The Good Life, an Austin, TX-based community monthly has shuttered.
The closing — traced back to the economy — shows that even growing sectors like regional titles are feeling the pinch of today’s publishing marketplace. Ad-supported The Good Life, which was distributed for free in and around Austin, reached 40,000 affluent, highly-educated readers, most of whom were middle-aged. January’s issue of The Good Life, already out, was the last.
“Our [ad revenue] numbers for January were frighteningly off,” said Rebecca Melançon, publisher of The Good Life. “We were trying to just get past the retail season because we sell a lot of health and wellness ads in the spring and summer, but as we approached those we started hearing from major medical facilities that their budgets were frozen, and that made me look at the near future with skepticism.”
The Good Life has not shut down its Web site, which Melançon reported was receiving 90,000 hits a month, but it is no longer updating the site with its usual community calendars and events. Now, the site serves mostly as a message board for readers to show support for the magazine.
