Episode #99 Where Women Create with Jo Packham
On today’s episode, Sharri Harmel speaks with Jo Packham, the founder and editor of Women Create, a series of magazines that highlights creative women. Jo is a lifetime entrepreneur and absolutely one of the most amazing idea generators. Her journey has several turns along the way but that doesn’t stop her. She shares such good wisdom that is inspiring and lessons on creating a business you believe in while also bringing on others to create community alongside her. Tune in to hear Jo’s incredible story!
Jo Packham’s website, www.womencreate.com
Jo Packham on Facebook, www.facebook.com/wherewomencreate
Jo Packham on Instagram, www.instagram.com/wherewomencreate
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Episode #99 Where Women Create with Jo Packham
Sharri Harmel: Welcome to the episode number 99 of the Extraordinary Women podcast. I’m your host, Sharri Harmel and today I have the great pleasure of talking with Jo Packham, the founder and editor of Women Create, a series of magazines. Incredible. Jo’s a lifelong entrepreneur and absolutely one of the most amazing idea generators I have ever met, and she shares that she gets her ideas everywhere and anywhere. And sometimes she even surprises herself. I’m in awe of how she keeps charging forward and she just keeps creating and recreating. I learned so much from this conversation. It was truly a mindset shift for myself, and I hope you too. Jo, as I said, is one of the most idea to doing kind of people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. In addition, she’s a collaborator and a friend developer, both which have been great contributors to her lifelong success. In just one hour with Jo, I was brainstorming around my very own potential business ideas and pivots, and I hope you will too. And now let’s jump right into this conversation.
Sharri Harmel: Hi, Jo. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome.
Jo Packham: oh my gosh. It is such an honor to be on your podcast. I, you know, I’m always so surprised when somebody asks. I just don’t think I know as much as all of you, so thank you.
Sharri Harmel: Thank you. I would disagree with that. Totally disagree with that. When I look at here, here I have on my desk because I’m a subscriber.
Sharri Harmel: I’m one of those leadership people. I have all your magazines and we’re gonna talk about that, but you do you, you have the most interesting background, Jo, truly you really do. And I want you to go back. If you can go back to the beginning, you know, did you grow up in Ogden, Utah? Have you lived in Ogden, Utah, your entire life?
Jo Packham: I did grow up in Ogden. I was born and raised here. Oh my and in my heart, I’m a small-town home-grown girl. We did go to Boulder, Colorado for a year while my husband got his master’s degree. And then we went to Northern California for three years while he got his law degree. But other than that, you know, my roots are here.
Jo Packham: I only live about a mile and a half from where I was born.
Sharri Harmel: It’s just incredible to me to, it’s incredible. Not only am I a bit of a gypsy, but it’s also incredible that you are here, you are in what I would call a small town. I currently live in Boston, a much bigger city, but you had this vision, you know, and we’re gonna talk about that.
Sharri Harmel: That was far beyond Ogden. I mean, far beyond any small town in America, you know, a hundred thousand people or whatever, but let’s go back to the crafts and what I kind of call and please, excuse me, if this is politically incorrect, but kind of women’s crafts from way back. Were you always into this?
Jo Packham: Uh, never actually, my mother was quite crafty.
Jo Packham: She came from a very poor background, so she had to learn how to sew her own clothes and make her own furniture and do things like that. So she always did that. And so did my father, he didn’t know it at the time, but he was a wonderful woodworker. He even made me my second pair of skis. Oh, they were really crafty.
Jo Packham: And I think because I had my mother’s rebellious streak running through me from the very beginning, I decided I would never do that. But if I wanted something, I would buy it because that’s what rich people did, right? So it’s the way it all started is I ask people questions like that all the time.
Jo Packham: And it used to really bother me. I didn’t have an answer to the question. I am an idea girl. That’s what happens to me. And I don’t know where they come from. It’s like, I’ll just be driving down the street and I get this idea and like I’m off and running and it it’s unsettling for me and for everybody because everybody wants you to stay focused.
Jo Packham: And then on a track and I’m like, oh my hell, no, we don’t wanna do that. We wanna just go do this because it’ll combine everything and make us all bigger. And that’s the way I started in publishing was we were in California. My husband had just gotten his law degree. I had just had a baby. She was brand new. Scott, we lived in Sacramento, but Scott wanted to live in San Francisco, and I hated California. It was just too big for me. And I wanted to come home to family. And so I had this little baby in my arm. She was brand brand new, and we were driving home from San Francisco and it’s like midnight, we’re in the car, on the freeway. And I looked over at him and I said, I’m going home, and you can come, or you can stay. And he said why are you going home? And I said, I hate California. And I’m gonna open a retail store and sell craft supplies. Yeah. Out of the clear blue sky. And he looked at me like you are crazy. And I said, you know, it’s what I’m gonna do.
