Challenging Times

We are in complete and utter shock to hear that Hallmark Magazine has ended it's publication with the Feb/Mar issue.

This is what was posted on their site:


We know the economy is bad.... but with all these magazines dropping like flies, we feel they must of had problems long before. What is really unsettling for us as a small business is that we rely on these creative magazines to market our product. (And don't get us wrong, we know with the ceasing of all these wonderful publications, hundreds of creative people are out of work and our hearts go out to them). Now we can see how this economy creates a chain reaction:

We are expecting our second baby in April, and we were discussing the idea that we would cut back on our show schedule and focus more on advertising. We had a lot of success with our past ads in MEHC magazine and it just seem to make more sense (we thought) if we can just advertise and stay in the studio working rather then spending every weekend during the busy holiday season at the craft shows.

What's making us a little worried is that with magazines, the ads need to be booked months in advance as do the craft shows. Say we booked a few ads for the upcoming holiday season and the magazine goes under, we'll have no ads AND all this merchandise... plus we missed out on the crafts show deadlines.

So far, two of our top magazines we decided to advertise with have ended without warning.
Just this week Hallmark magazine called the studio about advertising in the April/May issue and I told them we weren't able to make that ad deadline but we were definitely going to book the Sept/Oct and the Nov/Dec issue. I asked the sales rep how the magazine was doing and she was raving about the magazine and said because Hallmark is huge company with such a large following they weren't going anywhere. Well I guess we really need to rethink our marketing plans so we don't become the next casualty.

We hope that the coming year brings positive change for everyone in a tight spot, no matter what you do for work. Our hearts go out to all our fellow crafters especially, who I'm sure are finding this year to be one of the most challenging. Good luck!