I was more than a little excited yesterday to learn that Organic Style, one of my favorite magazines on sustainable living in its short life (it lasted from 2001 to 2005), is back. And it's online (hello, environmentally responsible publishing and easy access for the masses).
Check out the winter issue. I'm a big fan of the digital publishing they use for it—it's the same format as one of my other favorite green magazines, Greenlight (which, by the way, you can subscribe to for free and have delivered to your email inbox). What's so great about this form of digital publishing? For one thing, you get to read a magazine that looks like a magazine rather than web content. And if a story interests you on, say, the cover or TOC, click on it and you're taken right there. Plus this form of digital publishing allows you to easily provide (and get readers to) additional content online. Like a product featured? Odds are with one click you can be on the company webpage ordering it for yourself. (And I have to assume advertisers love the instant access it provides to their products too.)
I haven't read the winter issue of the new Organic Style yet, but I flipped through it (yep, you can do that with these online magazines) and liked what I saw. It's certainly different from the original print version (owned by Rodale), but I'm excited nonetheless.
Take a look. Tell me what you think.
Showing posts with label magazines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magazines. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Thursday, September 27, 2007
a brand-new start
Yesterday was my birthday. Good-bye 23, hello 24. I’m at home with my family in Kansas City, right now. We had cake and coffee and I opened a few presents. A bit different than the past four (five?) birthdays I’ve spent in Des Moines. (Funny those college and post-college birthdays became more normal than those with the fam, you know?)
Anywho, 24 promises to be interesting. After all, I’m moving from (er, have already moved from) Des Moines to Portland, Oregon. I’m just spending time with my family in KC ‘til I fly out on Saturday. Then Monday, I start a new job at a start-up home/interior design magazine.
I spent four years at Meredith. They treated me very very well (and I’m not just saying that because they might be reading this). I clocked in three years at Country Home magazine. I had an entire front-of-book department credited to me, plus my own blog. I chose stories, got them photographed, wrote them, and edited the entire section. I dabbled in the feature well. Producing credit? Check. Writing? Yup. Editing? Photo shoots? A bit o’ styling? Check, check, check. I got a ton of experience right out of college. I can't complain at all.
But, I was getting super antsy. Days went by that I realized I was writing the same ol’ stuff each month, and my mind would wander to why I went into journalism in the first place. To write about home decorating or to be the next Sy Hersh? Or somewhere in between? And at 23, had I already sold out to some extent? And yes, I loved it, but I was growing tired of Des Moines, too. I just felt a calling to do something else.
I’d been to Portland only a couple of times before, most recently last summer for a press junket for work. I fell in love. It was so ME. So, when I saw an open position for this regional magazine on my Mediabistro job alerts, I applied that day. Wrote the cover letter, flew to Massachusetts for another work trip, and mailed the packet of information, thinking there was no chance on God’s green earth that I’d get the job. I don’t live in Portland! They’ll laugh at this Kansas/Iowa hybrid for her naivete!
Needless to say, when the editor called me for an interview, I was thrilled. I prepared a ton. I studied up on Portland like I was cramming for the next day’s mid-term. He called, we chatted, and I thought--all things considered--it went pretty well. Then, I got a second interview. Then, I flew out for a third interview. It was while I was on the plane that I had a come-to-Jesus talk with myself: If you get this job, hotshot, are you really ready to move to Portland? Are you ready to leave your cushy job at Meredith to work for a start-up magazine? Are you giving up on your dream to go back to New York? Wait, is that really your dream or just what you thought you were supposed to do? Huh? Figure it out!
I answered none of those questions on the plane ride (and I still haven’t, fully). I just continued to cram as though I was being tested (I tend to over prepare) and did the best I could at my all-day interview. At the end of the day, I got the job.
Giving my notice at Country Home was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, professionally. I had a great group of co-workers, mentors, and friends there. But I’ve burned no bridges and left on the terms of, “If the magazine folds, which we hope it won't, we suppose you can come back, wink, wink,” which is always comforting, I suppose.