Jo Packham: You can make your own decisions. So I called my best friend who was an artist, an amazing artist, not a crafter, but an artist. And I ask her if she would like to open a retail store to sell craft and art supplies to the university. And she said, yes, I’m in. And so I packed my bags. Scott came with me; we got an apartment. I was home about a week and Linda, and I started working on apple arts and we sold all kinds of craft supplies to the university. And then counted cross stitch. We would go to the markets, you know, to the trade shows and we started seeing counted cross stitch just explode, Jenny Thompson and Gloria and Pat, Jenny had brought it over from Europe, Gloria and Pat had jumped on it and we’re doing these counted cross stitch books and they were everywhere, and they were selling like crazy.
Jo Packham: So I went home from the trade show and said to Linda, we need to start writing and printing counted cross stitch books and selling the supplies in the store. And she said, why do you wanna make your own books? And I said, because they’re all the same, you know, people are buying them like crazy. They all have these little designs. There’s nothing to do with them. I mean, you have 50 cross stitch pieces, and nobody knows what to do with it. So I said art books will have finishing instructions. We’ll teach people how to quilt. We’ll teach people how to sew. We’ll teach people. And then we’ll give ’em the cross-stitch designs.
Jo Packham: I grew up in Linda’s shadow. She was so good. And I’m a worker bee so it was the perfect place for me to be. I was very happy there. And so she said to me, I’ll never forget it. We were standing on each side of the cutting table, and she said to me, I don’t wanna do that. And then she said, you can’t do it without me. Wow. Yeah. Well, that’s not exactly true. So that led me on my publishing career and that was 44 years ago. And that’s how I started with counted cross ditch leaflet.
Sharri Harmel: You and I are not that different in age. And it’s shocking because this was a time period when women were really me included, really moving into fields that had been traditionally male dominated. And it wasn’t just, we didn’t make our clothes because that’s what we did when we didn’t have any money, but it was also a very women’s thing to. And we never wanted to talk about that, but somehow, even though you’re not craftsy, you connected to those people, those women.
Jo Packham: I like their personalities. I like the women themselves. They’re authentic. They’re A.D.D., they’re wired way too tight. They’re going in a million different directions. They’ve always got ideas. They’re never bored. You know, they’re up for anything. I like that personality. And I think it’s because I’m a little bit like that, you know, not to the extreme that some of them are, but my children think that I’m very extreme. I don’t fit in my family very well. My family’s all, you know, they’re lawyers and, you know, they run companies and they’re very organized and very on track. And I actually think I was adopted at the hospital. I don’t think I’m their real mother. I have absolutely nothing in common with anybody and we drive each other nuts.
Jo Packham: So in that art community, it was, I felt secure and safe and appreciated, and people respect your ideas. They’re like, yeah, let’s do that. Why not? And I could never do it alone, which is why I brought everybody in. It’s why I built the community that I did because I can’t do it alone. And you can’t do it alone, but five of us together can do it. And so that was always my business model.
Sharri Harmel: But talk more about that because so many of the women that I work with are trying to, to get to that next level, trying to create something that maybe they absolutely love doing at home. They love doing on the side and now they wanna create a business about around it. But so much, and I have to say, even of myself, that so many feels isolating. How did you create and still create those kinds of collaborations and community? Has it just come natural to you?
Jo Packham: I don’t know, like I said, it’s just like, I was in the shower this morning, getting ready for this. And I had this brilliant idea and I had to get out of the shower, dripping wet and go type it up before I forgot it. But I am not a business person. I tried that with the cross-ditch books. I printed them myself. I distributed them myself. I did everything and I loved the design part and the trade shows and the women. And I hated the shipping and the accounting and the logistics of it all. And so we did that for 10 years and then the bottom fell out of the market, and I decided I would never do that again. I would always partner with a printing company or a publisher so that I could do the creative side. But when we started to do the books, what I knew was what we decided to do four, because everything’s a collaboration. So we decided, I found a new partner, we, which is a story in and of itself.
