October 27th, 2006 - ‘I Could Write a Book’
‘I Could Write a Book’ by Roy Reiman. Reiman is the publisher of the Country magazines I picked up on my stay-at-home-Mom weekend. This is his autobiography. I love the magazine even more. Something I hadn’t really noticed while reading them is that they have NO ads (other than for a few of their own products like books and other magazines). (This may be because I try to ignore advertising in magazines.) His story is about a company bucking the trend and doing what, even after publishing for 15 years, everyone said was impossible. (Reader’s Digest also used to be ad free. Sadly, they quit that a while back. Interestingly, they bought the Reiman company a couple years ago.)
With a very successful model, Reiman became richer and richer, but that’s definitely not seen in the story, except for the occasional note about things I would never be able to do like charter a jet one morning and run off to see someone. Anyway, he had humble beginnings, never seemed to forget that, and used a lot of simple/frugal ideas to run his company. His magazines are written primarly by the readers. I’m not sure how they remain successful in the Internet age, but when he began them, there were few ways for folks across the country to communicate with each other and share ideas, recipes, pictures, etc, with strangers.
I might know the answer because I loved the magazine so much I’m thinking about a subscription! Sure, I can find similar things online but I don’t take the time to seek them out. And, possibly more important to making my decision to get it, Country is a magazine I can give to Maggie and never worry once about disturbing pictures. There won’t be dead people with blood (like say our Newsweek) or armed militias (ditto plus Smithsonian) or articles about drugs (like Sports Illustrated). She still looks at the pictures in the one I gave her 3 weeks ago. I was going to Freecycle the others, but I’m thinking about keeping them around for her. I love having her look at pictures of farm animals, snow capped mountains, rolling fields, etc! And, since there are SO many pictures in the magazine, it’s a lot more fun to look at with her since we can talk about the pictures. Isn’t quite the same with Smithsonian, which we “read” last night and were finished quite quickly! Plus, there aren’t any ads!
Okay, I just talked myself into the subscription. Unfortunately, they have at least two other magazines that also sound good! I’m surprised, after reading the company story, that they never developed a magazine about frugality/simply living. It would fit right in.
One last note: They are located in Greendale, WI, on the south side of Milwaukee. I’d heard of this town recently, too: It was a planned community during the Depression and has some very interesting features. (See the link for more info.) I can’t wait to take a tour of it! Sounds like parents’ kind of place, too. The magazines publish a lot of recipes–oh, if you’ve heard of Taste of Home that’s this place–and have a test kitchen there. If you’re lucky, you get to sample dishes. In addition, the winner of a national cookie contest is only sold there. And it’s called mmmMinnesota Crunchers. I have the cookbook on ILL and every other recipe sounds so good I think I’m going to buy it. I HAVE to try the winner of this contest if the non-winners are this good! (13000+ entries, 250 best in the book.)
Let’s just finish by saying that this book was very inspiring and captivating. I didn’t want to put it down. It was a very fun read, as well.