you go in for to any dispensary and you got two, three, 400,  a thousand skews of products and it’s dizzying. That’s one of the things that we can provide is that benefit to say, we’ll give you reviews. We’ll show you what’s out there.

It’s a wonderful place to be in because we’re past what we used to call the wild, wild West. But now it is a functioning, growing economy, and we’re able to be there at the ground level and helping make it flourish.

Samir Husni: My typical last question to you is what keeps Peter up at night these days?

Peter Shafran: Well, of course keeping the magazine funded. We wanted to get the business of the magazine up so that that could be our tent pole to be able to use in other areas. We have a newsletter coming out, an online presence, and the live events, which will provide streams of income to be able to fund everything together. But until that happens, it’s hard to go to sleep at night. But I just take a gummy and I’m fine.

Samir Husni: Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time.

StuZakim: But as a hardcore magazine person, you know, the, the role of this format has been diminished over time. And here, I think it takes courage in this rather tough market to break out a new title. To your point about the earlier titles of High Times and all that shit that’s another generation.

We’re in a new world now. And if not only educate people about it to help eradicate the stigma against cannabis, educate people about the beauty of the magazine format and why photography jumps off the page. I mean, look at that cover.

You’ll never see that in a newspaper where it catches your attention as you walk by and bringing this to a whole new group of people who haven’t really grown up with it the way we did. So, you know, whenever you get to it, it’s fine. I would appreciate the, the forum, the platform, and as you know, I’m, I’m just really thrilled that this conversation is taking place.

Samir Husni: Thank you

Posted in A Launch Story..., Innovation in print, Magazine Power, New Launches, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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New Christian Makers: A Museum In A Magazine. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview With Garreth Blackwell, Creative Director & Editor-in-Chief

October 26, 2024

“Now that digital media is the dominant form out there, I think that books and magazines are showing the strengths they’ve always had, which is they’re a respite.”

“Print is a place where you can get away from the noise that never stops in the digital world and have some sort of actual quiet experience within your own home.”

To say I am a proud professor would be a major understatement.  What one of my former students has accomplished brings nothing but pure joy to this retired professor.  Dr. Garreth Blackwell, my former student and assistant director of the Magazine Innovation Center during my tenure at The University of Mississippi is now an accomplished assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Art and the editor-in-chief and creative director of a new magazine aptly named New Christian Makers. 

Garreth, a maker himself, has accomplished so much since he departed from Ole Miss.  He worked hard to attain a Ph.D. and a teaching position, in addition to editing and designing many different projects with the helping eyes of his wife Callie, also a former student of mine and an accomplished designer herself.

The father of four still finds the time to edit and design the new magazine that  he calls “a labor of love,” that the entire family is involved with. 

Flipping through the pages of the first issue of New Christian Makers was like entering through the door of a museum and feasting my eyes on one art piece after the other.  A masterful curation of 30 artists and makers and a pure delight for this retired professor.  I may not be teaching classes any longer, but as you can see from my blog, I am still tracking and consulting with the magazine creators and makers.  Garreth Blackwell is the latest maker whom I had the pleasure of interviewing about the first issue of New Christian Makers.  Please enjoy my conversation with the editor-in-chief and creative director of New Christion Makers Dr. Garreth Blackwell.  But first the soundbites…

On the genesis of the magazine: “We started to see a lot of folks who had considered themselves makers, artists, designers, whatever it may be, they had time to actually make again.”

More on the genesis of the magazine: “One of the things that we started to see is that even though it seemed like the world was crumbling all around us in 2020, the art we saw coming out was very hopeful.”

On the uniqueness of print: “There’s nothing that beats opening up a box of things fresh off the press and just seeing them, smelling them and seeing that that’s something you’ve put together and done.”

On why New Christion Makers is in print: “The only way to do that would be a tangible product in somebody’s hand. It would have to be a book or a magazine or something of the sort, because we all understood that social media just wasn’t cutting it, that digital platforms, for lack of a better term, were kind of cheap. They didn’t ask a lot of the viewer.”

More on why the magazine is in print: “Having a thing in your hand, touching it, seeing it, actually was much more humanizing.”

On his elevator pitch of the magazine: “The elevator pitch is that for a long time, the historical church was the center of culture. It was where art was preserved. It’s where libraries began. It’s where hospitals started. It was the place where a lot of what we understand as Western culture started.”

On the mission of the magazine: “New Christian Makers seeks to connect artists who have foundational beliefs in Jesus Christ, who make things to the glory of God and the flourishing of a world that we think should be good, true, and beautiful.”

On his reason for the love of paper: “I think there’s more relationship with the paper than there is with the flickering pixels.”

On the future of print: “It would just become a much more niche-based thing. So we see it with people buying vinyl records and things. But as far as print goes, I don’t know that it ever left.”

On the strength of print: “Everything is constantly going, never stopping, and magazines and books give you a rest stop on that busy, busy highway to just take a break.”

More on the strength of print: “More filling than they are depleting, which the research shows that digital media and social media especially can be very, very depleting to people. It takes a lot out of somebody to spend their day engaged just digitally, whereas you don’t have that same experience with print.”

On his role in the magazine: “Moving forward from here on out, the curation is actually going to be something where I would be more of a curation facilitator-in-chief.”

On the magazine as a museum: “One of the things about going into a gallery or a museum is that you’re able to go in and it is a quieting place. It’s a place where you can feel reflective with work. You can look at it, spend time with it. We wanted that to be the same case here.”

On whether the magazine is a mission or a business: “If I were just to give you a blanket answer before going specific, I would say what good business isn’t also a mission. And I think that’s part of it. I think if we focus on mission first, the business can follow. But very often, if the business is the sole focus, the mission will get muddied and get lost.”

On the frequency of the magazine: “So by the time we’re in full swing, we’ll have seven issues a year coming out.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Garreth Blackwell, creative director and editor-in-chief of New Christion Makers magazine:

Samir Husni: My first question to you is, and pun is intended, what is the genesis of the New Christian Makers magazine?

Garreth Blackwell: I’ve been trying to think of where it all started. It’s been a hard, hard time to figure out where we started, but the best way to describe the genesis of it is that in 2020, when everything just went sideways during quarantine, there were a lot of things that people didn’t know about.