Jo Packham: Yeah. Yeah. I decided, huh? Share. Oh, with the story. Yeah. Okay. So Linda said, Linda said you can’t do it without me. So our store was in this office building and in this office, building was my very one of my really good friends who sold real estate. A man, he was my husband’s really good friend and he had come to me about three weeks before and he said, Jo, my best friend and his wife are moving back from San Francisco to Ogden. And she used to design for sunset needle work, and she doesn’t have any friends. Will you be her friends? Oh, wow. And I said no. And he said, wait, and I said Chip, I can’t, I’ve got this store, I’ve got this baby. You know, I’m in over my head. Plus Scott didn’t really want me to work. That wasn’t his idea of, you know, he wanted me, he was very generous. He wanted me to play bridge and golf and go with the ladies. And I was like, I can’t do that. You know? So I said to Chip, I’m not being mean. I just don’t have the time.
Jo Packham: So when Linda called me or when Linda told me that I called Chip and I said, Chip, give me your friend’s wife’s name and number. I’m gonna call her. And he said OKAY, so her name was Teresa Beasley. And so I called her, and I said, you know, I’m Chip’s friend. And he told me about you, and I have this really good idea and I think you and I would make great partners. Will you partner with. Or will you, will you work with me? And she said, well, come out to my house and we’ll talk about it. So Scott and I drove out there and you have to realize they’d only been in town for like three or four weeks. We walked into their house; they had no furniture. They had orange crates on the floor. We sat in bean bag chairs. I mean, we ate on paper plates. It was ridiculous. And so we were sitting on opposite sides of the living room and I’m sure it wasn’t, but in my mind, it seemed like an enormous living room, and we were each in a bean bag chair with this orange crate in the middle.
Jo Packham: Right. Okay. And so she said to me, what’s your idea? So I tell her about the cross-stitch books and including the instructions. And I said, but I’m not an artist and I can’t, and she had nothing on her walls, no artwork, no pictures. I could see nothing of her personality, but you didn’t know. I knew nothing about her. Okay, I knew less about her than I know about you. Cause I can read about you, and I couldn’t read about her in those days. So she said, what’s your idea? So I said, I’m gonna start this publishing company and I’m gonna do cross stitch books. And I tell her the history and I said, will you come to work for me and be the artist on the books?
Jo Packham: And she said, no. I’m like, no, I mean, she didn’t have a job and I knew that she was looking for a job and I said, why? No. And she said, I won’t come to work for you, but I’ll come to work with you. 50/50. And it was like someone held up cue cards in the audience. My husband was a lawyer and he’s still a lawyer. He’s just not my husband anymore. Okay. And her husband is an accountant and he’s not her husband anymore but they both stood up with like these cue cards and said, we absolutely forbid it. And so she and I walked across what seemed like this enormous living room, right. And shook hands and went into business.
Jo Packham: So when we started talking about it, what I knew from the cross-stitch designs on the market, that if Jenny Thompson was designing cross stitch designs, all of her cross-stitch designs look alike. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t like Jenny Thompson or you have six, you don’t want anymore. And the same with Gloria and Pat. And so I said to her you design. We needed to design for booklets for it to be economically feasible on the press. And I said you design three of them and I’m gonna go get DD Ogden, who is the number one needle point designer at the time and convert her needle point designs to counted cross stitch because she has an audience, we know she’s successful.
Jo Packham: And we’ll have a built-in audience. So I called her on the phone, told her my idea. She said, yeah, I’m all in. I’ll pick my favorite design, send them to you, and you can do ’em in counted cross stitch. So I had, I had $10,000 that I could borrow on my life insurance policy and Teresa didn’t have any money. And she said, I don’t have any money to do this. And Rocky thinks it’s a terrible idea and won’t give me any. And I heard by the grapevine that Glory and Pat are trying to buy designs because they’re selling so many books. They can’t design enough to get ’em designed. And I said, call ’em up, tell ’em who you are. Give them your credentials and offer to design 10 designs for ’em at $500 a piece no, 20 designs of $500. She was too scared, so I called them up and pretended like I was her and they said we don’t pay more than $200. And I said, well, that’s okay. I will go to Jenny Thompson because I’ve got these credentials and my time’s worth $500 of design. And so they said, okay, and that’s how she got her seed money to start the company. Wow. And we laughed about it for 10 years, because then she was their main competitor. And so we went to the printer, and I learned how to graph, you know, I learned how to stitch, we, we hired stitchers. We didn’t hire ’em. I went to all my friends who were crafty and said, if you guys will cross stitch these for me, one, I’ll give you, you I’ll buy the materials and you can keep the designs. Okay. And two, when we publish the books, you can have free books for as long as you want. Okay. So they all did. and then we went to the printer, and he was a young kid who’d just taken over his dad’s business.
