The marquee opening event at MagNet 2013 featured Rebecca Wesson Darwin, president and CEO of Garden & Gun magazine. If you missed this presentation, I understand that Magazines Canada has video-taped the event and plan to post it on their web site shortly.  Don’t miss it.

The presentation was fabulous: intelligent, charming, informative…reflecting both Ms. Darwin’s personal style and her magazine…and focused relentlessly on quality editorial content, quality packaging, quality events, quality people.  Advertising was mentioned only once, and in the context that their special events, while having some limited sponsorship opportunities, are really focused on having a good time, mingling with readers, and creating word-of-mouth buzz.

I won’t spoil the video, but the organic circulation growth story is almost impossible to believe…until you thumb through the magazine. 

The magazine’s covers are fantastic too. It is crystal clear is that the publisher and her team are laser-focused on their reader and the themes that move them, from a perfectly controlled Southern point of view: Food, Music, Home & Garden, Sporting Life, Arts & Culture, Travel. Garden & Gun certainly subscribes to the notion that “if it aint broke don’t fix it,” or Rule #30: If it Works Keep Doing it. And is it ever working! 

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