People, I think, started to re-understand. One of the things is that disconnected communication and disconnected relationships were not actually something that were fulfilling and stabilizing for people’s lives. Something that also came up is that we started to see a lot of folks who had considered themselves makers, artists, designers, whatever it may be, they had time to actually make again.

These two things together, you started to see a lot of really amazing art start to come out of people’s homes. For the last six or seven years, I’ve been involved in the operations side of a local art gallery here in Richmond. One of the things that we started to see is that even though it seemed like the world was crumbling all around us in 2020, the art we saw coming out was very hopeful.

It was beautiful. It was something that really helped people remind themselves of how wonderful the world actually is and how good God is to give us the world we have, even when it’s upside down or sideways. We started talking a lot, and I have a friend who just like me, we love making stuff.

I’ve always enjoyed books and magazines. I’ve always enjoyed making them. There’s nothing that beats opening up a box of things fresh off the press and just seeing them and smelling them and seeing that that’s something you’ve put together and done.

When we started having these conversations, we said, what does it actually look like for people to be connected, for communities to be established and developed? We said, well, we probably need to make some sort of journal. At that time, we were thinking about writing, maybe something that had some long-form content. But the more we thought about it, the more it just made sense that we needed to connect a community of folks who existed in disparate ways.

The only way to do that would be a tangible product in somebody’s hand. It would have to be a book or a magazine or something of the sort, because we all understood that social media just wasn’t cutting it, that digital platforms, for lack of a better term, were kind of cheap. They didn’t ask a lot of the viewer.

In fact, they just kind of took a lot from the viewer. They took your data and they took your interests and they took all of this for a free product. But we knew that having a thing in your hand, touching it, seeing it, actually was much more humanizing.

It was much more about the embodiment of people in real ways together. So here we are, and we’ve got New Christian Makers issue one, and issue two should be out early next year.

Samir Husni: You created a museum in a magazine. Tell me, what’s the elevator pitch for the magazine?

Garreth Blackwell: The elevator pitch is that for a long time, the historical church was the center of culture. It was where art was preserved. It’s where libraries began. It’s where hospitals started. It was the place where a lot of what we understand as Western culture started.

So throughout the Industrial Revolution, throughout modernism and everything else, those cultural centers shifted. But the historical import of the church and Christians as makers and people who helped to define culture, that never changed. We may have just had a few other voices in the room that were pretty loud.

So New Christian Makers seeks to connect artists who have foundational beliefs in Jesus Christ, who make things to the glory of God and the flourishing of a world that we think should be good, true, and beautiful. So New Christian Makers is about making art with and for your friends, and then going out and making more friends.

Samir Husni: Do you think there’s a community of  people your age that are rediscovering print or never left print?

Garreth Blackwell: I think it’s hard because I waffle back and forth on whether they’re discovering it, rediscovering it, or if they’ve always kind of been there. You can see behind me, print has never stopped being something that I enjoy.

I love books. I love how they are and how they exist. I love magazines. I still would prefer to sit in the airport waiting for my plane with a magazine rather than my phone just scrolling through. I think there’s more relationship with the paper than there is with the flickering pixels. But I think as far as my generation goes, we are seeing that, and we saw this in early 2000s with Chris Anderson The Long Tail, where he was talking about that generational media of sorts would never really go away.

It would just become a much more niche-based thing. So we see it with people buying vinyl records and things. But as far as print goes, I don’t know that it ever left.

I think that they began to sequester print to a kind of academic space, right? Like, I buy a book to think about a thing or learn about something, but they didn’t see it as an escape. Well, social media was that escape because we were surrounded by so much print media. Now that digital media is the dominant form out there, I think that books and magazines are showing the strengths they’ve always had, which is they’re a respite.

Print is a place where you can get away from the noise that never stops in the digital world and have some sort of actual quiet experience within your own home. So I think there’s a great draw to that. We have a lot of friends who will spend their evenings with books and magazines because it’s just quieter.

Everything is constantly going, never stopping, and magazines and books give you a rest stop on that busy, busy highway to just take a break. So they are more filling than they are depleting, which the research shows that digital media and social media especially can be very, very depleting to people. It takes a lot out of somebody to spend their day engaged just digitally, whereas you don’t have that same experience with print.

Samir Husni: I noticed in your editorial and in the introduction to the magazine that everything in the magazine is curated. Are you the curator-in-chief, or how is that process of curation taking place?

Garreth Blackwell: Well, it’s fantastic because, like I mentioned in the write-up in the magazine, we could have filled several issues with the people who submitted. And with any new venture, you never have any idea.

Is this going to be good, or are we going to get quality content? Will people even care? We had a strong conscience that they would, but you’re never totally sure. So in terms of curation, one of the things that we wanted to do was make sure we just got our first issue out. We got it out there.

People could see the proof of concept. It wasn’t just talking about it. But moving forward from here on out, the curation is actually going to be something where I would be more of a curation facilitator-in-chief.

We’re going to have guest curators who come in from different parts of the art world, whether they are writers, illustrators, graphic designers, painters, professors, researchers. We’re going to have other folks who come in because it will be kind of a curation by committee of sorts. So we take in whoever we’re blessed enough to receive as applicants, and then we pick our 30 that we want to showcase in that issue that we think just show the breadth and beauty of what’s out there.

Then we have a handful of folks that we know will be just on the cusp of that, and we want to make sure we show them off as honorable mentions as well. So it’s technically just the same way that an exhibition would be in a gallery or museum, just in print.

Samir Husni: So as I walk into that museum and flip the pages, which are designed in a nice horizontal space to project exactly like your eyes, tell me more about the decision to have this specific size (9X7), it’s unusual size for a magazine.

Garreth Blackwell: We debated a lot because if you look at the genre of  art books in general or art magazines, you’re going to have things that are very large format because you want to have as much real estate for the eye as possible. So it makes sense, but you also have some other constraints that really have to be dealt with when you’re talking about something of this kind. One, we needed to make sure that we kept the per issue price at a point that would be proper expectations for the market.

So from our research, we knew we had to hit somewhere south of $40, but could be above $20. And we wanted to make sure that we could do that well for folks so we could serve them in that way. The other thing is you have to mail stuff.