Jo Packham: And I said, you know we don’t have any money. And I said, but if you’ll print these for us, I gave him all the statistics from the industry and how many books we’re selling. I said, if you print these for us for free this first round, I will give you. 20% royalty on everything we sell. And so he said, okay, so that’s how we started printing. And he printed hundreds of thousands of books for us because we were in the right place at the right time with the right idea. And I mean, I would, I love to take credit for it. Of course I would, but it’s all of the people who, the community that, that helped, you know, that stitched and printed and graphed and had faith in us.
Jo Packham: And I went to the first trade show with $50 in our pocket. Wow. Yeah. We were young, I mean, we were young. It was 44 years ago. Yeah. So it was like, what’s the worst that can happen. Right. You know? My mom will send me money to come home.
Sharri Harmel: Well, it wasn’t just, I wanna say it wasn’t just the right place at the right time because you also asked the right questions.
Jo Packham: I do. I do my homework.
Sharri Harmel: You push it’s like, no, you know? Okay. So you’re too scared to call, I’ll call, and they say $200, and you say, okay, I’ll go someplace else because I think I’m worth $500 or whatever it is. The printer says, where’s your money and you say, I don’t have any, you know, so let’s work this out.
Sharri Harmel: So there’s this combination and I think that’s really important for women to hear that there’s a little bit of that hood spa. Along with, you know, the ideas and also you say you’re not a businesswoman. You are, you you’re like the greatest CEO out there who always has ideas. That’s what a CEO is supposed to have been ideas are not bookkeepers. Which maybe what’s wrong with the business world right now?
Jo Packham: probably
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. That could be it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you did the cross stitching the cross stitching books. You said you did for about 10 years, is that correct? 10 years. And then you said the bottom fell out. What happens?
Jo Packham: Well, we were literally selling hundreds of thousands of cross stitch books. We had a huge warehouse with forklifts, and I mean, we would go to market and the orders would be like 50 to 150,000 for these $2 and 50 cent cross stitch books. It was crazy. And then it was like one day we woke up and somebody closed the door, and it was. And the seriously powers that he in the industry came out with reports afterwards that said several things happened.
Jo Packham: One cross stitch was the first doable, really easy, really fun. Craft for women to do since macrame. And it was really inexpensive. And they could do it quickly wherever they were. So they bought thousands of designs. I mean, if they did a design a day, they would die before they did all their designs.
Jo Packham: So they quit buying cross stitch books. And then the physical fitness craze hit and, and mothers went back to work, and it all happened within a short period of time. It always takes a minute for it to catch up to the industry. But in 30 days, our sales fell something like 85% and we were at market. And in those days, JC Penney’s, Sears, all the big stores were there. Art and stuff had just opened up all their craft departments so of course they were selling all of our crusty books. Well, they announced at market, I was there the day, JC Penney and Sears announced at market. They were told their buyers to go home because they were closing their craft departments.
Jo Packham: Well that was hundreds of thousands of dollars for all of us. Rocky, our accountant walks in and says your sales have fallen. I think it was 85% in 30 days. And you have a warehouse full of people and magazines, and we’re a very conservative company. So we weren’t, it wasn’t like, okay, you can’t pay the rent tomorrow, but you need to think about three months down the road. Right. And all this inventory rate. And so several things happened in the middle. Made it even worse, but then I’m kind of, I’ve, I’ve always been kind of a connector. And so when we were at the trade shows, I got to be really good friends with all the publishers, not just to connect with them, but because I so admired what they did, Cecilia Toth was the editor in chief of Meredith.
Jo Packham: And to know her was like, wow. And so, we were all friends, and we’d go to dinner together and stuff. So when the bottom fell, I said to Teresa I’m gonna go, I’m gonna call Cecilia. So I call Cecilia. This is where inexperience, when you don’t know what you don’t know, you think, you know everything.
Jo Packham: Yeah. It’s a good thing. So I call sometimes not so good, but this particular instance it worked. So I called Cecilia and I said, Cecilia, I wanna meet with the president of. and she just started laughing and she goes Jo, nobody meets with the president of Meredith. And I said, well, I have a really good idea. If I give it to you, can you make the decision or do you have to go to him? And she says, I have to go to him. And I said, then I wanna go to him because it’s my idea. And I can present it better than anyone. She said it’s impossible. I said, just think about it and work on it. It’s really a good idea. It’ll make you a hero.
Jo Packham: So about, I don’t know, a month or two later, she calls me, and she goes, okay, the president of Meredith is gonna be in New York, cuz they’re headquartered in Des Moines and he’s gonna be in the New York offices. And he said, you could have 20 minutes. And I’m like, okay. So I fly to New York. So I am super conservative. So I have on this little linen suit and my little flat shoes, and I go to this big office building, the Meredith office building in New York and they tell me to go to the top floor and I open the door. There was a really long conference table. And at the end of the conference table, there was sitting a man and then there was Cecilia and then there were like three or four men on each side.
