Attorney Defends Women’s Right To Good Content

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

In last week's recap, I mentioned the desire to have a creative project of one's own as being a primary motivator for a lot of people starting a side hustle. Now, I also said this is something that has surprised me a little bit, not that I knew it wasn't important, but just how important it can be for some of us. Keep hearing over and over about this desire to have a creative project, a desire to do something out of a sense of mission, and hopefully, of course, to connect that with something that is also sustainable and profitable, because this is, of course, side hustle school. Oh, by the way, that is the name of the show. My name is Chris Guillebeau, your host, and in today's story, that desire is joined by a frustration that leads to a sense of mission.

An attorney in Columbus, Ohio was frustrated by magazines and other publications that were targeted to women, so she starts her own magazine to publish what she wants to read, and not just her, of course, but other women as well. Now, on the business side, she finds more success in pursuing wholesale orders than individual sales. So I'll tell you all about that as well. We're calling it Attorney Defends Women's Right to Good Content. Stay tuned, that objection is sustained.

We'll continue after this quick shout-out to our sponsor. [Music]

Ashley Rector was frustrated with the media. Over the past few years, she'd noticed a discouraging pattern. Every radio show, magazine, or TV segment targeted at women was focused on the same issues, the latest hairstyles, celebrity gossip, and fad diets. There was little of substance, little that was honest, little that showed a real glimpse of life, her life at least, as a modern woman.

She didn't care about Hollywood home wreckers or hot new heels, and as it turned out, neither did her other female friends. In fact, the more people Ashley spoke to you about this issue, both in her professional life as an attorney and her personal life, the more she got the same answers. People were looking for authentic stories which represented their lives as women in the 21st century, not just in the zip code 90210. To try and find these stories, Ashley turned her attention online. She looked for little known magazines which spoke on the issues she cared about, but couldn't find anything reliable or consistent.

She'd find the odd blog here and there, maybe an article or two, but none of them felt quite right. She was disappointed, but not defeated. If the magazine she wanted didn't exist, why not create it herself? That way she could control the stories she published and ensure they spoke about the topics she believed in. So Ashley got to work on starting a magazine.

She called it Harness, which came from the mission statement which was to harness the voices, ideas, and stories of real women around the world. She decided the magazine would be split into two formats. This is important in terms of her business stuff. The first would be an online publication. Here she would share articles and ideas submitted from women around the world.

And these stories would help to build an audience and an online brand around her mission. The second would be a print magazine. Here she would share what she refers to as the pure essence of the online version. It would be the best and most relevant stories from the women who wrote for her with additional and bonus content that was not found online. In early 2017, Ashley bought her domain name, harnessmagazine.com, and hosted it using Dreamhost.

She also set up an email capture feature on the site using MailChimp to help her build an email list of subscribers. Then she began looking for contributors, which she did by posting on social media and asking people in her network. Right away, she found women who were eager to share their stories. She received lots of pitches in all different categories, self-improvement, health and fitness, spirituality, and even poetry, which were all heartfelt and descriptive of the real struggles women were facing, a world apart from the magazines you'd find on the shelves of your local newsstand. To market the website, Ashley used promotions on social media.

She'd take the key aspects or demographics that a post was targeted to and then boost them for a couple of dollars. She didn't spend a lot. Ashley knew she had a small audience and wanted it to grow quickly, so she jumped right into using paid posts to spread the word. This led to her first likes, comments, and online subscribers. Another way to market the post was to have contributors share them with their audience.

The women who write these posts often move in circles with people of similar mindsets, and many of those people became subscribers and evangelists for "Harness 2." As the online presence began to grow, it attracted advertisers. When "Harness" hit its first 2,000 subscribers in early 2018, Ashley decided it was time to finally create the print magazine she'd originally wanted to publish. Issue one repurposed the best content from the online edition with that additional print-only content she'd promised. Now, because this was self-published, she didn't have a distributor, Ashley had to put a lot of legwork into finding places to stock the magazine. She started by contacting bookstores and newsstands in her local area of Columbus and found a few who were willing to place wholesale orders at the initial run.

The magazine now makes money from these wholesale orders and advertising, as well as a subscription model. Issue one brought in just $400, but by the time issue two was ready for print, she'd scored a $5,000 wholesale order and other orders that added up to more than $20,000. Looking to the future, Ashley wants to continue to grow the print version of the magazine. She's on a mission to harness the power of real women's stories, and she wants to build it in a sustainable way. [Music]

Okay, I have a couple quick comments here on what I call the business of inspiration.

And when I say that, a project like this is essentially about empowerment or inspiration or meeting a need that isn't otherwise being addressed, just like how Ashley felt discouraged and not being able to find something that she felt was relevant, so she went and created it herself. So in this kind of business, there is a clear missional element, and that is really important and powerful. In fact, I was just reading some more notes from Ashley here, and she says, "When you hold 'Harness' magazine in your hands, you understand how powerful the work is that we're doing." Issue number two features women from 10 different countries. Many first-time writers or illustrators are seeing their work showcased. And on top of that, Ashley has signed every article to a female photographer across the US.

That photographer shot the article based on her interpretation, so each spread has emotion and depth, and so on. So again, beautiful, impactful kind of work. What I wanna encourage you about, anybody who's interested in this kind of business of inspiration, whether you're trying to create a magazine or a website or something completely different, I wanna encourage you to not ignore or defer the business aspects of your project. Your business has to be profitable. You have to have a clear model.

And that's the kind of stuff that I try to teach people with on side hustle school, or in the side hustle book, or in my other books. Like you bring your own vision, your own mission. Even just yesterday, it was a woman in Australia who just wanted to help people with remote work. She had struggled with finding remote work a decade ago, had learned a lot about it through the process, and now she sees all these other people looking for remote work. So she creates a blog, I think it was in that case, to address those needs.

Last week, we had the great story about this guy who's got this teddy bear importing business where he's creating these teddy bears for kids to help them sleep better at night, especially those who have moms or dads serving overseas in the military. Again, all these different missions, visions, ideas, goals, things that you're passionate about or values that you have, whatever it is, as you think about it, also think about how you're gonna make it work, like sustainably, financially. And I don't think that makes your mission or your vision any less pure or any less noble. In fact, I think it's actually going to help your vision or your mission in the long term because if it's sustainable, then it can go on. Whereas if it kind of sputters out because you don't have the support for it that you need, then you're not gonna be able to do it as long or serve as many people or, you know, whatever your goal or your metric is.

So that's why I like to feature inspirational stories that are both heartfelt and also making some money because that's good too, nothing wrong with that at all. So that's my encouragement for you today. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/616. That is for episode 616.

Oh, and if you're looking for an affordable solution to host your website, got a great deal for you, just go to sidehustleschool.com/website. You can actually pay $5 a month or sometimes even less for a great solution that will stay with you and can allow you to build for the long term. All right, much more is on the way. I hope you'll come back tomorrow for the weekly recap. So much more coming next week.

Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau and this is Side Hustle School.