I’m flying out Saturday. My cute apartment in Des Moines is all packed up and on its contents are on their way to Portland (I hope). I have an Aerobed waiting for me until all my furniture (and books and magazines and CDs and DVDs and artwork and every other worldly possession) arrives. It feels pretty darn good to start my 24th year on a brand-spanking-new note. I guess I essentially answered all my lingering questions when I bought the one-way ticket out west, huh? Wish me luck!
Anywho, 24 promises to be interesting. After all, I’m moving from (er, have already moved from) Des Moines to Portland, Oregon. I’m just spending time with my family in KC ‘til I fly out on Saturday. Then Monday, I start a new job at a start-up home/interior design magazine.
I spent four years at Meredith. They treated me very very well (and I’m not just saying that because they might be reading this). I clocked in three years at Country Home magazine. I had an entire front-of-book department credited to me, plus my own blog. I chose stories, got them photographed, wrote them, and edited the entire section. I dabbled in the feature well. Producing credit? Check. Writing? Yup. Editing? Photo shoots? A bit o’ styling? Check, check, check. I got a ton of experience right out of college. I can't complain at all.
But, I was getting super antsy. Days went by that I realized I was writing the same ol’ stuff each month, and my mind would wander to why I went into journalism in the first place. To write about home decorating or to be the next Sy Hersh? Or somewhere in between? And at 23, had I already sold out to some extent? And yes, I loved it, but I was growing tired of Des Moines, too. I just felt a calling to do something else.
I’d been to Portland only a couple of times before, most recently last summer for a press junket for work. I fell in love. It was so ME. So, when I saw an open position for this regional magazine on my Mediabistro job alerts, I applied that day. Wrote the cover letter, flew to Massachusetts for another work trip, and mailed the packet of information, thinking there was no chance on God’s green earth that I’d get the job. I don’t live in Portland! They’ll laugh at this Kansas/Iowa hybrid for her naivete!
Needless to say, when the editor called me for an interview, I was thrilled. I prepared a ton. I studied up on Portland like I was cramming for the next day’s mid-term. He called, we chatted, and I thought--all things considered--it went pretty well. Then, I got a second interview. Then, I flew out for a third interview. It was while I was on the plane that I had a come-to-Jesus talk with myself: If you get this job, hotshot, are you really ready to move to Portland? Are you ready to leave your cushy job at Meredith to work for a start-up magazine? Are you giving up on your dream to go back to New York? Wait, is that really your dream or just what you thought you were supposed to do? Huh? Figure it out!
I answered none of those questions on the plane ride (and I still haven’t, fully). I just continued to cram as though I was being tested (I tend to over prepare) and did the best I could at my all-day interview. At the end of the day, I got the job.
Giving my notice at Country Home was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, professionally. I had a great group of co-workers, mentors, and friends there. But I’ve burned no bridges and left on the terms of, “If the magazine folds, which we hope it won't, we suppose you can come back, wink, wink,” which is always comforting, I suppose.
I’m flying out Saturday. My cute apartment in Des Moines is all packed up and on its contents are on their way to Portland (I hope). I have an Aerobed waiting for me until all my furniture (and books and magazines and CDs and DVDs and artwork and every other worldly possession) arrives. It feels pretty darn good to start my 24th year on a brand-spanking-new note. I guess I essentially answered all my lingering questions when I bought the one-way ticket out west, huh? Wish me luck!
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
What? Me an Expert On ...
A funny thing happened on the way to becoming a newspaper journalist. In my first semester at Drake, around the same time I started reporting for the Times-Delphic, I heard about a brainstorming meeting for Drake Magazine. I was intrigued. So I attended the meeting, queried for a story, and somehow, surprisingly, managed to land a feature story (about the moms of the crazy Des Moines-based band Slipknot, of all things). Tracking the moms down and getting them to talk wasn’t easy, but I loved every minute of it. Before long, I was editing for Drake Magazine (thanks, Lexi). And I was hooked.