Jo Packham: I was so scared. I said, would you guys excuse me for just one minute and went in the bathroom and just threw my guts up. I was just sick to my stomach. So I go back in and introduce myself, thank him for meeting with me. I say I have a really good idea. I tell him my credentials. I tell him what happened in those days.
Jo Packham: The big publishing companies, if they published books, craft books, they couldn’t do trends because it took ’em too long to produce ’em. Took ’em like two, two and a half years to produce a book. So if I were a crocheter, I would call and say, I have these CRO shade items, and I would take ’em to their offices and I would drop ’em on an editor’s desk. They would decide, and then they would take over, they would write the instructions, do the photography, go through the process, get ’em printed. And you were out of the equation except once in a while, they’d ask you a question. So I said, I can do what you do. I can do it in less than six months for half the price.
Jo Packham: And you guys can do craft trends. And he is like, no. And I said, why? No, it’s a great idea. And he goes, I said, no. And I said, well, why no, you have to tell me why you said no. And he said, because that’s not the way we do it. And I said, It’s the way you should do it because it’ll make you a lot more money.
Jo Packham: And he said, I said, no. And he was really a nice guy, but he was really, really firm. I mean, he wasn’t mean with me. He wasn’t like, and I said, okay, we’ll do this. I said, give me a chance. And I had laid my entire team off. I said, give me a chance. I’ll produce any title you want in four months. Give it to you for free.
Jo Packham: Standard royalty was 5%. I said, you, you list the number of copies that it has to sell to be a success, to be considered a success. After that, I get three times the royalty and a three-year contract.
Sharri Harmel: You make this up right as you’re standing there?
Jo Packham: I was sitting in a chair and my hands were shaking so bad that I couldn’t hold a pen. I mean, I was afraid to write anything down, but that’s what I mean about, I don’t know where that stuff comes from. I mean, I do my homework and I always ask a million questions like what’s working for you and how are you doing it? And why are you doing it? Yada, yada yada. And I think it just all sinks in.
Jo Packham: So he laughed. I mean, he laughed right out loud, and he said, I don’t think so. And I said, well, at least you’ve gone from no to, I don’t think so. And, and I said, you have nothing to lose. You choose the subject, you know, you’re gonna get up for free except for printing. And he goes, okay.
Jo Packham: And I said, what’s the subject? And he said, counted cross stitch. And I’m like, oh my God, the bottom just fell out of that market. Didn’t you hear me? He said, I don’t think it’s fallen out of our market. I want 365 counted cross stitch designs one for every day of the year. And I’m like, oh, okay. 365 designs in less than four months. Sure. We can do that. Stitched and photographed and ready to go graft and everything. So I said, yes, shook his hand, walked out the door, the lawyers did the contracts. I called my entire team and said, this is what we’re gonna do. Will you guys help? They said, absolutely. And we sold well over a half a million copies.
Jo Packham: And that set me off in my publishing career. And that was 34 years ago.
Sharri Harmel: Incredible. It’s just, but the relentlessness, not only that, the idea, okay. This, you know, the relentlessness, I dunno how else to say it when he says no, no, I mean, most of us would’ve been out the door at that point. But you’re like, no, it’s getting better you know, I don’t think so. Where does this come from?
Jo Packham: Well, you know, what I believe is that what we all believe what the world believes is that creatives are problem solvers, right? I mean, it’s what creatives do. If you wanna find a way to paint with a new medium, you solve the problem and find out how to do it.
Jo Packham: I think my pro my creative skills in problem solving come a little bit on how we can do it on the business end, including more people for less money. And I always had from a small child. If I wanted to learn how to ski or I wanted a new dress, I had to figure out how we could get it done without costing my family any money because we didn’t have it.
Jo Packham: So I wasn’t just gonna give up. My mother never gave up. My mother was raised in a, literally in a blue tar paper shack on a dam without running water and heat until she was a senior in high. She found a way to graduate from high school. She found a way to get a job. We didn’t have a big house. It was a little tiny, tracked house, but to her it was a mansion. And she always made us feel like that. She always made us feel like we were so lucky, and she was such a beautiful seamstress. And you know, all my friends always had store bought clothes and everything. We had a big store that was like Nordstrom’s. It was called L R Samuel. I’m sure we didn’t do it once a week, but I remember it being once a week, but once a week, my mother and I would, or however often we did, we’d go down to Keely’s, which was the local burger place and have a hamburger. And then we’d go over to LR Samuels, and I could try on clothes as long as I wanted. And then I would pick my favorite outfit and she would go home. And how she did it to this day I do not know. She found the material and she made it for me from memory. My mother was a fabulous seamstress, and she could look at something and remember it and create it. And so I grew up with that. It’s like, you know, if you really want something, not only do you have to work hard for it, but you have to find a solution to get yourself there. Hopefully, I have her genes, right. And her and my dad both worked hard, and I got those genes and I watched them my whole life.
