About the Consultants
Andrew | Grace | Our Philosophy |
Recent Clients
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson has pursued a long career in communications, most recently as Director of Operations at Vermont Life Magazine where he was responsible for circulation, fulfillment, advertising, marketing, ancillary products and Web publishing. Prior to this he was a circulation manager with McGraw-Hill's BYTE Magazine, Director of Marketing for a book catalog, and a public relations photographer and copywriter.
In 1994 he founded the first regional magazine Web site on the Internet for Vermont Life, VermontLife.com. He earned his Masters degree in 1999 in Internet Strategy Management with a capstone project developing Vermont Life’s highly successful e-commerce site, VermontLifeCatalog.com. He is a long-time member of the International Regional Magazine Association 
.
He enjoys Celtic music and classic cars, and lives in Montpelier, VT.
Grace Jackson
Grace Jackson, daughter of Andrew, is a professional web designer and digital artist based in Derbyshire, England. She specializes in super-efficient Cascading Style Sheet- site design, PHP and MySQL (simple, widely-used, robust open-source software).
She combines a broad understanding of Web programming with excellent graphic design skills and computer graphics. She employs a broad palette of design approaches, recognizing that each client has their own image and personality to project. See her portfolio at www.aphelia.co.uk. She continually updates and expands her skills, keeping abreast of the latest trends in sensible web design practices.
She finds living in England to be no obstacle when collaborating with American colleagues, and regularly works with clients all over the UK and America. This is one of her favorite things about her work.
When not working on web design, she enjoys folk dancing, walking in the Derbyshire countryside and spending time with her husband and two cats. She is also an accomplished baker and sugar artist.
Our Publishing Philosophy
We serve smaller, independent, special-interest magazines exclusively. We are not a one-size-fits-all consultancy and will never try to apply a large-magazine strategy to a small, niche publication or big city marketing to a mainly rural audience. We start by gaining an understanding of the on-the-ground realities that you know best, and work closely with you to develop strategies that are sensible for your situation.
As our name implies, we take an intensely practical approach to strategic planning. Smaller publishers seldom enjoy unlimited budgets and our approach to publishing is aimed at getting maximum return for the publisher’s investment. We have worked “in the trenches” for smaller, special-interest magazines and know many ways to produce high-quality output on a limited budget. Your bottom line is always a primary concern as we work with you.
We believe it is your editorial product that is ultimately responsible for attracting and retaining readers. Quality information that fills a need for readers, well and attractively presented, is the key to circulation success. Rreadership—both in quantity and quality—is what your advertisers are buying. Loyal and involved readers who look forward to each issue are much more responsive to your advertisers. Of course you need effective circulation promotions as well. That is our specialty. But in so doing, we will always strive to help you maintain or increase the quality both of your magazine and your readership.
We believe that, although magazines are still our core products, we publishers must broaden our horizons and see ourselves as information providers, delivering that information through whatever medium and in whatever form our customers prefer. We will help you develop business models and technologies that build on your editorial credibility and brand as you expand into new media.
We believe that your content and your brand are your property. For example, our approach to Web site design is to use proven public domain software as much as possible, avoiding expensive and entangling relationships with software vendors. We keep the technical underpinnings as 
simple as possible so if it becomes necessary for others to take over site management, you won't be left with an opaque proprietary system . We include content management tools that allow non-programmers (i.e. your editors) to create, update and delete content using little more than word-processing skills.
Recent Clients
Magazine,
Corinth, VT.
Website design
Magazine,
Gulf Shores AL.
Strategic planning
Portland, ME.
Circulation strategy
Montpelier, VT.
Web publishing strategy
Victoria, BC Canada.
Online advertising strategy
Questions? Contact us.