Greeley Style faces uncertain future

GREELEY — After 14 years of publication, Greeley Style Magazine may have produced its last issue. Publisher John Guild said he can˜t afford to publish a new magazine, and unless he can find investors to back him, he˜ have to close the publication down before the end of the year.The most-recent issue of Greeley Style came out last summer, though at its peak, the magazine was published five times a year. Guild said the lifestyle publication covers the people, places and events of interest to Greeley and Weld County residents and has a distribution of 16,000. Three thousand are mailed to subscribers, and the remainder is distributed through the Greeley/Weld Chamber of Commerce, newsstands, hotels and motels and Western Welcome Service.
Like many niche publications, Greeley Style has struggled financially from its inception, Guild said.
"We were never financed," he said. "We always boot-strapped it, and for that reason, we were never able to realize our full potential. We survived because people thought we were good and stuck by us."
Guild said the decision to pull the plug on the magazine is a tough one, especially after so many years. He decided to close down after a recent attempt to sell the publication failed, but since then, advisers interested in preserving the magazine have stepped forward to try to help him find investors, he said.
Should some money materialize out of this final effort, Guild said he would use it to better position the magazine for sale.
"We˜re trying to raise investment capital for the purpose of paying off some debts so we can put out another issue," Guild said. "Then we would pay the rest of our debts as we could and later pay investors a profit after the sale of the magazine."
Guild said that a buyer would essentially be buying the magazine˜s solid market position. Some competition exists; Lydia˜s Style Magazine, a regional publication with a similar format, and other media go after the same advertising dollars. But the magazine has a good market, Guild said.
Lydia Dody, publisher of Lydia˜s Style Magazine, said she˜s not sure that the region can support two lifestyle magazines.
"I˜ve known and respected John for many years," Dody said. "Our magazines have grown and flourished side by side, but I think the demographics of this area are such that it˜s difficult for any one city to support a large glossy magazine on its own. To continue our growth, we are positioning our magazine to represent the entire five-city area including Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, Estes Park and Windsor," she said.
Guild, however, believes a second owner unencumbered by bank loans and startup costs could make money where he was unable to.
"We˜re real close," he said. " We˜ve lost an average of 5 percent a year since we˜ve started, but the numbers aren˜t that bad.
"My concern is that as a result of doing business that way, some of our vendors have had to take a risk they didn˜t agree to take. If I˜d known the effect it would have on them, I wouldn˜t have done it this way."