When you don’t have the larger size group of folks, larger size of constituency or reader base, you have to take a lot of that in consideration because you may not have a thousand pieces that you can go to the post office with to try to negotiate a lower rate. We’re shipping much lower than that. So we wanted to make sure we hit all of the economic marks for ourselves, but also we wanted something that did feel intimate.

One of the things about going into a gallery or a museum is that you’re able to go in and it is a quieting place. It’s a place where you can feel reflective with work. You can look at it, spend time with it.

We wanted that to be the same case here. We also wanted to make sure that it was still portable, that this was something you could pass to your friends, you could show off to others.

Some of the bigger, bulkier art books. I have a few books on my shelf behind me from Taschen that they’ll break your back, right? I mean, they’re not really passable books for the most part to friends. But this is something we wanted to make sure somebody could kind of throw in the seat of their car, take it to their friend’s house, show it to them, have on a bookcase, pull it off, and easily pass around. So we kind of ended up on this size because it did all the things we wanted it to.

Visually, like you said, it moves you left and right across. It feels very much like you’re viewing a gallery or a museum. The size helped us economically, but they also helped us in terms of how we wanted it to be used.

So form, function, economics all had to be considered. And this was the best of all possible worlds.

Samir Husni: You mentioned the economics. So is this venture a business or a mission?

Garreth Blackwell: Oh, gosh, that’s such a tough question. Well, I think if I were just to give you a blanket answer before going specific, I would say what good business isn’t also a mission. And I think that’s part of it.

In a large part, it is mission first, because with what we’re doing, we went into it knowing that this was going to be a labor of love. It was going to be nights and weekends. It was going to be.

My children were helping me pack envelopes, sending them off to people. My wife was, as always, a second set of eyes to make sure that all of my spelling errors or missed things that just became white noise visually as I was designing actually were corrected, that I wasn’t doing the same kind of habitual design mistakes that I tend to that she came in and helped with all that. So it’s been a wonderful way for a lot of us to do work together.

And because we knew that it wasn’t going to be something that just skyrocketed,  I would say it’s more of a mission to connect artists who have foundational beliefs about life and the way that the world is supposed to be, that do things with excellence towards God. I think that if we can connect those people and provide a playground for them to showcase what they do in a way that brings joy and promotes them, I don’t think we ever have to really have full time positions to do it.

It can stay working. I think if we focus on mission first, the business can follow. But very often, if the business is the sole focus, the mission will get muddied and get lost.

Samir Husni: Excellent. Is there any question that, before I ask you my personal questions, that I failed to ask you or anything else you would like to add about New Christian Makers?

Garreth Blackwell: I would say one thing, because it’s nothing we talked about in the first issue, but just to give some kind of clarifying questions, we’re at $25 per copy as the cover price for it. The outlook for the magazine is something that we have, I’ve been slowly stepping into.

We wanted to make sure we tested the market and tested it in a real way, not in some sort of fake or less quality than it would eventually be, but actually do the thing. So I had this really great old professor back in the day, and he talked a lot about how your frequencies can change as you understand what’s going on, and as you test the market. So I’m taking his advice to heart, and I’m saying, well, the first year, I’m going to do two of these, because I think two is very reasonable. But by the time we get to full frequency, we’re going to be a quarterly publication with three special editions each year.

The quarterly publication will be exactly like what you’ve seen. And the special editions, one will be geared towards professors within art schools, so that we can showcase the things they’re doing. Because within the current art culture right now people aren’t so excited about you if you’re a Christian. So giving them a platform and a place where they can showcase their work, their research, what they’re doing, we think is a necessary and needed thing.

The second one will be for rising seniors in high school in the arts, because we want to showcase young artists as soon as possible. We know how hard it is to get your work out there, and how most of college, if you’re in an art program or a design program, you’re going to just be going up against a brick wall trying to get your work shown somewhere. So we want to provide a platform for that.

And then each year, we’ll have an annual that would be a kind of a best of show for the year, where we showcase in depth the folks who have really just been the winners, the kind of best of issue for each issue. So by the time we’re in full swing, we’ll have seven issues a year coming out.

Samir Husni: So tell me, Garrett, if I come uninvited one night to your house, what do I catch you doing? Reading a book, watching TV, taking care of the four children?

Garreth Blackwell: Oh, gosh, Doc, I would say most nights, you probably find me accidentally dozing off in my chair. I think that’d be the truest answer. But it’s a smattering of things.

As a family, we do watch a lot of like different makers on YouTube, whether that’s like people who build homes, or make small dioramas, or models, or things like that. So different things the kids have interest in. Dude Perfect is constantly on the TV at the house. But there are, I would say, most nights, we’re around the kitchen table, we’re talking about stuff, we’re hanging out, the kids are drawing and playing, and we’re just trying to stay awake until we can go to bed.

Samir Husni: My typical last question is what keeps you up at night these days?

Garreth Blackwell: I’ve heard you ask this question a million times. And I would say that probably every other time I heard you ask it, I had a quick answer. And I knew because that’s the folly of youth, right? To have extremely quick answers to things that maybe you shouldn’t.

What keeps me up at night? I think a lot of the times, the things that keep me up at night are, what am I building for my kids? I think that’s what it is. I thought a lot the last few years about what it looks like for the things you do to produce a generational impact. I’ve got the things that I like and I desire.

I have the things that I have interest and ability in. And I know that won’t be the exact same things for my kids. But with four kids ranging from almost 11 to just turning one, there’s a whole range of what I want for them.

One of the things I want for them is to build something that they can take and do something with, no matter how small that is. So when I think of things like New Christian Makers or the other stuff I’m a part of, I always like to think of, what could my daughter do with this? How could I grow my son into doing something with this? I think it takes folks a long time to figure out what they like and what they want. And sometimes it might be helpful if a little earlier in their lives we say to our kids, hey, here’s a thing you can do right now.

You don’t have to be in your early 40s to launch a magazine. Why don’t you launch one with dad? Why don’t you learn design not in a classroom one day because you think it’s cool. But what if you learn design as part of the work you’re doing as a family business, as a hopeful family business? So I think that’s probably it, what am I leaving for my kids in terms of things for them to do, stuff for them to have in the world they’re going to inhabit?

Samir Husni: Thank you and good luck.

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There Is Nothing Basic About BASIC Magazine And The Woman Behind It: Viktorija Pashuta. The Mr. Magazine™ Interview.

