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April 21, 2010 •
Summer 2008 Editor’s Letter
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It was so rewarding to see our premiere issue all over the National Stationery Show. Even better, to meet our readers and be so well received by them was a wonderful experience! But in the publishing business, you’re only as good as your last issue — so here we go again.
In this issue, we examine the baby and juvenile markets. In my first letter, I compared launching a magazine to giving birth, which not only brings a new life into existence but also creates a mother. She is the primary purchaser of most baby merchandise — though her friends, family and co-workers can’t be overlooked, either. To take her through the life-changing event there is a bevy of product, from pregnancy greeting cards to shower invitations, birth announcements to thank-you cards. And there’s so much more for her to consider — plush and calling cards, onesies and nursery décor, to name just a few — it can get rather confusing.
We examine the different facets and players in this most exciting market throughout this issue, most notably in our A-to-Z photo essay (perhaps the first ever on the baby market?), but also in a gift story and one devoted to the mom market. Writing that story as a mom of an almost-two-year-old girl, Veronica, I could certainly relate to the lifestyle’s demands, but also appreciate the fun and camaraderie created by the products.
And it’s not just me: Reading through the responses to our e-mail blast for our new department, The Hit List, this emerging category seems to be hitting a nerve. Think “Sex and the City” for the mommy set. (Sorry, the “sex” here only refers to the baby’s gender.) Moms want to be polished and pulled together even while wiping drool off wee chins and laughing it off with their girlfriends.
Which brings us to an interesting point. “This industry is full of working moms,” Wendy Solganik of Luscious Verde Cards recently told me. And she’s right. Not only did moms start many of the companies that fill these pages, and the retail stores that shop them, look at this issue’s line-up: We profile eeBoo’s Mia Galison, a mother of three who barely took “a half-day” of maternity leave; as well as Swee Swee Paperie’s Ann Conway, who named her store after her young daughter’s babble. That story’s writer, Amanda Avutu, has a son about Veronica’s age — we met at a Gymboree class.
So while everyone loves a cute baby, I’d like to close with a personal salute to those very special ladies everywhere who really make it all happen. You’re doing an amazing job of having — and balancing — it all!