That’s the funny thing with magazines. You never know where life will take you. After a stint as a communications intern at the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, an apprenticeship at Better Homes & Gardens, and a summer ASME internship at National Geographic Traveler in Washington, D.C. (yes, you can do all of these things as a Drake magazine student!), I spent my senior year interning for a small (read: one-person) custom-publishing company called Lexicon. And (lucky me) before I even got to that panic-stricken time senior year when most magazine students start flipping out because they don’t have jobs, my boss at Lexicon offered me a full-time position. And I took it, without a lick of trepidation.
Now I’m managing editor of the company, which has grown from just the two of us to five full-time employees and a couple of very capable interns (Drake students, of course). No, it’s not a big consumer magazine in New York. And it’s a long way from my dreams of Sports Illustrated or Newsweek. But you can’t beat the variety.
On any given day I might be writing or editing articles on everything from international travel and healthy eating to retirement living and how small businesses can increase traffic to their websites. On top of that, I regularly create editorial outlines for magazine and book projects, select photography for home design publications, work with graphic designers on a variety of web and print projects, assign articles to freelance writers, copy edit and proofread everything from book proposals to entire books, create proposals for new magazine or book projects, and pen posts for our blog. Whew.
Does this mean I’m an expert on any of these things? Not so much. I might edit stories on world travel, but I’m just now packing for my first trip to Europe (Italy, here I come). I’m not a small business owner and I’m certainly not retirement age. And I’ve written I don’t know how many stories and books on home design—bathrooms, kitchens, trimwork, decks and patios, you name it. But when I recently bought my first house and had to figure out what colors to paint the walls, did I rely on my expertise culled from hour upon hour of research on color schemes? Of course not. I called my mother.
The secret to surviving in the world of magazine publishing is that you have to be willing to research. To be a generalist. To have a passion for learning new things, even if they’re things you never in a million years thought you’d care enough to write about. Say yes to those assignments that don’t interest you in the least and an even bigger yes to the ones that do. And along the way, you just might find out where your passion lies and what you want to be when you grow up. (When I figure it out myself, I’ll let you know.)
That’s the funny thing with magazines. You never know where life will take you. After a stint as a communications intern at the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, an apprenticeship at Better Homes & Gardens, and a summer ASME internship at National Geographic Traveler in Washington, D.C. (yes, you can do all of these things as a Drake magazine student!), I spent my senior year interning for a small (read: one-person) custom-publishing company called Lexicon. And (lucky me) before I even got to that panic-stricken time senior year when most magazine students start flipping out because they don’t have jobs, my boss at Lexicon offered me a full-time position. And I took it, without a lick of trepidation.
Now I’m managing editor of the company, which has grown from just the two of us to five full-time employees and a couple of very capable interns (Drake students, of course). No, it’s not a big consumer magazine in New York. And it’s a long way from my dreams of Sports Illustrated or Newsweek. But you can’t beat the variety.
On any given day I might be writing or editing articles on everything from international travel and healthy eating to retirement living and how small businesses can increase traffic to their websites. On top of that, I regularly create editorial outlines for magazine and book projects, select photography for home design publications, work with graphic designers on a variety of web and print projects, assign articles to freelance writers, copy edit and proofread everything from book proposals to entire books, create proposals for new magazine or book projects, and pen posts for our blog. Whew.
Does this mean I’m an expert on any of these things? Not so much. I might edit stories on world travel, but I’m just now packing for my first trip to Europe (Italy, here I come). I’m not a small business owner and I’m certainly not retirement age. And I’ve written I don’t know how many stories and books on home design—bathrooms, kitchens, trimwork, decks and patios, you name it. But when I recently bought my first house and had to figure out what colors to paint the walls, did I rely on my expertise culled from hour upon hour of research on color schemes? Of course not. I called my mother.
The secret to surviving in the world of magazine publishing is that you have to be willing to research. To be a generalist. To have a passion for learning new things, even if they’re things you never in a million years thought you’d care enough to write about. Say yes to those assignments that don’t interest you in the least and an even bigger yes to the ones that do. And along the way, you just might find out where your passion lies and what you want to be when you grow up. (When I figure it out myself, I’ll let you know.)
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