October 10, 2024

Viktorija Pashuta, the founder, CEO,  and editor in chief of  BASIC magazine, left her home country, Latvia, with a little book that she started writing her ideas in it at age 11. Her dream was that one day she would create all the ideas in that book.  One of the ideas must have been BASIC magazine: an upscale magazine that is anything but basic.

Also an award-winning director and film maker, Viktorija Pashuta launched BASIC magazine seven years ago in Los Angeles as “a print platform for artists from all over the world to express themselves and give them the opportunity to share their artwork and their passions on the pages of the print magazine.”

I was so impressed by the quality of the magazine and the way it has progressed since its launch. Flipping through the pages of BASIC was like taking a first-class trip around the world, luscious photography accompanied by imaginative design and complemented by beautiful typography. It is a delight for both the eye and the brain.

A photographer by profession, Ms. Pashuta is also a writer who combines the art of audio-visual writing to her editorials that introduce every issue of the magazine.  She is a dreamer and she is more than willing to share her dreams with you. When I asked her what she would be doing if I stop by unannounced, she told me that, “sometimes you could catch me doing something weird like I imagine I’m a batman and I’ll go outside in the dark streets and just walk around at night and there would be someone who needs my help randomly.”

It was hard to separate her drive for life and adventure from her passion and zeal for BASIC magazine.  So, please join me with this wonderful conversation with Viktorija Pashuta, founder, CEO and editor in chief of BASIC magazine.  But first, the soundbites:

On why print: “I’m really proud that BASIC is actually in print, not in digital…It was really important to create a physical product, a magazine that has the presence in the physical world.”

On how to do print today: “The idea was to invest in the quality of the paper, invest in the quality of binding, invest in talent, create content that is timeless and you wouldn’t easily find online.”

On the challenges of creating a magazine: “If I knew then what I had to go through, I’d probably think twice if I should start a print magazine…it’s not enough just to have the funds. You also have to be extremely passionate about it and live with it.”

More on challenges of creating a magazine: “There were definitely challenges creating content that would resonate online and also would be relevant in print because these are two complete different platforms.”

On sources of revenue: “I created different avenues with the product placement that we utilize the smaller brands and provided them additional value by creating unique organic content for them within the pages of the magazine.

On appearing on the cover of the magazine: “That actually was very unplanned and I’m a person that would never put myself on a cover because I thought that’s sort of abusing your power.”

More on appearing on the cover of the magazine: “I thought if you use yourself as the main inspiration I think it will give inspiration for other people to believe in themselves and keep going with whatever ventures they enter.”

On finding the BASIC DNA: “We’re trying to shape our own voice which I think was the hardest thing and I think for any brand it’s really hard to stand out in the crowd so that’s kind of our goal been to find our DNA, to find BASIC  DNA and to really stick to it and be authentic.”

On her life’s philosophy: “The most talented people are very humble and they don’t really want to push themselves. The loudest people on social media are usually the least talented.”

More on her life’s philosophy: “I’m a hardcore fan of the cat woman, so I believe being behind the scenes and being that savior for those who cannot speak for themselves and elevate people. I would love to do more charity work. I would love to help more people.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Viktorija Pashuta, founder and editor in chief of BASIC magazine:

Samir Husni: As I told you in my email BASIC is anything but BASIC. Tell me the elevator pitch. What is BASIC magazine?

Viktorija Pashuta: Well, BASIC, first of all, it’s my passion project.

This is something I’ve been craving and wanted to do since I was in high school. And pretty much it’s a platform that provides opportunity for artists from all over the world to express themselves and to give them that opportunity to share their artwork and their passions on the pages of print magazine. And I’m really proud that BASIC is actually in print, not in digital.

So we take pride creating such a publication that became sort of a coffee table book and collectible edition. So yeah, like you said, absolutely right. BASIC is everything but BASIC.

Samir Husni: You wrote that while others are abandoning print and are going digital, and with the high increase of paper costs, mailing costs, you name it. Why is this print drive that you have?

Viktorija Pashuta: Well, I think I believe that nowadays there is such a high demand for interpersonal connections, for physical products, for physical touch, especially in our modern age of technology and of desensitization of the society, of people not being willing to connect in person or they really craving to have personal interpersonal experiences. So for me, it was really important to create a physical product, a magazine that has the presence in the physical world.

Besides that, I believe that the pages transcend the experiences that we go through creating the magazine. What’s really important is being on set, creating a community, working with passionate people with the same interests and sharing those passions with the world through the print publication. I’ve noticed that trend, especially being myself constantly on social media, that you have those two, three seconds to look at the post, like the post and you forget about it.

But the beauty about print publication, it’s something you look through, but then you put it in a shelf, you can get back to it later. You can look through it and you have this connection that digital can never substitute.

I always have a comparison. Would you like to have a digital kiss or a physical, actual kiss? And the same with print. We want that interpersonal connection. It’s very similar to the luxury sector where we want to have luxury products, luxury experiences, and the same with print.

The idea was to invest in the quality of the paper, invest in the quality of binding, invest in talent, create content that is timeless and you wouldn’t easily find online. So that was the goal. And for me, it was extremely important to create a physical product and have basic in print.

Samir Husni: It sounds like you have had in the last seven years since you launched BASIC, a walk in the old garden, or was there some challenges, there were some thorns across the road?

Viktorija Pashuta: Oh, absolutely. I mean, every step of the way, there was a challenge starting from the fact that when I was getting myself into print, I had zero knowledge in publishing, zero knowledge in printing, zero knowledge in logistics.

All I knew is photography since I started to be a fashion photographer and experience in writing since I was writing back in my country for another smaller magazine. That’s all I had. And then if I knew then what I had to go through, I’d probably think twice if I should start a print magazine.

I thought, oh my God, it’s so easy. I’m going to do it. But then once you start doing it and you realize how huge of an undertaking it is from looking for clients and advertisers, looking for cover stars, being on top of current affairs and finding the budgets for the productions and finding the right team, the passionate, loyal team that would have the same vision as you have or be willing to bring your vision to life.

So all of these things are very, very complex. Even people and companies with unlimited budget would consider having a print magazine quite an undertaking. So it’s not enough just to have the funds.

You also have to be extremely passionate about it and live with it. So I live BASIC. I live 24-7 with the publication, with the ideas, with the concepts, with the things we need to do with the project.

