Full Transcripts for Members
WFMA DINNER MEETING
11/18/04 
"Publishing Outside the Box:  An Entrepreneur's Story"
Speaker:  Kellene Giloff
Publisher & Founder, Stampington & Company

 I sometimes liken crafting to herding cats. You round up one, and in the mean time five others have escaped, and three more are under your feet. It's a very dynamic industry, in that our subscribers grow into one area of crafting, and then move on to another area.  

Stampington really serves a niche market. For those of us who really love rubber art stamping, and I’m one of them, it's amazing what artful works you can create. For those of us who can’t draw, who can’t paint, rubber stamping is something you can pick up easily. It becomes a real passion. “Stamp addicts” can easily drop $400 at an industry show. It's really incredible. 

When I first got into the industry as an enthusiast, I found there was only one magazine out there--a bimonthly tabloid which was very “underground.” And I found thousands of other people like me begging, "Give me ideas!" I mean, we would haunt these little rubber stamp stores, demanding, "When are your new samples coming out?!" They were just never enough.  

So I decided to create a magazine for that market. I do come from a sales and marketing background, but I had no publishing experience. However, I felt like I had half of the necessary criteria, in that I was a stamper and I knew what everybody wanted. In the enthusiast market, if you can give them ideas and information on what they really love, they'll follow you to the ends of the earth. But they can also be very demanding because they feel such ownership of your magazines. 

One of the golden rules that I learned when I was starting out was that you had to think small. We had to get really creative because when you're dealing with a niche market or even a sub-niche, you have about this much of the marketplace. Circulation can be very, very low, so your profit margins are very low. That means you have to get really creative in your production and your marketing and your promotion and your office setup and database management...