Love from, Florence Grace

It's the 1st of June today, which means that two years ago today, I officially launched my business- my magazine, Love from... magazine . I can not  believe that it's been two years! Two whole years since I held that first published copy of Issue 1 in my hands and thought, this is it. This is what I want to do. Of course, in my head I had my doubts- who doesn't when they're setting up their own business? And so it seems like a huge  deal to have reached this two year milestone.  I can't lie and tell you that it's been a smooth, easy journey. It hasn't. I've been so busy trying to grow and evolve the magazine that I've had to pour in more money than I was often making, I've altered the price up and down, the page numbers, the layout, I've taken on writers, lost some then taken on more, I've lost endless hours of sleep pouring over page layouts and I've stressed over printing faults and late delivery... ...yet here I am. Two ...

This last week I have felt majorly deflated about my business. My business being, my magazine, Love from...  I absolutely love  running my own magazine. I love putting the pages together, interviewing people who deserve to be put in the spotlight, getting together with my writers and deciding who should be our cover star and, best of all, holding the finished product in my hands. Its an amazing feeling.  But at the moment, none of that really seems...well. Worth it.  Let's start with the first issue, the biggest issue of all; money. I don't make any  money from my magazine. In fact, it cost me just shy of £400 to produce one of the issue previously, and while not all issues are that expensive to produce, you get the gist of how much I'm spending. Add in the fact that there are no adverts in the magazine as of yet and that I give away the magazine for free  plus have to pay for stamps and envelopes and you can only imagine how much m...

Today's post is late, and it's also going to be a quickie because, as per usual, I have so  much work to be doing, I need to shower, I might even need to do some cooking for my lunch tomorrow (I need to consult my recipe book...) and it's almost the end of the day!  I thought I'd do something today that I have never done before; I want to share the cover of the next issue of Love from... with you guys on here, before it's shared anywhere else tomorrow! So, drum roll please... The cover for Issue 6 of Love from... magazine is here! Gorgeous, right?  I'm so  excited to have Eve-Yasmine as a cover star because she is a massive part of my career success so far! If you've read my blog posts for a while, you will probably have heard me mention her before. It's thanks to her that I started a blog and so, essentially, it's thanks to her that I'm where I am now! She is such an inspirational young woman, and her interview is on...

June is a very exciting month for me. I've got so many things coming up, and on top of that it's the start of summer too! However, perhaps more exciting for me is that today marks the day when the first ever issue of my magazine, Love from... , went on sale. One whole year!  Me with the very first issue fresh from print! What started as a college project for my FMP and was a bit of fun at the time continued on to be something amazing- a 'proper' magazine. I have a great team of writers who contribute to each issue and I've had one off writers too. I've had subscribers and one off buyers. I've started with nothing and put my all into it to create a very small something- that will hopefully only continue to grow.  I don't make any money from the magazine. All the money spent is my own, I am the only one who edits all of the articles, puts them into the magazine, designs the page layout, interviews the cover star. My magazine is quite...

I am mad. Like, really, really mad. Everyone knows how defiantly I will fight against women's body image issues in the media, everyone knows what a firm feminist I am and everyone knows I run what is predominantly a woman's magazine that doesn't  focus on women's bodies or looks. It's all very important to me.  So you can only imagine my fury when my friend sent me a link to this article:  What the actual heck?! I could not believe my eyes! It makes me angry enough to see articles about being "beach body ready" in magazines such as Cosmo or Heat or whatever, but to see it in a children's  magazine aimed at 8-12 year olds?! Several thoughts ran through my mind... How the heck did this get an 'okay' from the editor? What actual imbecile is running this magazine and thought "yes, great  idea, let's try and get 8 year old's to care about how they look in a swimsuit, rather than just letting them enjoy their...

You may or may not know by now that I run my own magazine, Love from... . Its a lifestyle magazine funded solely by myself. I have an incredible team of writers, most of whom are bloggers who work full time, are studying, have families etc. and still find the time to write for me on a voluntary basis. I don't profit from the magazine in any way, shape or form- but it's not about that for me anyway! It's just about being able to do what I love, all of the time!  Recently, I'v been stuck in a bit of a rut with the magazine, struggling to find advertisers or to grow the readership to an even larger number. I've had several rants to several people, several ideas, some great and some awful, and now I have come to one conclusion;  It is time for the relaunch.  On June 1st not only will we be releasing the fifth issue of the magazine, but it will also be the magazine's first birthday! So with a new year is going to come a new start. Have no fea...

How the flip flippity flippin heck are we in March  already? 2016 is going crazily fast!  The start of the month has been full of positivity and highs for me today and I really wanted to share these with you- especially when lots of them are thanks  to you guys! I feel very happy and motivated today and it's a great feeling that I really want to hold on to- so hopefully I will be able to keep coming back to this blog post and re reading all of the happiness within it on any days in the future where I'm feeling a bit worse for wear. So. Let's crack on! High point number one: Issue 4 of my magazine launched today!  The cover star for this issue is the gorgeous Jemma, of Dorkface Blog and the founder of The Girl Gang. To be honest, the only part I was happy with in this issue was Jemma's interview. Her cover was gorgeous and her pages were bright, colourful and inspiring. I wasn't too happy with the rest of the magazine- a lot of writers dropped out of ...

I thought I'd use today's blog post as a bit of shameless self promotion- I hope you don't mind, it may be a little dull in comparison to some of my previous posts! So, some of you may or may not know that I run my own magazine, Love from... magazine. I don't exactly make money from this, it's not a huge magazine but I am immensely proud of it! I have a team of writers, it is distributed across the UK and the USA, we stepped things up and made it available in digital format as well as in print format and now, we have a website/blog/YouTube launching! When? Tomorrow! That's right! On March 1st, not only are we launching Issue 4 of the mag, Love from...Dorkface (aka the lovely Jemma who runs Dorkface Blog and founded the Girl Gang) but we are also launching our website, blog and YouTube! I'd really love it if you all headed over to the Twitter account @lovefrommag tomorrow and checked for updates and joined in with the launch! Raising the pro...

My, how you've grown! To be honest, I can't believe I've only been doing this for a year...and at the same time, I can't believe it's been one whole year already! Blogging has quite literally changed my life, and helped to shape the person that I am today. Nothing I have done over the last year would have happened without my blog. So yes, now is my time to brag about the last year of my life, brag about my success via my blog but most importantly of all, be appreciative  of every single person who has helped me get to where I am today- this is a bragging post and a thank you post too! July 31st 2014- The birth of Love from, Florence Grace.  My first ever blog post is so cringy, and quite different from the posts I do now...here you go. Go on. Read and laugh here ! August 2014. - I got into the swing of blogging. August 2014 had my most blog posts to date, with a whopping 22 blog posts in one month! - I discovered a few bloggers via twitter- the two first ...