HCOB: You say you started with research — what was your process? Thames : I started looking for experts in the magazine publishing world who might advise me, and found one of the best, Dr. Samir Husni — “Mr. Magazine” — founder and director of Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. A lot of people I talked to encouraged me to contact him, so I took a chance and simply gave him a call and left a message. After I hung up, I said to myself “There's no way in the world he calls me back, he works with everybody all over the globe, all the big names, the top consultants. Much to my surprise, he called me back within an hour and asked me if I could be in his office two days later. Of course, I went, thinking “Either this will be a very short meeting or something good.” It turned out to be life changing. I will tell you this, print is not dead. There will always be a place for quality products that have value to the con- sumer. What died was just that: publications that were not creating engaging experiences, and that were not producing valuable content.” HCOB: Why? What did he tell you that made such a difference? Thames : He was very direct. He said, “Okay, you knocked on my front door and you hand me the magazine. Talk to me as if you were the mag- azine. What are you saying to me? Who are you? So, I began telling him about me, the magazine, and what all he would experience while flipping through the pages—from the in-depth stories to the breathtaking pictures, to the quality of the paper he would feel while holding the maga- zine in his hands. He did not say a word, he just listened. When I was done, he looked around the room and pointed to all these magazine covers and pictures of famous publishers he had framed on the walls—these are all the big names, some of the most successful magazines and publishers in the world—and he said, “I asked every one of these people I've worked with the exact same questions that I just asked you, and nobody ever answered those questions as well as you just did. You spoke to me, you have a passion, you're deeply entrenched in this and you understand what you want your readers to get out of this publication.” He then proceed- ed to guide me through the whole printing and publishing process and how things work in the business. As I look back on it, that was the best phone call I ever could have made.
HCOB: What did you do next? You learned the nuts and bolts of the production side of the business, what about the creative side — the writing, the photography? Thames : To begin with, I had a very clear sense of what I wanted the magazine to look like — the design — and I had an equally clear sense of what I wanted the stories to be about. I wanted this to be a very high-end coffee table book, something you keep and didn’t throw away after you’ve read it. So, I began researching the best writers and photographers from the premier hunting, fishing, outdoor lifestyle and travel magazines in the world. I contacted them, laid out my vision, and asked if they would like to be contributors. The vast majority jumped at the chance to have their work featured at the high end of the publishing spectrum, and we were off and running. And I also enlisted the help of a fellow alum from Auburn, Kelly Waldrop, who ran his own real estate marketing and advertising business. He was instrumental in getting the publication off the ground, helping manage the advertising, printing, etc. One thing we did was contact advertisers di- rectly, we didn’t go though media buyers. The quality of the publication and our focus on full-page, impactful ads really appealed to the top of the line vendors in the industry.
John Thames and his team travel year-round to places all over the world, from New Zealand to South Africa to England, depending on the season.
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