Sharri Harmel: There’s so many lessons in all of that, and I find it very interesting that you don’t describe yourself as you know, a crafter so to speak, but yet you grew up with a woman who was a fantastic seamstress and now you have an Army of women I wanna call it, who are fantastic at all of their different things they do. And you’re still the, the Matron.
Jo Packham: Yeah. You could call me that the drill Sergeant, I think is what some of them refer to me as.
Sharri Harmel: Oh, so you’re tough? Are you tough?
Jo Packham: I am tough. And it’s, you know why? It’s because I feel like I am the most compassionate understanding non-biased person. I know I have no biases except for people who don’t work hard and don’t use their potential. I have no patience for that. And so I do get, I am tough because like, when I’m working with a team and we have somebody new on the team and I know what she can do, I can tell instantly what she can do. And when she doesn’t do a good job at it, or she gets in a hurry, or she says to me, I can’t do that. Then I’m you know what you can do that, and you’re gonna do that. That’s part of your job. And I don’t say please and thank you and, you know, call her up in the middle of it. I do call and say, you know, if you need help, I can help you do things or find the right resources and if you can’t do it, find a friend who knows how to do it and do it together and learn how to do that.
Jo Packham: But I will not take no for an answer. And, and I’m not very popular in some circles because of it. Because it’s like, you know, and I think that’s why when I got before in our first life, I owned everything. I paid for everything. I owned everything. Now I don’t do that. I mean, I own the magazines, but it’s all of us. I mean, I get a royalty, you know, they get the PR I work really hard for ’em. I make it as beautiful as it can possibly be. You know, so, and I do not make a lot of money. I mean, independent publishers, I actually could make twice my salary. If I went to work at Costco and I would have you know, paid vacation and benefits.
Sharri Harmel: So did you partner because somewhere along the way you started what women create and was that this relationship with Meredith publishing still going on or not?
Jo Packham: No, that kind of came to a close, you know, everything has. One thing that I think everybody needs to learn is that everything has a life cycle. It may come back, but, but don’t expect to do what you’re doing forever because it’s not gonna happen. Things gain in popularity and if you don’t change with what’s happening and large publishers with hardcore craft books, what happened to me was that I went from Meredith to Sterling publishing Lincoln BM, who was one of the most brilliant men I have ever known was the private owner of Sterling publishing. And he courted me for the three years. I worked for Meredith and Ox Morehouse. I worked for Ox Morehouse, and he courted me to come and package for Sterling. I had the dream job for 17 years. He was wonderful to work with. He trusted me 100%. So I would fly to New York every three months. And I would present sometimes every month, sometimes every three months, depending on the season. But I would make my presentation of books I wanted to produce. And he would say to me, you can produce five. You can produce 50. I don’t care if you just tell me what you want. So it was like having my own company. He never said no to me. And yet he paid all the bills and we made, I put lots and lots and lots of artist kids through college. Or he did, we did by the books because we could easily sell a million titles of a book in those days. It was nothing. I mean, we never went to press. We didn’t even go to press. If we hadn’t pre-sold 50,000 titles. Now they go to press if they sell 3000. Wow. I mean, the numbers were astronomical.
Sharri Harmel: What time period is this?
Jo Packham: Well, so that was 17, 18 years ago. So early two, well, seven, it ended about 18 years ago. So the 17 years before that. Okay. And then what happened was life was great and everything was really good. And Lincoln called me one morning. I shall never forget it. And he said, I wanted to tell you this before you read it in the New York times. I sold Sterling and I said, you sold me too, right, with you? And he said no. Oh. And I was on my own. The couple of things that happened after that took me out again. I hit the ground again with absolutely nothing, but I’m conservative enough that I could get everything paid, everything taken care of, liquidate, everything I had.
Jo Packham: I went and had dinner with my dad every single night for two years until I got my feet back on the ground. And then, got the idea. It took about a year. I mean, I was like, oh my hell. I’m, you know, I’m 50 now or older and what, what am I gonna do? Actually, I was 60. And so I got the idea to contact Staton and company and make a proposal to them and Kelly and I, it’s a really funny story. Kelly and I shook cans at the end of lunch and started were women.
