A few more monetization ideas occurred to me while I was out walking the dog this morning. Like the others, I don’t know if any of these are good (in fact I think some are distinctly bad).

But no wrong answers at this point:

Product Collabs: Rambler branded cigars, bourbon, etc – partnering with cool brands in the area to do limited runs

Swag: Could do a line of hoodies, T-shirts, drinkware, etc.

Coffee Table Books: This one would take a while, but after a couple years of publishing recipes from local restaurants, or interviews with local founders, you could bind them all together into a nice book

“Best of” lists: Sort of like the Inc. 5000 (which is a racket). These ranking things PRINT money, but are kind of lame

Of course, I don’t think we’re going to have to get too cute with the monetization. After today, I’m. more convinced than ever that there’s a viable ad market for a high end business + lifestyle local newsletter.

I was at Whole Foods today and picked up every magazine I could get my hands on that had the words, “Austin” or “Texas” on the cover. Luxe. Texas Highways. Austin Home. And of course… Chip and Joanna’s Magnolia.

They’re packed with ads. Architects. Realtors. Builders. Furniture makers. Even super niche things, like bespoke safe-makers, or local plant nurseries. It looks like tourism boards of cities even shell out for ad space.

It would take a week to comb through one issue for all the prospective advertisers and story prospects.

Every issue has several competitors in it, page after page. Which has me thinking, I may be able to compensate for a smaller audience by limiting each issue to just one ad spot for each industry.

So you pay more, but you’re THE realtor ad, or THE architect ad. And we can offer click data too, so that’s worth something.

Look at me already saying “we.” Blegh.

Another cool thing — at the back of many of these magazines there’s something called a Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation that tells exactly what the audience is, and even breaks down how much of it is paid subscribers vs other methods of circulation.

Apparently, this has something to do with the USPS. They have something called a Periodical Permit (which somehow affects mailing rates) and in order to maintain it, publications have to fill this thing out.

Magnolia has one. It says their average copies of each issue over the last 12 months have been 1.65 million.

That’s wild!