I have a confession to make...

by michele 18. March 2014 08:48

I am a terrible procrastinator!

It is over four months since our 40th anniversary and I still haven't written about it. Oh I have tweeted & facebook about it  but they seem like a something quick and without thought.

Oh what a party!! The sun was shining that day both inside and out. The shop was filled with balloons, streamers, bunting up outside, three large cakes and our window filled with 42 raffle prizes. We have wonderful long term realtionships with our suppliers and they were all extremely generous with gifts. We were literally giving away presents all day long. Our foriegn magazine supplier, LPMI, gave us over 100 large boxes of truffles and our main magazine suppliergave us BOXES of magazines to give away. We had chips, candy bars, T-shirts, pins, noise makers for kids, playing cards, umrellas, books, travel mugs, lunch bags, dvd's, stickers and on and on.

Live music always brings a fully charged energy to a gathering and thanks to Mixtape Magazine there were two different acoustic musicians and then a band, Liars on Fire that closed out the party although we didn't want them to stop playing. They obliged us as they were having such fun too!

The party was even outside where The Food Wolf food truck was serving up delicious fare. It was such a success that the Food Wolf will be back in our parking lot each week once the season is up and cooking!

The customers... oh our wonderful customers. We were packed in here, there was laughter, smiles, joy and to sound rather cliche there was a lot of love flyng around in the shop. It was so wonderful to give back to all the really loyal people who choose to come here.

I am also very apprectiative of the media that decided this was a story worth mentioning. CKDU took care of us, CBC has us on the radio, Halifax magazine had us featured in their shopping blog and CTV spent over an hour filming for their evening news.

We were certainly on a high for weeks afterwards from both a job well done and such fantastic energyon the day. My favourite comment summed it all up....."I always feel so welcome, when I left I was walking on air."

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Atlantic News | Magazines | Our Community

A cultural shift...

by michele 10. April 2013 10:39

Where will we end up?

About 8 months ago there was a distinct shift in my business. I feared it was the effect of the internet on the magazine business. In years pervious I had seen other shifts such as “I saw it on the web, do you have a copy?”The next shift was when they stopped asking that question. Another, has been niche titles using a different business model to get their magazine on the newsstand. Then there was the media blowing things out of proportion with “the death of print” stories. We have also seen the rise and and slow descent in certain categories depending on what's happening in the world. For example, after 911 our house and decorating section took off as people cocooned.

Back in September I felt isolated and I have to admit fear crept in. I began to emerge from my shell when I started asking people in other businesses how things were going. What I heard was they too saw a shift. I have been comforted in learning that it was not magazines alone that have been affected. Just last week I read in Road and Track that the greatest impact of 16 year olds having their drivers license (46% in 1978, 31% in 2008) was the internet. The rites of passage to independence use to include getting a car now it's owning a phone that connects you to everything 24hours a day. Today in New York magazine there was an article stating that fewer people are viewing art “in its natural habitat.”

It doesn't matter what the business or service is we are all being affected by the internet. We are in the middle of a cultural shift and it is taking on momentum. For me it is a lament for the loss of adventure, anticipation, and at times, quality. Everything is so immediate, that time is not taken to work toward, look forward to , wait longingly for something one might desire. Now, it is I want it, I have it , what's next. Will we savour things, treasure a stolen moment, or enjoy the adventure of the journey?

I have joked that the digital natives will one day not have their eyes peeled to their phones, will discover they are in front of the store and decide to step in. There they will find something totally new. They will tell their friends “Check this new thing out, you can flip the pages, it feels really good, hey, it even smells neat, it doesn't blink or flash, I can come back to it over and over again. I like magazines. ”

I am hopeful. After my 15 year old plays x-box with his buddy in a different town, he still enjoys his book later in the evening.

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A new trend of publishing

by michele 22. December 2011 04:21

or simply an emphasis on excellence?

What do the following four magazines have in common? These independently published magazines respect and know their readers. They manage to produce magazines without being based on an advertising model with the limited ads chosen to meet certain design guidelines. These publishers have all used heavy grade, non gloss paper which is perfect bound. They have the feel of a book, with three of them over 150 pages. The photography is excellent and they are full of content.

Published in Calgary, Uppercase has a wonderful description of what inspires them: "Enchanted by great ideas and strange inventions, by colours and patterns, things fancy and frugal; the charm of vintage in a modern life; the ridiculous and the sublime." This magazine is truly filled with design inspiration, and creativity. When I spoke with Celine the editor of Pure Green, a stylish green living magazine from Ontario, she let me know that they want a magazine of quality and substance. They want readers to refer back to it time and again, to treasure it. I think all of that is there in their premier issue. Hailing from Vancouver twice a year, Inventory is  "A Curation of Ideas in Product, Craft and Culture"  "We value products and clothing for more than just their appearance, admiring how they're made, by whom, and why." Like the well crafted products they write about, Inventory will take pages to give their readers indepth stories, such as the twelve pages on one of the finest knitwear brands in the world. Lastly direct from Denmark comes Jeanne D'arc Living. Another lifestyle magazine that draws you in to their warm pages. I feel comforted when I look at the photos of homes, gardens, and want to cook the carbonara recipe.  What makes all of these magazines such a great read is that they are not interuppted by ads and you feel like you are being welcomed into a unique experience.

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About the author

I was born in Yarmouth and grew up in Chester. I have lived on a sailboat, travelled to Zimbabwe, and lived in England where I worked in a fabulous country house hotel. While in England I met Stephen and then brought him home to Nova Scotia. Now I am a wife, mother of two great kids, and a businesswoman. Life is good.