The fisheries were being over-fished everywhere. Back then the smaller fishing boats were being forced out of business by the bigger corporations. Slowly boat builders closed their doors, and it created a domino effect, which threatened Fisherman’s News. It was time for our small publishing company to sink or swim. My boss, Walt Kisner, asked what kind of publication we could add to the Fisherman’s News to try to stay afloat.
{mosgoogle left}I thought back to my RVing experience. I had been an RVer since being released from the U.S. Army in 1972. At a very young 24 years of age, I acquired my first RV, a 1966 Clark Cortez motorhome. My hair was quite a bit longer then, so I was always a very good candidate to get searched at all border crossings. It was obvious to them that a 24-year-old couldn’t or shouldn’t be able to own a motorhome, not in those days anyway. The real reason I had a motorhome was to be able to work from it at county fairs and sportsmen’s shows, selling a product called Drain King from a pitch stand with a microphone and a snappy spiel. The days stretched from 7 to 10 in a row, but it sure beat Army wages.
That experience gave me the idea for a publication that could help the Fisherman’s News survive the fishing industry dilemma. So in 1984, out of sheer desperation and with a family to support, RV Life was born.
In the beginning publishing was done the old way, I mean the hard way. You needed typesetters, people to do the layout, a dark room photographer, and proof readers. Negatives were shot, then opaqued to remove the imperfections. Advertisers were sent a proof of their ad by the U.S. mail. I remember many a time we had to literally drive the negatives down to Sea-Tac and put them on a plane in the nick of time in order to meet our deadlines. The whole process was incredibly labor-intensive. In today’s world, no publication could survive such archaic methods. But RV Life did survive. We were at the right place at the right time in the RV industry.
Then the first Gulf War started in 1991 and the RV manufacturers, upon whom we relied for a majority of our advertising, remembered the fallout from the oil embargo of 1976, and promptly canceled all of their advertising
Even though it was a blessing for the U.S. and the RV industry that the war ended very quickly, many RV manufacturers were slow to return as advertisers and some never did. But, somehow we managed to grow and expand our reach to RVers through the ‘90s and into the new Millennium.
Then came 9/11 and again the RV industry took another hit and shook the rafters at RV Life. Most RV manufacturers had ceased advertising in regional magazines such as ours, but we weathered the storm by working with RV dealers and branching out into tourism and RV-related products. Distributed free throughout the seven western states, RV Life depends entirely on advertising revenue to survive, and so we have continued to make changes and adjustments to roll with the punches in the ever-fluctuating RV industry.
The most positive change at RV Life took place about two years ago in 2005 when we added a digital edition, which is a mirror of the print edition, and extends our reach throughout the country and the world. Because we are a free publication, we decided to share the digital edition with everyone, again for free. All we ask is for people to enter their e-mail address at www.rvlife.com and they automatically receive each new issue once a month in their inboxes.
Today, thousands of people have opted in to receive the e-newsletter containing the link—there’s nothing to download. Click and up it comes. You turn the pages as in print. The content is the same as in print. All advertisers’ Web addresses are hyperlinked and stay in our archives, where past issues continue to be read.
The digital edition has opened up a whole new world for RV Life. Interestingly enough, people in over 65 countries have now read a digital edition, and it’s growing. So, after 25 years, here’s to change and the future of RV Life, A Lifestyle Magazine.
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