Richmondmom.com Magazine launched this Wednesday, October 13, 2010 inside of Richmond Grid Magazine, an arts/culture/business magazine with a distribution of 60K quarterly.
Just three short months ago the publishers, Palari Publishing, who helped me create and print Richmond Rocks, approached me about partnering with them on their magazine.
I thought we were going to discuss the reprint of Richmond Rocks since we were getting close to the end of our 2,000-copy original print run, so when Ted Randler pulled out his iPad with a mock-up of Richmondmom.com Magazine I held my breath for a moment. It was surreal, almost as much so as when, three months later, I saw the actual print magazine with my photo on the cover at the launch party!
When previously asked if I’d do a magazine I’d always answered that I’d “never want to go print.” Being a web girl and having developed Richmondmom.com from the ground-up (and I mean the ground; the original site was rough at best) to be an online resource I was sure that print was a dinosaur soon to be fossilized. But I have to admit that when I saw that mock-up and thought of the possibilities for the site and my clients, it was too incredible of an opportunity to pass up.
Working with my clients–many of whom were thrilled at the opportunity to have a print magazine to solidify and advertise their brand to the mom market that Richmondmom.com attracts–was a pleasure and reinforced the fact that print is still very much alive. Not only are Dave Smitherman and Ted Randler as well as writer Paul Spicer super-creative, the Grid Team are all incredibly personable and talented.
They also have their finger on the pulse of the Richmond social media community, and have worked to create Richmond Grid as a social media-centric publication with shout-outs to the RVA Twitter crowd and a website to keep the information flowing in-between quarterly print publications.
We work together to create content that is unique, relevant, and interesting for Richmond VA readers–not information that is easily discovered elsewhere. It’s also packaged in a quick-flowing style that makes the reader want to devour the pages.
So far on my entrepreneurial journey, the opportunity to become a print magazine has been the best surprise gift, a nicely-wrapped and decorated box that I’ll cherish and reopen with each quarterly issue.
Oh, and I’ll try to remind myself to never say “never” again 