Definitely there were some challenges. There were challenges on many levels, on the production level, to really build the team, to have the right team to support me, to support the vision, to find the funds to run the publication since the magazine is fully self-funded. And I can talk a little bit more about that,  and different avenues, how we monetize the publication, how we keep it alive.

There were definitely challenges creating content that would resonate online and also would be relevant in print because these are two complete different platforms. And something that goes for print would necessarily go viral online and vice versa. If you take an influencer that has millions of followers online and put them in print, it’s going to completely contradict itself and not going to resonate with the audience who loves the fresh print, who loves to read something more meaningful and in-depth with the in-depth research.

Those are two different things were really hard to blend, but I managed to do it. I started it with the viral project, blending my photography and having a concept that resonated both online and in print. That concept was what if cars were supermodels.

I took different types of cars like a Tesla, a Toyota,  and a Ferrari. I imagined what they would look like if they were supermodels. So that concept went viral right away. We got so many, like almost billion impressions online and so many different magazines picked it up and translated to different languages. And for print, it also was a really good artistic series. So things like that are used to sort of be relevant in the digital time, but also print relevant, you know, in modern times.

Samir Husni:  How do you monetize BASIC?

Viktorija Pashuta: Very interesting question, because in my mind, the traditional advertising didn’t work. Something that worked maybe 10, 15 years ago when you have a full page of  a luxury brand, it wouldn’t work for BASIC because  we didn’t have the right numbers for the advertisers.

We didn’t have the right quantities in the beginning. We didn’t have enough celebrity power at the time. So in order to survive, we had to be creative. We had to be resourceful.  I created different avenues with the product placement that we utilize the smaller brands and provided them additional value by creating unique organic content for them within the pages of the magazine.

So we started to get that product and integrate the product within our editorials, within our articles, within the special projects that we were creating, at the same time, giving the brand so much more value than they would have gotten in a digital, I mean, in the traditional media, just having a one page ad, they would get traction, they would get word of mouth, they would get new original content that they in turn would use on their social media pages.

That was one of the things that we utilize is the product placement.
Secondly, we started to create specific targeted projects for brands that would increase the brand awareness and create content that will resonate with the image of the brand. So we take a suitcase company brand and we create a series of imagery that would support that brand.

For example, we work with a Taiwanese brand of suitcases called Desenio and their series were based on the Marvel Comic-Con heroes like Hulk and Captain America and Black Panther. We took those suitcases and I reimagined them as a female superheroes because traditionally in the Comic-Con world, all these characters were played by male characters. So I took a female Black Panther, I took a female Hulk, I took a female Captain America and then we utilized through fashion a series of works for them holding the suitcase in the photo shoot series that also became viral and we actually got the word of the ads of the world website for that campaign also printed and that both got viral digitally.

In addition, we diversified our revenue streams by utilizing additional activations that supported the magazine non-directly like organizing events, creating a production company that would create social media content for brands. We created a fashion showroom that represents fashion designers and provide press placements for those designers.

We had different revenue streams also connected to entertainment, fashion and content creation but non-directly they all were supporting BASIC magazine and all under the Basic Media Company umbrella and that really helped us to keep going and help us to succeed. That doesn’t mean we don’t want traditional advertising, we want it but at the same time that challenge pushed us to be more creative and find new non-traditional ways to monetize our operations.

Samir Husni: It sounds like more than a love affair with BASIC for you,  yet at the same time it’s one of the rare moments that I see the editor-in-chief herself on the cover of the magazine. Tell me about that.

Viktorija Pashuta: Yes, that actually was very unplanned and I’m a person that would never put myself on a cover because I thought that’s sort of abusing your power.  But for that specific issue it was very challenging to find a cover star.  It was the 20th issue of BASIC. The stars that were suggested to us from publicists didn’t really match my aesthetic or they didn’t really were in line with the grandeur of the matter because it was a 20th issue. I wanted to do something special, none of the stars really kind of match that idea .My sister suggested, “that since it’s our 20th issue why don’t you put yourself on a cover and have your team inside of the magazine.”

I said no.  I mean that would be too much. I would never really do that.  Why would I do this? She said well it makes sense because you  are the only photographer and the editor in chief. You are the visioner of the magazine that’s out there.  Even Anna Wintour editor in chief of Vogue didn’t invent Vogue but you did. So I thought maybe that is something interesting to explore and also with my own story I can inspire other people specifically other women because I do have a quite big female following that always admire my journey and admire my tenacity and they know how difficult it is so that was a testament to the team and to myself.  I thought okay if you cannot inspire yourself how can you inspire the world.  I thought if you use yourself as the main inspiration , it will give inspiration for other people to believe in themselves and keep going with whatever ventures they enter.

Samir Husni: Well, your sister was right.

Viktorija Pashuta: I hope so. She’s always my secret advisor and, to have a little confession, most of the time she helps me with my editor’s letter.  She has a very interesting perspective on things.

Samir Husni: You and I are having the same conversation in 2025. What would you tell me you’ve accomplished in the 24-25 year for BASIC?

Viktorija Pashuta: I think we made such a huge leap even right now. Look back at the first issues of the magazine. I’ve seen how different we’ve transformed since issue one and I also think it’s deeply connected to my own personal transformation. Certain things that interested me seven years ago no longer interested me now. As far as I grow personally and I transform personally so does the magazine. I feel we’ve done so much but also so little in my mind within the seven years. I always had these grand goals. I thought by this time we would become such a huge media company with huge following and it would have a very huge impact, but we’re not there yet. At the same time

I learned that no matter how big you become or no matter how successful you become you will never truly be satisfied with what you have and I think that’s a good thing that will always keep you pushing because once you feel like you’ve done it all and if you accomplish it all this stagnation period starts and you kind of start degrade and I always say the same about Oscar winning actors I feel like when DiCaprio won that Oscar he kind of slowed down. I always kind of wanted him not to win that Oscar because you know he’s going to push more, do more movies, do something more mind-blowing and keep growing as an actor so the same thing for me. I feel like even though I’m so close of being big but at the same time it always keeps pushing me to do better.

Looking back if we’re talking in 2025  I think we’ve done some really great accomplishments. We had quite a few renowned stars from Megan Fox to David Guetta to Michelle Rodriguez to Bebe Rex. All these really amazing personalities in music, film, and art world. So it’s been really great to have those celebrities.