Sharri Harmel: Wow. So the first one was Where Women Create?
Jo Packham: It was actually the last book that I published for Sterling. And so it was a hardbound book, and it was doing crazy sales, I mean, crazy. And then he called me up and it was an imprint that I kept when Sterling, there was a whole series of things that happened and Sterling took all of my imprints, but that one, I said, I was in this boardroom with all these lawyers and everybody, and I was a mess and I had my lawyer with me and I had lost everything.
Jo Packham: I mean, my dad was putting gas in my car and. They said we own all your imprints. And I said, I mean, here I am with my lawyer. And I stamped my little foot in my linen suit. And I say, I’m keeping where women create, I’m going to the mat. And they’ll look at me like are flipping nuts. It’s just the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Jo Packham: I’m not giving it up. And the lawyer on the other side for Sterling said, give her where women create. And the president of the time said, and the lawyers said we’re giving her where women create, because they had like 129 imprints. And so we signed the paperwork, and he gave it to me. And then, because it was such a great selling book, I got the idea of having stamping and put it in a magazine.
Jo Packham: So I flew to California to present it to Kelly. And that started that. And I started that eight, I think it’s been, we started like 18 years ago. I’m not very good with dates. We started like 17 or 18 years ago. It took us a year to get up to, you know, to get magazines produced. And I’ve been doing that ever since.
Sharri Harmel: So talk about the magazine industry, cuz as you know, I’m in that same industry and sometimes I’m right at the beginning though. So I’m still at the point where I lay in bed at night and think what in the world did, I think about and where is this going? And you know, where’s the crystal ball and you have all the answers my dear. So I wanna know. I mean, cause the magazine industry 20 years ago, not even 20, Oh my Lord, probably five years ago was different than it is today. Talk about, I mean it was fantastic. I’m assuming in the beginning, wasn’t it?
Jo Packham: Oh, the numbers, the numbers were enormous, and Colleen is a genius. She’s quite a bit younger than I am, a woman who did crafts, who had the idea of creating 16.95, 14.95, 16.95 magazines and selling them on newsstands instead of on the shelves, like paper bound books. And she, she was the first and she fought for it like crazy. And she proved that the niche would work. So she did all that groundwork. So when I went to work with her, she had like 16 magazines already.
Jo Packham: And so when we went to work as partners. She had all the shelf space, everything, and the numbers were crazy high. And. Everything went digital.
Sharri Harmel: Right, exactly. Have a magazine line also. So it was depressing for me because I like paper. I like, you know, you can’t, you can’t read a digital, I suppose you can, but it’s really hard to read a digital magazine. When you’re sitting on the sidelines, watching your daughter ride a horse, where I can sit and read a magazine, a paper magazine easily. So this was depressing, but it did go that direction is what you’re saying?
Jo Packham: Oh it did. And the unknown for everyone was terrifying. But at the time had a publisher who believed that when it all settled that people would read educational, informational magazines digitally, and they would read pretty magazines still in print. And because there would be so many fewer, you could charge more, as long as you kept the quality up, it had to be worth the price. But for them to see beautiful photography, we’re the only one. I started with everyone writing their own stories. So ours were very authentic. We don’t change the stories. I do correct your spelling, cuz I do think that’s important, but I leave, I talk in long run and sentences, and I don’t want some editor editing it out, making me sound like I speak perfect pros cuz I don’t. You know? And so our magazines were expensive. They were beautiful. They were authentic. Everybody could relate. And so we hit a dive for a minute, but it was just a minute. And then as soon as everything settled down, then, I mean, we are selling, we have the best sell through at Whole Foods ever. I mean, we are selling like crazy and it’s because we offer what isn’t out there anymore. People like artists and people who appreciate beautiful things want to read beautiful things.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. So, but you have both now that there’s a couple of things that you mentioned that I just wanna clarify. So you talked about the 1495 and the 6, 9, 6 95 or whatever you mean magazines that were more expensive?
Jo Packham: Because in those days, magazines were like $16.95. So ours were like books.
Sharri Harmel: Also you’re both really because you’re, in some ways you’re educational because, or inspirational, I guess I wanna say, but I don’t know where the line of education begins and ends and you know, and beautiful photography. So you’re really both. And now you are print and digital, aren’t you?
Jo Packham: I am. So what happened was after I split with stamping, I was with stamping for 13 years, and then we split, and I went to work with a publisher in Canada. Now Stampington. And the publisher I had in Canada are strictly print people.
