Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
This is the next in a series of stories on some of the diverse publications that have become members of the Nevada Press Association since non-newspapers were granted full membership in 2019.
What do you do when your clients are ordered closed by the governor as a result of a worldwide pandemic, will likely be closed for months and, in some cases, will never open again?
“First, we freaked out,” says Amanda Burden, co-publisher of edible Reno-Tahoe, the magazine she started a decade ago to cover the food and beverage scene in Northern Nevada and around Lake Tahoe.
“What are we going to do? The main people we cover — in the restaurant and bar business — are all closed, or closing, or suffering terribly,” she says.
It was the second, third and fourth directions she and co-publisher Jaci Goodman took, however, that not only turned sour times into salvation, they earned edible Reno-Tahoe some friends along the way.
“We figured out quickly that a lot of people were home and fixing up their homes,” Burden says. “A lot of people were doing kitchen remodels or just repainting or doing landscape work. So we thought, ‘Let’s try to come up with a home section.’”
That home guide in early summer 2020 led to a new list of potential advertising clients — contractors, heating- and air-conditioning firms, real estate salespeople, house painters — to fill the gaps left by the food industry. It’s become a lasting part of the publication, which comes out six times a year, and helped it survive the existential threat of the pandemic.
At the time, edible Reno-Tahoe had just placed 20,000 copies of its March-April issue at 500 locations in Northern Nevada and Northern California— a logistical nightmare of its own. With many of those places closed, or devoid of foot traffic even if they were open, advertisers were wondering whether their ad value had vanished as well.
“We struck up a partnership with some grocery stores, including Whole Foods and Great Basin Community Food Cooperative in Reno, and they were doing tons of grocery deliveries, because people weren’t leaving their homes. So they would put an edible Reno-Tahoe magazine in every delivery.”
The stores even tracked which homes already received a magazine, so they didn’t double up. “We got them all out,” she says.
The third ingredient in the turnaround recipe was a subscription drive, for which the magazine teamed with Hospitality Industry Partnership. The nonprofit was feeding out-of-work colleagues from local bars and restaurant.
Burden and Goodman cut the price of a subscription from $24 to $20 for the promotion, and they donated $10 from every sale to the food drive. It brought in new readers — and a bushel of good will for the magazine.
“As much as we could, we got out in the community to find out how we could help to spread the word on social media that this business is open or closed, or this business needs help. We encouraged people to support local businesses’ new incarnations, too. For example, Rum Sugar Lime pivoted and crafted to-go cocktails in bottles. The bar business was hit even worse than the restaurants, because the governor shut them down longer than the restaurants. We wanted to support keeping our local businesses alive.”
Edible Reno-Tahoe was itself cultivated from a rough patch. In 2009, when the Reno Gazette Journal cut staff during the recession, Burden went from editor of the paper’s Reno Magazine to looking for a new venture.
She found it in Edible Communities, a group of magazines started by Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian in 2002. It has since grown to nearly 90 magazines across the United States and Canada that, like Reno-Tahoe’s, publish through a licensing agreement.
Launched in March 2010, edible Reno-Tahoe still counts Burden, the editor, and Goodman, the advertising director, as its only full-time employees. They rely on a network of 65 freelance writers, editors, photographers and designers to help create a stylish and tantalizing publication, which proudly touts its many awards from the Nevada Press Foundation’s annual contest.
While the contest brought the NPA to edible Reno-Tahoe’s attention, it has stayed for the journalism camaraderie.
“I’m a big proponent of local news too,” says Burden, a j-school grad who is now an NPA board member. “Anything that I can do to help journalists in general and to collaborate with other journalists and media people — and keep journalism alive — I want to do.”
To read more in the series, go here. You may also learn how to become a member.