I think we did quite a shift, especially for the past few issues, having more written content as before. In the beginning stages of BASIC we started highly as a visual publication. We had a lot of editorials, a lot of artworks, but we didn’t have a lot of articles. Right now we started to have more in-depth interviews. A little more articles, a little more research, a little more data, that we’re trying to get a little bit more a point of view, and trying to shape that BASIC identity.

We’re trying to shape our own voice which I think was the hardest thing and I think for any brand it’s really hard to stand out in the crowd so that’s kind of our goal been to find our DNA, to find BASIC  DNA and to really stick to it and be authentic

 I have a lot things to share but looking back I think we’ve done a lot of immersive projects, a lot of interesting events, which right now is my priority. My goal is to not also have a beautiful publication, but to create a community outside of the magazine, and that’s been my focus.  As of right now I want to involve more projects supporting artists, supporting female founders, supporting emerging musicians, emerging student designers. For me I really want to be the voice for those who cannot really speak.

The most talented people are very humble and they don’t really want to push themselves. The loudest people on social media are usually the least talented. I want to shift that dynamic and give the platform for the truly talented people who don’t really have crazy presence on social media but they have something to say and they have some beautiful artwork that they’ve been working the whole life.

That’s my goal, that’s my passion, and looking back I feel we’ve done a lot, but I want to do more.

Samir Husni:  Before I ask my typical last two questions is there any question I failed to ask  or anything you would like to add.

Viktorija Pashuta: Interesting question. If you allow me just to kind of philosophize, I always feel that I want to judge myself . I feel, as any artist, there is always an internal struggle and sometimes people became too much consumed by consuming things right there’s so much choice and there’s so much pressure to be successful and to create, create, create and sometimes we kind of lose ourselves in that process and we lose ourselves. Why are we doing these things, what’s the purpose?

For me, it’s been a continuous journey to find myself and to find my voice, but also to be silent and listen more to those who have something to say so with the magazine. Maybe the question would be how individuals, who stand behind this smaller passionate project, how do they really keep that positive mindset that allows them to keep motivating themselves every day and keep continuing doing what they do because it’s not easy.  

It’s always challenging. You always have this black and white stripes every day, you want to give up one day and the another day like no I’m doing something right. I want to continue because you feel there’s a feedback, and another day just like why am I doing all this.  There’s so much already out there I just might just stop and get an eight to five job and just be happy and travel.  But this is what I think really makes it so different for BASIC because despite all these challenges and the pains and the hurts you still persevere and still keep moving, still keep creating, because you know that’s through these pains you create something new, you make a difference, you inspire someone else and keep the planet going.

You keep grinding that wheel and you are not willing to settle and just take the easy path. I guess that would be my comment to your question,

Samir  Husni:  If I come to visit Viktorija one evening unannounced, what do I catch you doing cooking, watching tv, reading a book, reading a magazine?

Viktorija Pashuta: A good question. It depends on the day. I taught myself on the thought that I do live in my own bubble. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing to be so disconnected from the rest of the world.  If you come into my house you probably will see me doing either two things: one either watching a super dark bloody thriller or a documentary. I really love dark documentaries and research about unsolved crimes and cold cases.  I’m really passionate about that mystery and that enigma of those cases and trying to find what happened and who done it.

The second thing you may find me doing is spending time in silence. Having some candles on, having some essential oils, and just maybe dancing in the dark. I love dancing, I love connecting to myself through movement and I think it’s very important to move in general in your life with your mind physically emotionally being out there.

Sometimes you could catch me doing something weird like I imagine I’m a batman and I’ll go outside in the dark streets and just walk around at night and there would be someone who needs my help randomly. It happened to me a few times.  I just was at the right place at the right time to help somebody like an older person falling. Minor little things where I was just there at the right time to help them.

Samir Husni: Were you fascinated with the black cat back home in Latvia?

Viktorija Pashuta: Oh yeah.  I’m a hardcore fan of the cat woman so I believe being behind the scenes and being that savior for those who cannot speak for themselves and elevate people. I would love to do more charity work. I would love to help more people.  I’ve been trying to find something meaningful that connect with me, especially in the long term. I want to work more with kids and do more of the educational talks where I can inspire young people to find their passions.  I was really grateful having really great mentors in my life and I want to pass it on and give back and be that mentor for someone else down the line.

Samir Husni: My typical final question is what keeps Viktorija up at night these days?

Viktorija Pashuta: What keeps me up at night usually some obsessive idea that I will never do. I had so many obsessive ideas that I see them so vividly but they never come to life. I roll them over back and forth in my head and I’m just thinking yes that’s exactly what I’m going to do but at the end of the day never do them, so that keeps me up at night.

Some kind of concepts,visions, and dreams that I feel stuck in my brain but would never materialize and that really drives me crazy I want this magic one where, well,  maybe like a utopia thing where one day I would be like saying Viktorija, you have all the wealth in the world now, you can do anything you want. I actually had a little notebook that I’ve been writing since age 11. It contains all of the amazing cool concepts and ideas I want to do one day. Right now, that little book is full with ideas from books, shows, and restaurants.

I mean anything in the world that I could have created in that little book. So one day maybe if I have so much free time and unlimited wealth probably will bringing my crazy ideas to life.

Samir Husni: May all your wishes come true and thank you.

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United We Stand, Divided We Sit… A Mr. Magazine™ Musing

October 2, 2024

Unlike today’s mass media, magazines in the year 1942, specifically July,  were united across content, audience, genre, age, etc. United they stood and proudly displayed the American flag on their covers to celebrate and educate their audience that the country was “United We Stand” as the country entered WWII. 

Picking up any magazine in July of 1942,  people felt patriotic. Regardless of the nature of the magazine, all magazines were dedicated to a campaign to support the war and unity among the people of the United States of America.
Compare this to today’s mass media, whether satellite or cable television, social media, or even magazines, readers and viewers feel that they live in two countries. No longer United We Stand, but rather Divided We Sit.

As we approach the elections of 2024, both presidential and congressional, I hope these magazines of July 1942, will bring back that spirit of optimism and freedom that engulfed our nation in the 40s. Of special note is the July 25, 1942 issue of Liberty magazine with General James Doolittle on the cover. This copy of the special collector’s issue is signed by the general himself. For those of you who are too young to remember him, he is the one who flew over Japan in what is known as the Doolittle Raid.


