Photo by Alexandria Living
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We hear a lot of negative stories about magazine publishing: Print is dead. It’s impossible to make money with journalism. Facebook and Google have sucked up every last advertising dollar. Almost every day another magazine closes down forever.
The stories we seldom hear are those of the many new publications being launched. One such story is the story of Alexandria Living Magazine.
Alexandria is a colonial-era town just south of Washington, DC and one the most affluent communities in America. For years, long-time resident and journalist Mary Ann Barton felt that the town was lacking its own city magazine.
A death in her family turned Mary Ann’s life upside down in 2016. But the tragedy also propelled her to dive into a new work project. She pitched her idea for a city magazine to her friend and fellow journalist Beth Lawton. “One day Beth and I were chatting over Margaritas,” recalls Mary Ann. “We were like, ‘I think we can do this!’” Alexandria Living Magazine was born.
They had first met in 2010 while launching the Northern Virginia edition of AOL’s hyperlocal news site Patch, where Mary Ann had covered for Beth during her pregnancy leave and stayed on as an editor.
Mary Ann and Beth launched the Alexandria Living website in January 2018. They probably couldn’t have chosen a better time. In 2017, Amazon said it was going to set up its HQ2 a few miles to the north in Arlington. The announcement turbocharged interest in Alexandria and the surrounding areas.
One of the smartest decisions Mary Ann and Beth made was to launch the magazine online first, many months before rolling out a print edition. This meant they could get their publication off the ground without the initial expense and risk associated with print.
Beth explains: “We were thinking we would do both of them at the same time and then realized, wait, woah, that’s a lot of work. We thought that the website would be a good way to start getting our name out there and test the market a bit.”
Their rapid launch was possible thanks to Metro Publisher, a content management system specifically designed to publish magazine-style websites. The software-as-a-service lets anyone launch a professional site with very little technical knowledge – and without hiring a costly Wordpress developer.
“I’ve seen so many Wordpress sites break because some widget wasn’t updated or some plug-in failed,” says Beth. “I didn’t want to deal with that. We had enough on our plate already. So when Metro Publisher came with its own true CMS and all the capabilities and stability and support it was really a no-brainer.” They were ready to bootstrap their magazine into existence.
Their web-first plan of attack gave them time to focus on creating content and reaching out to readers and advertisers instead of getting bogged down in the complexities of producing and distributing a regular printed edition.
Though Alexandria Living could be classified as “traditional media”, there’s nothing traditional about how Mary Ann and Beth run the magazine. Liberated from the technical headaches that often come with online publishing as they don’t for example have to manage developers or technical staff, the two journalists could devote their time to filling their site with as much relevant local journalism as possible. Go to alexandrialivingmagazine.com and you might find a story on a local fire, a review of a new hip wine bar and cat cafe – and everything in between.
One of the smartest decisions Mary Ann and Beth made was to launch the magazine online first, many months before rolling out a print edition. This meant they could get their publication off the ground without the initial expense and risk associated with print.
They promoted their content aggressively on social media. From day one Twitter and Facebook were driving significant traffic to their site and generating “organic” (meaning “real” and not bought) newsletter sign-ups. Newsletters, old-school as they might seem, are still one of the best distribution tools for publishers. A robust mailing list is a probably a more dependable way of connecting with your readership than the fickle world of social platforms.
Within nine months of going online, Mary Ann and Beth felt confident enough about their community-building efforts to launch a print edition. Hundreds of people showed up for the launch party of their print pilot in a local restaurant even though the entire city of Alexandria was snowed under that day in the winter of 2018 – confirming that Mary Ann’s hunch about the need for a city magazine had been right all along.
By early 2020, traffic to the site had grown to 65,000 monthly unique visitors. Thousands of people now read their four distinct newsletters on local news, events, home and garden, and food and dining. The print edition comes out every two months and is sold at stores like Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble – and distributed in dozens of coffee shops, real estate offices and hotels in Alexandria and surrounding areas. Print subscriptions are growing steadily.
Advertising is what makes or breaks most magazines. Since the launch of the business, Alexandria Living’s ad revenues have consistently grown. A lot of businesses choose packages that combine web banners, sponsored content, newsletter ads – and print. It turns out that local businesses still value the unmatched visibility that print publications offer.
As their launch party proved, readers were eager to attend real-world events – which has been a boon for Alexandria Living. In April 2020, they’re ramping up their event business by taking over the annual Alexandria Wedding Showcase from the city tourism bureau. The tie-in proved to be a bonanza for print ad sales in their March-April issue which was, naturally, full of wedding-themed content.
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Beth is excited about another event project: “We're doing a story on a major home renovation of an historic property in Alexandria, and we're planning to do an open house for our readers in May when that issue comes out. We're inviting some of our advertisers who work in banking, catering, interior design and more to meet some of our readers in person at this now-gorgeous home.”
Beth and Mary Ann’s baby has grown up fast and already won accolades. The Alexandria Chamber of Commerce awarded Alexandria Living its 2018 Rising Star Award. Beth works full-time as the magazine’s editor while Mary Ann, as publisher, has kept her beloved day job at County News, the publication of the National Association of Counties. Alexandria Living currently has six people on staff with plenty of freelance contributors helping out.
Starting a magazine has never been easy. But if there’s one thing Alexandria Living’s story shows, it’s that publishing is as fun and rewarding as ever.
