The Key to Key West
FOLIO Magazine
Monday, October 01, 2007
by Jason Fell
Only A little more than a year
after its first issue hit newsstands, Key West took home seven regional
magazine excellence awards this August at
the 2007 Charlie
Awards, presented by the Florida Magazine Association, including two
first place awards for Best Public Service Coverage and
for Best Feature.
“Key West fills a tremendous vacuum by providing a ‘big
city’ quality lifestyle magazine that celebrates all things Key
West,”
says Joe Policy,
Key West marketing, distribution and development manager. “If you
live in Key West you’re not going to read Boca or any of
the Miami magazines—it’s an entirely different way of life.”
Launching a regional magazine
represented a major switch for founder Bill Semich, who came from 40
years of b-to-b publishing, and who also
serves as CEO of
a domain name registry company. Semich is editor and publisher of Key
West. “The single driving ‘big idea’ for the magazine
came to me when I
moved here four years ago and saw how much money is being spent to
develop this city,” says Semich. “I see my decision to
launch Key West
magazine as being comparable to the investors who decided to buy the
city’s old coal-fired power plant, gut it, and turn it into
condos selling
for $2 million to $5 million. These are our advertisers and their baby
boomer customers are our readers.”
Growing Pains
Prior to launching Key West,
Semich dipped his toe into the market by purchasing two local
magazines, The Key West Journal and Key Wester.
The publications
generated combined ad sales revenue of just under $1 million but
neither had enough traction to keep publishing. “Roger
Black’s
only comment when
he looked at them was, ‘Shut them down, put them out of their
misery,’” Semich says. “They were basically mini-mall
and
nail salon-type advertising publications.”
Still,
the magazines provided Semich with some resources and staff, including
two salespeople and an editor. “They had some value in their
existing business
infrastructrures which saved me several months of getting ready to
launch a new magazine in a relatively new (to me) market,”
says Semich.
“And I’ll stress that it’s an island community, not a
place to break into quickly or easily. Resources are few and far
between in Key
West.”
Semich also took over the
existing circulation systems (and relationships) from The Key West
Journal and Key Wester, which included in-room
hotel placement.
“It’s not a simple matter to arrange for a Westin or Hyatt
resort hotel manager to agree to take on the responsibility of
distributing your
magazine in every room every month—and to then assign cleaning
staff to replace them after the guests leave and take a copy
with them,”
says Semich. Today Key West uses a combination of controlled/qualified
circulation and hotel distribution.
Launching Key
West also required finding a professional printer—the printer for
Key West Journal was a born-again Christian who censored both
edit and ad
content in the publication, according to Semich, who switched to R.R.
Donnelley at an even lower price.
When Key West debuted in March
2006, it printed 15,000 copies of a 72-page issue, plus a four-page
cover. The initial goal was to hold to an
80-page minimum
while the staff built a minimum ad/edit ratio of 40/60, with a
longer-term goal of reaching a predictable 60/40 ad-edit ratio
within two years.
Since then, Key West hasn’t printed an issue with fewer than 80
pages plus cover. “From my days at Cahners, the rule of
thumb for a new
magazine launch was you needed two-to-four years of investment before
you could expect to start breaking even—assuming the
magazine was
going to be a success,” says Semich. “We are now entering
our second year of publication and I’m happy where we are. The
ad/edit ratio for October is 44/56—our best month yet.”
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