Liberty magazine, as I mentioned earlier, was but one of many American magazines joining forces in the United We Stand campaign in supporting the country in times of crisis. Other magazines included the general interest magazines led by Reader’s Digest and National Geographic.

Even the children magazines joined the campaign. Jack and Jill magazine sported the American flag on the front cover and the Pledge of Allegiance on the back cover. The magazine used red and blue colors on every page.

Not to be outdone by the general interest and children magazines, women and men magazines did the same. American Home and Pic are but two examples of those genres. United We Stand indeed. When the mass media were a force to unite and not divide. For what it’s worth, I blame the 24/7 cable news channels with the beginning of division in the country that was then rapidly accelerated by social media.

I recall my former journalism professor telling us one day, “if everyone thinks that he or she is a journalist, then no one is a journalist.” That is the beginning of our problem and that’s why divided we sit in front of our phones, tablets, and the many cable and satellite channels. I hope it is not too late to be United We Stand, because the alternative is nothing short of a disaster.

As always keep in mind that if you would like to take a dive into the “oldies but goldies” magazines of the past, feel free to reach to John Henry at the Special Collections division of The University of Missouri Libraries and ask for the  Samir Husni Magazine Collection. Until the next musing, stay tuned …

All the best

Samir “Mr. Magazine™” Husni

Posted in A Mr. Magazine™ Musing, Magazine Power, News and Views | Leave a Comment »

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Ray Seebeck , The Twenty Something Young Person* Behind The Unique Print Magazine “Magazine TM” The Mr. Magazine™ Interview

September 28, 2024

“There’s something different about holding something in your hand and looking at it to actually create that experience that we want to create.” Ray Seebeck, Founder and Editor

They say Gen Z is the digital generation, and print is their parents and grandparents’ medium.  However, one twenty something young person from Chicago begs to differ from that adage. They are the founder and editor of  the print “Magazine TM” which they launched last year. 

The oversized, accordion bound magazine, is a beauty to view and a delight to flip through its pages. Ray wants the magazine to be an experience for artists and the audience. An experience it is. It is a very pleasant experience that ends with a series of pages that looks like a wall mural.

To say Ray is passionate about print, would be an understatement, but they are also very digitally oriented.  They use online for their research and searches for anything and everything beautiful. They hope to invest in that passion to create a profitable magazine that will hopefully make a living for them and those who work with them.

So please enjoy my conversation with a print fanatic, Ray Seebeck, founder and editor of “Magazine TM,” but first the soundbites:

On the role of print in a digital age: “For me the end solution is print. Part of what I’m trying to do is make that finished product.”

On the binding method for Magazine TM: “I wanted to do something that was memorable, that was unique for the first issue. We settled at the accordion bound method.”

On the magazine audience: “Right now, it’s mostly people in the art community is who I want to reach.”

On their vision of the magazine: “It’s more an experience of actually viewing art through how it’s designed.”

On their goal for the magazine: “I’m trying to make a model where it’s positive for the artists. It’s building community for the artists.”

On their aim to help artists: “It’s really important for the artists to have their work published. It’s huge. And then just to be doing something that I love is hopefully showing people and inspiring them in a small way.”

On the TM in Magazine: “The answer is no. It’s a play on letters… it’s not actually a trademark, but what it means is TM stands for The Magazine. So it’s basically Magazine, The Magazine is what it stands for.  And TM is like abbreviation.”

On what keeps them up at night: “It’s just the idea of the keeping the magazine running. That’s a big one.”

And now for the lightly edited conversation with Ray Seebeck, the founder and editor of Magazine TM:

Samir Husni: My first question to you is, you’re a young man in his 20s, and you launched and produced a print magazine unlike any other print magazine that I’ve seen in a long time. What’s your fascination with print?

Ray Seebeck: It probably started when I was a young kid. I did collect some magazines. I collected National Geographic, and we had Life Magazine running around the house, and Sports Illustrated.

I was a big Sports Illustrated fan, but I really got into print as an art form in college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I had some really great experiences there where I learned from teachers screen printing, lithography, and letterpress as well. So I really just developed. It was a great opportunity where I was able to chart my own education, and so I studied in the print media department at SAIC, where you were able to take the classes you want to take, and I was able to take a lot of classes related to printmaking and try to develop a lot of skills in that field.

Samir Husni: People will tell you we live in a digital age. What makes print so attractive to you? You’re so passionate about print, you produced a magazine called Magazine. What’s in you that makes you feel print is essential today as it was yesterday?

Ray Seebeck: It’s kind of a tough question to answer, but I feel print is just the answer, it’s the solution.

There’s no other solution for me. There’s no other possible route, like the end product. For me the end solution is print. Part of what I’m trying to do is make that finished product. There’s something different about holding something in your hand and looking at it to actually create that experience that we want to create. So printing is sort of a solution for that.

Samir Husni: Why did you choose this format for magazine? It opens up like an accordion and it becomes like a mural.

Ray Seebeck: I worked with, I worked with a few people to make it.

We had five meetings as we were preparing to make the magazine and as I was gathering submissions. And so one friend from New York, one of my classmates from college, and a friend’s friend from college. We had a few Zoom meetings.

My friend Christiaan, who’s a designer, the print designer, who works with me to design print, put together this like Pinterest board with different print and different binding ideas. We talked through what were the design details we wanted to have for the magazine. We discussed different binding formats.

We all kind of came to a decision together. I wanted to do something that was memorable, that was unique for the first issue. We settled at the accordion bound method. That opened up so many possibilities for the actual design of it, which was really exciting.

Then one of the people who I was working with asked what size we wanted to make it and we decided large format would also be very memorable. We went by the 11X17 size. Those are the two key elements as we decided accordion bound and large format.

Christiaan and I  had some book binding skills from our college days, so we were able to figure out how to do that.

I definitely want to turn it into a business and hopefully make a living off it and help other people make a living off it.

Samir Husni: Who’s your audience? Who do you want to reach with this magazine?

Ray Seebeck: Right now, it’s mostly people in the art community is who I want to reach.

