Break the Rules
This regional startup does, and it’s thriving.
By Gia Miller
When my 15-year-old daughter Talia was in third grade, she came home upset because her teacher, Mrs. G., took points off her essay for starting a sentence with the word “and.” Talia approached Mrs. G. and asked why, arguing that she’d done it correctly. Her teacher responded, “Because I haven’t taught that yet.” Shocked, Talia just stared at her, which gave Mrs. G. the time she needed to reconsider. “Okay,” she finally replied. “I’ll return the points but don’t do it again. Students don’t learn that skill until high school.”
Instead of encouraging Talia’s advanced skills, Mrs. G. wanted her to follow the rules, even if that weakened her writing. But here’s the thing: Once you understand why a rule exists, you can, depending on the rule, intentionally defy it to create something better and possibly even extraordinary. I’ve repeatedly challenged my children, now teenagers, to think this way, and it’s a philosophy my business partner Justin Negard and I have embraced with our magazine.
We launched Connect to Northern Westchester (formerly Katonah Connect) two years ago, using our journalism degrees and experience in the industry to create a local publication that breaks the rules and presents more like a national magazine. Our approach is working. We broke even with our first issue and began making a profit six months in. We’ve continued to grow our readership, business, brand, and bank accounts since.
Our scrappy startup has caught the attention of readers throughout our community and the country. We’re based in New York, yet we have subscribers as far away as California. When a gentleman in Tennessee purchased a subscription, we asked him why. He explained that his parents recently moved to our area, and he discovered our magazine on their coffee table while visiting. He fell in love with it, so he subscribed. While I’m not sure I’d read a local magazine from another state if I wasn’t in the industry, we hear comments like this often.
Whether you’re a decades-old publication looking to shake things up or a new magazine trying to find your ground (congratulations, and yes, you are a bit crazy), here’s a glimpse into how breaking the rules has worked for us—and how it could work for you, too.
BREAK THE DUMB RULES
In our opinion, there are four legacy rules magazines should challenge.
OUTDATED RULE #1: Magazines Should Avoid Personality to be Taken Seriously.
There’s a place for playfulness alongside modern sophistication and journalism. Pages can be formatted sideways or upside down (we’ve done both, sparingly). Embrace color. Make jokes. Write funny heds and deks from time to time. Do things some readers won’t get. Swap out the photo in the editor’s letter for a Barbie doll or cupcake (we’ve done these, too). We believe in serious journalism, and we also see the value in having a bit of fun. It’s easier for readers to connect with a magazine when they can laugh along with it.
OUTDATED RULE #2: You Should Have Only One Target Audience.
Your magazine mails to a variety of homes, and many probably include people of different ages and/or genders. Don’t ignore them; give them something to read, too. For example, if you’re a local or regional magazine, don’t forget the kids. We always include a page that profiles a child between ages four to seven. There’s nothing particularly special about these children; they’re just regular kids whose parents agreed to let us interview/photograph them. Kids love this page because they get to see a classmate or teammate in the magazine. And parents love that it gets their kids reading. Children as young as eight read our magazine because they start with the little kid profile and go from there.
OUTDATED RULE #3: Stay in Your Lane.
What magazines do you like to read? What websites do you visit? What social media channels do you enjoy? And, importantly, why? What can you borrow from them and make your own? Just because you’re a local or niche publication doesn’t mean you have to remain in that ridiculous “box.” In just two years, we’ve told some incredible stories you wouldn’t typically find in a local publication, and our readers and advertisers have loved them. This past fall, we profiled a woman who is teaching nonspeaking people with autism how to communicate. Numerous readers told us the article read like something they’d find in The New York Times.
OUTDATED RULE #4: Advertising and Advertisers Come First.
Stop putting advertising everywhere. Seriously. Save some room for beautiful art, especially on your front and back covers. Back cover?! Yes. Trust me on this one. We made a conscious decision not to feature a local celebrity (and there are plenty in our area) on the front cover or an ad on the back. Instead, the front cover is Justin’s playground. He creates a piece of art that illustrates the issue’s theme. We reserve the back cover to highlight a local artist of our choosing, and it has become a coveted spot. Our January/February 2024 back cover featured 12 mixed media pieces from the series “Images of the American South” by artist V.L. Cox. They’re part of a 30-year narrative body of work featured in the Library of Congress. When we asked V.L. if we could showcase her work, she told us it was an honor. Displaying art on our covers also gives our issues staying power. They remain on coffee tables and kitchen counters well past their issue date because they’re beautiful. That shelf life is a great selling point with our advertisers.
FOLLOW THE SMART ONES
You shouldn’t break all the rules. There are some legacy rules that we believe are still important, if not vital, to producing a successful and well-respected magazine.
SMART RULE #1: Separate Church and State.
Remember that one j-school professor who lectured about “church and state” in every single class? They did so for a reason. Keeping your advertising and editorial separate is one of the core principles of journalism.
Even though Justin and I manage both the business and editorial sides of Connect to Northern Westchester, we draw a clear line between the two. Advertorials, which we produce in-house, are clearly identified with labels like “Our Partners.” We don’t write feature stories about our advertisers just because they advertise, and we utilize experts who don’t advertise with us. When you aren’t pay-to-play, you earn credibility with your readers. Ours regularly tell us they read our magazine, often cover to cover (and that they toss magazines lacking this kind of transparency).
