About Living in The Shires

Living in The Shires is a free quarterly publication – in the suburbs of Chelmer, Graceville, Sherwood, Corinda, Oxley and Tennyson, in Brisbane – with a print run of 12,000 copies. It has been in existence for the last 2 ½ years, and in this time has proved to be an amazing success.

Harcourts Graceville and David Gowdie proudly created this publication. But now David has decided to step back, instead offering it to editor Susan Prior to keep producing as her own. She needs your help to keep bringing you all the great local stories.

This quality publication specifically caters for and builds our local community, engendering a pride in the area and what it has to offer. It unashamedly supports local businesses, encouraging residents to ‘shop local’. It tells our own fascinating stories: about local businesses, community events, sporting organisations, some of our incredible residents, local artists and our area’s history.

This publication is well-loved in the area, with many residents saving or collecting back copies.

• If you are looking for quality advertising, then this magazine is the product for you.
• If you enjoy reading Living in The Shires and want to see it continue, please support this campaign.

Susan Prior, the publication’s project manager, writer and editor, is a professional, published author. You can find out more about her here. She produces some fascinating content about the Shires area. With just two people producing this publication, it has been short-listed in the national industry Publish Awards 2016 for a consumer magazine with a circulation less than 20,000, along with three other beautiful glossy magazines, each with a host of staff and contributors. (One of them with in excess of 30!) What an achievement!

Living in The Shires is hand-delivered to the homes and businesses in the Shires’ suburbs.

Look inside

Back issues of Living in The Shires are available online, either on the home page of the website, www.livingintheshires.com.au or in the archived section.

At a glance

• Print run:
  12,000 copies hand delivered to local residents and businesses, and given out at events.
• Frequency:
  The print magazine comes out quarterly, Spring (September 1), Summer (December 1), Autumn (March 1), and Winter (June 1). It is delivered in the first half of those months.
• Online magazine:                          
  Back issues are available from our website.
• Online Business Directory:
  This provides a free online presence for local businesses.
• Online School Directory:
  A useful guide of local schools and kindys, plus high schools from further afield, for parents in the Shires.

• Social media:
  We have an active Facebook presence where we reinforce our pro-community message.
  Facebook: @ /livingintheshires.

  
  

Benefits

Living in The Shires, in conjunction with the website (www.livingintheshires.com.au) and an active Facebook presence, constitutes the Shires’ information hub. Living in The Shires is truly a local, niche publication. It is a compact A5 size making it easy to deliver.

Living in The Shires is designed by a highly professional graphic design team, and is printed on quality, recycled, matte paper stock to create an attractive, niche magazine. Because it is beautiful to look at, and interesting to read, it sits on coffee tables and kitchen benches for extended periods, meaning that your advertising money is working hard for you.

The magazine is exempt from being classified as junk mail, meaning it can be delivered to all letterboxes.

Our publication unashamedly supports local businesses, and will always focus on community news and events and, unlike other local newspapers, will never have more than 20 per cent of its content designated as advertising. This is important to our readers and will ensure that our readership stays high.

The funds raised will ensure that the magazine is kept going for at least the next four editions. It will pay for the graphic design, printing costs, delivery and the cost of creating the content.

Each edition costs about $22,000 to produce, plus there is a 5 per cent service fee to fund this campaign by Pozible. The sum of $35,200 has already been pledged by advertisers, so $57,200 still needs to be funded to cover costs for the next four editions.

Here is a piechart of the cost breakdown for each edition:

There is no escaping the fact that a publication like Living in The Shires is expensive to produce. One of its most appealing elements is the quality of print production. 

Another challenge is that it is difficult to sell the magazine through retail outlets, or via subscripton. Hence, the idea is to keep it free to all residents and businesses, but sell space in the magazine through advertising and donations.

Currently, the magazine is 52 pages. To qualify as a newspaper, and so it can be delivered to all households and businesses and not be classified as junk mail, it must have no more than 20 per cent advertising – just 10 pages.