N magazine

Description

History We believe in the power of the arts to bring people together. From our first issue, published in May 2005, we have featured the work of a local artist on every cover. In April 2006 we held the first Second Saturday art show in Natomas, featuring the work of all 12 of our past year's cover artists. Our Cover Artists' Show has become an annual event. Our gift to the community is our annual summer concert in Natomas Oaks Park. Thousands of people have come together over the years for these events. We mail N magazine free every month to more than 25,000 homes and businesses in Natomas, and have a growing list of subscribers outside Natomas who want to keep track of what's going on here. Even to us, all this seems like a lot for five people to do. But then, Natomas is a high energy place to be! Marni Leger Karen Wilson founders of N magazine A Little History When we started planning N magazine in 2004, we knew a lot about Natomas, and not much at all about how to put out a magazine. But we knew Natomas was growing faster than the official projections said it would, to more than 70,000 people today, on the way to 125,000 at buildout. We had more than 18 years between us of reviewing development plans as board members of the Natomas Community Association. And the more of our new neighbors we met, the more convinced we were that they needed and wanted to know more about the community plan guiding the explosive growth going on around them. They also wanted a sense of community, and a way to plug in. We wanted N magazine to help build the fabric of that new community. We talked to the people most active in the community about our idea to feature what's going right in Natomas, and where there are challenges, offer ways to get involved and make things better. We got advice from Judy Tretheway, who with her husband, now Councilmember Ray Tretheway, built a Natomas community newspaper and ran it successfully for more than 20 years. "Grow organically," she said, which should surprise no one who knows the Tretheways. What she meant was, start small and grow when you can afford it. We talked to bankers, who told us what they tell every small start-up business: we'll loan you your own money, but not ours. We took our business plan to SCORE, the Small Business Administration's advice service for small businesses, and met with two veterans of the publishing business. They told us we would go broke within six months, and that when that happened, we should quit right away. Then they talked a lot about why they loved the publishing business. Walking out into the bright sunshine of that morning in 2004, we were all smiles. We weren't even in it yet, and we loved the publishing business. Clearly, you can tell a publisher when you meet one; you just can't tell her much. How it works Necessity has made us inventive. Most of our operation is virtual. We meet online more often than we do in person. We exchange files online, design and proof our magazine online and use Macintosh laptops and production computers with the latest publication software.

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