I would love to reach art collectors. It is an audience I want to grow to. Anyone who’s like interested in art and artists. So I’m hoping to expand the audience. But right now it’s mostly people in our community.

Samir Husni: Give me the elevator pitch the magazine?

Ray Seebeck: I would say there’s a few things that are really important: I’m really trying to create a different kind of publication, something that’s different than what most people have seen before. A magazine that’s more an art experience. It’s a simple magazine. It’s more an experience of actually viewing art through how it’s designed. That’s one huge aspect is trying to do something really creative.

The second aspect is that I’m trying to create a better experience for the artists. So there are a few art magazines they make artists pay them to get involved in their magazine. I’m trying to make a model where it’s positive for the artists. It’s building community for the artists. And it’s something that artists want to be a part of and they can themselves grow through being involved in it. So those are the two key probably aspects, I would say.

Samir Husni: Is the magazine a mirror reflection of you? Are you the magazine?

Ray Seebeck: I would say yes and no. I put so much of myself into it. So in one way, it’s a lot of the artists in the magazine are artists, that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing at art shows or events. I’m kind of reinterpreting the art that I’ve taken in through the magazine. So in that way, it’s sort of a reflection of me. And then also, I would say, being it’s not meant to be super loud. It’s not meant to be super loud and showy.

It’s meant to be reserved. Once you start looking at it, it’s kind of an amazing experience. In that way, it’s maybe a reflection of my personality maybe kind of a reach. I definitely put a lot of myself into it. But at the same time, I feel like it is something totally different. Just like an end product of a lot of hours of work.

Samir Husni: It sounds like you have a love affair with this publication. Do you ever or would you consider it to be also a business? Is your dream to make money from this or just to do a magazine and say, hey, I have a magazine?

Ray Seebeck: No, I definitely want to turn it into a business and hopefully make a living off it and help other people make a living off it.

That’s the dream. So I’m trying to take small steps every month to achieve that. So in terms of  producing the magazine, I have to figure out how much each issue costs and how much I’m selling each issue.

And then packaging and mailing is a huge thing I’m working on trying to reduce the cost of. Then just trying to create more revenue by expanding to new areas such as a podcast I started, which is basically just interviews for the next issue of the magazine.

I’m trying to create new ways to maybe make money off it. I have some like possible goals for the future. But right now it’s a passion project.

So I work on it whenever I can. A lot of times late nights and things like that. But my dream is to definitely turn into business.

Samir Husni: Good luck on that.

Ray Seebeck: Thank you.

Samir Husni: What are you looking for to work in print?

Ray Seebeck: I’m really looking to just to keep the magazine going. That’s the main goal.

So if I can keep it afloat, and not losing money on it. At the end of the day, if I’m what’s most important to me, is to put something out into the world and to have it mean something to people. That’s a big part of it.

It’s really important for the artists to have their work published. It’s huge. And then just to be doing something that I love is hopefully showing people and inspiring them in a small way.

Samir Husni: So Because you have limited distribution, how can people get the magazine?

Ray Seebeck: So I did, with the first issue and also will do with the second issue coming out next March, a presale for them, probably the month of February. I’ll have a presale online and that determines how big the edition is going to be for the next issue. Basically print however many copies we sell for the limited edition.

Samir Husni: And your website is?

Ray Seebeck: It’s rayseebeck.com backslash magazine dash tm.

Samir Husni: Okay. Were you able to register magazine as a trademark?

Ray Seebeck: That’s a good question. The answer is no. It’s a play on letters.  So it’s slightly misleading, which I understand because it’s not actually a trademark, but what it means is TM stands for The Magazine. So it’s basically Magazine, The Magazine is what it stands for.  And TM is like abbreviation.

Samir Husni: Is there any question that I should ask you that I didn’t ask you? Or anything you would like to add.Ray Seebeck: I would say I have done a lot of market research, not necessarily market research, but read research on different publications and podcasts that has really informed me in the evolution of the magazine, the design evolution for especially for this next issue. So I could talk about that a little bit, if you wanted me to.

So have you ever heard of Esopus magazine? It’s no longer published.

There was a show at the Colby College Museum of Art about Esopus magazine. I learned about it because of that show. I actually found a copy at a bookstore in Chicago. That was really cool to see that magazine because they do a lot of similar things in terms of creatively, making creative layouts, interviewing artists, and having different formats in the magazine. That was pretty cool. It’s something to look up to.

But it’s definitely not the perfect model of what I’m trying to do. But it was cool to see. I’ve gained a lot of research by going to libraries and looking through old magazines, or print design inspirations.

I also have gotten a lot of inspiration from different art books, too. I just wanted to share that I’ve done a lot of research of looking through magazines and also art podcasts. I’ve been listening to a lot of art podcasts in the last year or so.

Samir Husni:  Let me ask you my typical last questions. If I come uninvited to visit you one evening at your home or apartment, what do I catch Ray doing? Watching TV, cooking, having a glass of wine?

Ray Seebeck: So to be honest, most nights, what I’m doing is after I’ve done everything I need to do that day, I’m generally pretty busy.

I generally will like take a shower, change into like a comfortable t-shirt and shorts and make dinner. I will turn on the TV basically every night. I watch a lot of different television shows.

Right now I’m watching like the Great British Bake Show. And RuPaul’s Drag Race is a big show that I like.  I watch a lot of TV shows. I’m currently watching Only Murders in the Building.

I like to decompress. I know the  magazine is very print oriented, but I’m also a very digitally oriented person. So I do a lot of online research and look through a lot of photographs all the time. That’s generally what I’m doing at night.

Sometimes I’ll… If I have something to work on for the magazine, I will work on that at night. That’s kind of my exception is that because I love doing it. If I have like if I have a submission from an artist, I will like organize all the content or work on the design layout at night.

Samir Husni: My typical last question is what keeps you up at night these days?

Ray Seebeck: I’m worried about the magazine falling apart. I would say that keeps me up. It’s just the idea of the keeping the magazine running. That’s a big one. There’s a lot of things that goes into that. Making money for the magazine also sometimes will keep me up. And just like diversifying.

Samir Husni:  Thank you and good luck.

  • Ray is a non-binary and they use they/them pronouns.

Posted in A Launch Story..., Innovation in print, Magazine Power, New Launches, News and Views, The Mr. Magazine™ Interview | Leave a Comment »

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