One lifestyle magazine has joined the Springfield publishing scene as another publication falls away and a Christian-based publisher sets its sights on the e-book niche.
Springfield Lifestyle kicked off its inaugural issue this month, mailing free copies of the magazine to a targeted affluent audience in roughly 14,000 homes across south Springfield, Nixa and Ozark. The company doesn’t charge for the mailings, using a business model that takes advantage of purchased marketing data to put its monthly publication in the homes of those averaging $130,000 in annual income, as well as professional offices, such as dentists and attorneys.
Springfield-based eLectio Publishing LLC, pronounced “e-lex-i-o” – taken from the Latin term “lectio,” meaning to read – is a nondenominational e-book publisher of Christian-based materials. The publishing company is working with Untreed Reads, an e-books distributor, to reach the masses on Web sites such as Amazon.com when it launches its first set of e-books in late September.
Money Saver Publishing Inc., which produces coupon and marketing publication Money Saver Marketplace, purchased Market Maxx magazine in late May, effectively eliminating a competitor. The president of the company said the move was made as a way to bring on new advertisers. It is the second time in two years Money Saver has bought out a competitor.
New lifeSpringfield Lifestyle Publisher Dennis Brady brought the concept to Springfield from Kansas City, where he helped launch one of four publications. The lifestyle magazine operates under the umbrella of Kingdom Lifestyle Publications, and Brady said its editorial focus is on local leaders and family-friendly articles designed to appeal to a readership with disposable income.
“I just fell in love with the concept,” said Brady, who owns Branson-based B&B Quality Building and Restoration. He said he’s lived in the Springfield area since 1989 but moved back to Kansas City in 2006 after selling a mass-production food processing machine. While there, Brady was introduced to the publications and decided to partner with Kingdom Lifestyle to advance the concept to metropolitan markets from Atlanta to San Diego. The company is working to put its lifestyle magazine in 10 markets outside of Springfield, with Dallas and other cities publishing up to eight magazines.
Content for the local publication, which he says is 50 percent advertisement and 50 percent editorial, is being produced by Editor Katie Barton, a recent College of the Ozarks graduate, and freelance writers.
Brady said it has taken roughly $16,000 and seven weeks to kick-start Springfield Lifestyle. He attributed the exclusivity it offers the advertisers within an industry with making the product viable.
He said certain industries, such as roofing contractors, can have up to three advertising spots available, but right-of-refusal stays with the business that was first to sign a contract.
Brady said the company currently mails to five ZIP codes – 65804, 65809, 65810, 65721 and 65714 – and he has plans to expand to ZIPs in Republic and Bolivar, targeting 18,200 homes by early 2013.
Christian e-book nicheChristopher Dixon, co-owner of eLectio Publishing, said he and business partner Jesse Greever saw a niche in the national publishing market.
Dixon said they noticed many secular publishers struggling in recent years and thought they’d love to bring Christian publishing into the 21st century.
“This isn’t a shove-Jesus-down-somebody’s-throat thing,” Dixon said. “It doesn’t even have to have a religious overtone to it. What we don’t want to do is get into the habit early on of saying here is what we do and don’t do. But we are not looking for gratuitous violence or sex, and we are not a romance novel publisher, either.”
He said Greever, who will be one of the company’s first published authors, is a childhood friend from the Chillicothe area. Greever sells high-tech lasers to universities in a 15-state area, and Dixon is something of a jack-of-all trades, billing himself as a marketing and motivational consultant on
ChristopherDixon.com. They communicate frequently by phone about issues such as editing.
Dixon said business startup costs were just under $5,000, with nearly $500 of that coming from a crowd-funding campaign on
IndieGoGo.com. He said the company is currently stumping for $1,000 to help it purchase a block of International Standard Book Numbers, or ISBNs.
The business model, Dixon said, centers around establishing contract deals with authors where they split revenues down the middle. He said the lifelong friends both have an interest in writing, and they were intrigued by the idea of starting a company with relatively low overhead.
“This is not a get-rich quick scheme,” Dixon said, adding he would outsource some design work. “You can’t just toss this in Word and go.”
Competition nixedMoney Saver Publishing’s purchase of Market Maxx magazine marks the second time in two years President Chris Brewer’s company has bought out a competitor and shut down its operations.
In February 2011, Brewer said he purchased FYI Publishing, which managed a similar direct-mail business, hitting readers in south Springfield and Christian County.
Brewer declined to disclose the purchase price of Market Maxx, which started in June 2011 by Ryan Jennings and Landon McCarter of Door Deals LLC, which sells and distributes door-hanging advertisements. Brewer said the magazine had a circulation of roughly 20,000, and the Door Deals business was not part of the deal. Money Saver acquired the Market Maxx name, Web site and customer list, he said.
Brewer said his free Money Saver Marketplace publication has a circulation of more than 70,000, and mails nearly 60,000 copies every four weeks to ZIP codes in Nixa, Ozark and south Springfield, in addition to the magazine stands it fills in the area. The purchase of Market Maxx, he said, strengthened his client list.
“For us, it was just a consolidation in the marketplace,” he said.
Brewer said he didn’t feel threatened by newcomer Springfield Lifestyle.
“Anybody can open a publication at any time. It is a lot harder to keep it going for nearly 10 years like we have. There’s always room for another publication. I would just wish them the best because it is a challenging marketplace right now,” Brewer said. “We’ve seen a lot of publications come and go, and we’ve just always tried to focus on what we do best, which is direct mail.”[[In-content Ad]]