SMART RULE #2: Create Structure.
Another journalistic principle we adhere to is magazine structure. We’ve seen several local publications abandon the standard front-of- book > well > back-of-book format, but this flow is vital for readers and advertisers. It’s jolting to flip from the contributors’ page directly to a feature-length story. Ease the reader in with shorter pieces. And for readers who start in the back because they want the “fun stuff” first, give them what they want. They’ll stick around longer.
We’ve also found that advertisers are more appreciative of back-of-book placements when those pages are beloved. Ours include a poem or short story, a brief Q&A, a humorous advice column, and a cocktail recipe—all quick and fun articles people enjoy.
SMART RULE #3: Know and Respect Your Readers.
We’ve surveyed our readers to understand who they are, what they read, and what they’re interested in, and we take these things into consideration with each issue. After all, if your readers aren’t reading your articles, they aren’t seeing the ads, and your advertisers aren’t seeing a return on their investment.
Additionally, I ask myself “So what; who cares?” when choosing topics for each issue. For example, just because you’ve always featured beautiful homes in your home issue, do your readers like and read those stories? Do they care? If your stats and feedback say no, switch it up. We’ve produced a home issue each year, and neither has included a tour of a beautiful home that most of our readers can’t afford. Instead, we’ve included stories about easy and affordable ways to green your home, how to sell or donate your spring cleaning finds, and how to host a memorable dinner party.
AND MAKE YOUR OWN
We’ve also created some rules of our own, based on our experience in the industry and in our community. We believe these are, perhaps, our biggest differentiators and the reason we’ve so quickly gained the respect of our readers and the participation of local businesses and industry professionals.
OUR RULE #1: Do the Crazy Things.
My personal policy is that if it won’t land me in jail or kill me, I’ll say yes. Justin is okay with the jail part. We’ve had many unconventional ideas in the past two years, and instead of dismissing them because that’s not what a magazine does or because executing them will be challenging, we dive right in. In fact, our tagline is “wildly brilliant,” reflecting our mission to produce products that challenge and elevate the norm.
For our one-year anniversary, we held a month-long art show in a furniture store that showcased work from all of the artists we featured throughout the year. Months before that, I interviewed goats—microphone and all—as part of a media sponsorship (head to our Instagram for that gem). When our local newspaper suspended publication, several people told us we should take over its beloved weekly police report. So, we hired that writer and began publishing it on our website. It’s entertaining to read what people call the police for in a small town, like a woman saying her boyfriend dumped her but she’s okay or a man upset that a plow company piled snow on his bushes. It has almost doubled our web traffic.
OUR RULE #2: Learn from Other Industries.
We don’t have a formal advisory board, but we do have informal advisors. And while one of them has a publishing background, we mainly seek insight from people outside of our industry. We regularly turn to a gentle- man who is an angel investor in tech startups; his ideas and advice challenge us to think like innovators.
And we look beyond the people we know. I’m a huge fan of podcasts; my library varies with shows about sales and entrepreneurship to mental health and life hacks. I learn some- thing from all of them and apply what I learn to our business. Similarly, Justin and I have started a very exclusive book club—it’s just the two of us. We read and discuss books that are directly related to our business (“How to Get a Meeting with Anyone” by Stu Heinecke) and indirectly related (“Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making” by Tony Fadell).
OUR RULE #3: Think Big.
Print isn’t dead; the bar has simply moved. Adapting means doing things differently, including complimenting your print publication with other mediums. Along the way, you’re likely to gain new skills that can help you diversify your business.
Within our first year, we branched out to video production, and it has paid off. Initially, we made videos to enhance our print articles and partnerships. As we refined our style and skills, we began to charge businesses and organizations for this work. Now, we regularly have at least one video in production. Next, we launched a community-based app that offers our readers discounts to local businesses and serves as a hub for our website, videos, and additional content. A few months ago, we introduced a social experiment on our website called “The Buzz,” where people from our community submit anonymous, audio-recorded answers to a question. And finally, we’re slowly growing our speaking engagements.
I’m not saying do it all. But start experimenting with ways to grow and connect to your audience. This approach has increased and diversified our revenue streams while solidifying our reputation as innovative thinkers and businesspeople.
OUR RULE #4: You Do You.
There are two other local magazines in our area, but we don’t focus on them. In fact, it’s our policy not to say anything about them, even when asked. (No one can misquote you if there’s nothing to quote.) Instead, we turn the conversation to our publication, focusing on what we do and who we are. It keeps the conversation positive, and that benefits us.
We also chose not to have investors, which admittedly hurts our bank accounts, but gives us the freedom to answer only to ourselves. Since there’s no one telling us “no” (see our first rule), we publish the stories we want to publish. And we’ve let our creativity and imagination inspire us, allowing us to become the “wildly brilliant” media executives we were always meant to be (rule breakers and all).
And finally, trust your gut. It got you into this mess—I mean, industry—in the first place.
Gia Miller is co-founder at Sonder Publishing and editor-in-chief and co-publisher of Connect to Northern Westchester. She has a magazine journalism degree from University of Georgia and previously worked as a freelance journalist, writing for numerous national publications. Her love languages are food and humor. Connect via [email protected].