Jo Packham: That’s what they do. And then, COVID hit. So I’m working with this publisher in Canada. Life is fabulous beyond belief, you know, huge numbers. We were doing about, oh, I would say the year before COVID hit, we were doing about 18 different magazines, issues, 18 issues in five different categories. And it just so happened that our spring issue shipped. There were three spring issues that shipped to all the bookstores, all the grocery stores, everything. COVID hit and everything closed down. I am pretty sure that most of those magazines are still in cartons in the warehouses. They never got put out. So we had no sales from March until October and yet my printer spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars getting those printed and shipped and paid for the shelf space and all those kinds of things. So COVID took him out of the publishing business. And he took me out and because I had everything wrapped up in there and when you work for a printer like that, you don’t get paid for a year and a half because of the way the monies come in. And so he had all my money, I hadn’t been paid for anything. And so I decided that if I was gonna try it one more time.
Sharri Harmel: the Phoenix rises again.
Jo Packham: Oh my help. It’s like my fam my kids look at me like you’re 70. And I said, yeah, I’m gonna try it just one more time. I gotta, I cannot go out on the bottom like this. I absolutely cannot. And so I partnered with Matador out of Boston, and I went with them for many, many reasons, but specifically, because they’re so strong on the internet on the web, and yet they were willing to print print because I believe now that you have to have both interesting. So what’s really interesting is that Matador has proven that the sales of the magazine are actually going up and you can get digital issues when you subscribe, you get a digital issue or the features are on the website and people do get ’em, but not in the numbers, they buy the print magazine. It’s just that they feel like it’s like that added bonus that pushes you over the edge. You know, it’s like, I really want digital, but I’m gonna subscribe.
Jo Packham: So I get both and then they really only read the magazine, but they have digital if they want it. It’s that kind of thing. I think from my perspective, my limited knowledge of the web, which is almost zero, but I do believe that anybody in publishing has to have it. They have to have both. And like with Martha Stewart, they just ceased her print magazine. She no longer is in print. They have so much money for the web that they’re really gonna blow it out. And she became so ad driven. And so informational recipes, how to instructions, those kinds of things, those are the kind of things you don’t mind reading on the internet. If she had a story, she only had two really beautiful pictures. I mean, it wasn’t like she had a 20-page spread of gorgeousness that everybody couldn’t get lost in. Right? No, no.
Sharri Harmel: You’re absolutely right.
Jo Packham: So she’s perfect, but magazines like Salvage and Uppercase and me and Quilt Folk, you know, we’re all really, really beautiful magazines that you wanna hold in your hand. And everybody’s doing pretty well.
Sharri Harmel: And I, but I think it’s bigger than that. I think there’s something beyond the beauty. Because, and I’m a reader, but I don’t necessarily wanna read long stories on my computer. Right. I really don’t. I have to, I don’t even write that way. I’ll write and print it out and then, you know, rip it apart in a coffee shop with the paper. So it’s important. I think on many aspects were how we think and how we process information, whether it’s for an enjoyment or for learning is multi modalities rather than just one, but you’ve also added now you do these interviews, you’ve got the podcast. So tell me why you came up with all this?
Jo Packham: Well, I cannot take credit for this. I am truly a behind the scenes gal. I didn’t put my name on anything I did for the first 20 years. I was bus in business. No one knew me and we would, one time we published under the Vanessa end collection and people would come up to me, a market, my pitcher wasn’t anywhere. I never told anybody who I was, and people would come up and say, you know, that’s in the cross-stitch book days, I met Vanessa Ann. She must be the most wonderful person to work for. She is so sweet and I’m like, yep. She is, I love working for her. But when I went to work for Stamping, I put my name on it and I put my picture on it because in those days, corporations were taking over everything and I wanted the readers to know that independent women could succeed on their own.
Jo Packham: Yeah. And so I had to make that known for the first time, but what was the question? I’ve lost the question. I forgot oh, podcast. So I don’t want anybody to know who I am. So when I went to work for Madavor, they’re putting together this business plan and they said, we’re gonna do podcasts and makers moments, and we’re gonna do all these things. And I’m like, not gonna do that. And they said, you are gonna do that. And I said, nope, not gonna do that because I don’t wanna be that person. I don’t wanna be that person. I wanna be the person behind the scenes. And you can tell I lost the argument and I guess, you know, I mean, I had to be convinced myself that the podcast does as much for the women as the magazines do. So it wasn’t about me, right? It’s still about all of you. And in my podcast, like with you, I let everybody else do the talking. You’re just the one that kind of asks the questions once in a while and moderates, but it really is all about them.
Jo Packham: So then the first two months, I could only ask my very dear friends because I was so scared. I have proven to myself that when I get really, really scared that my physical reaction is literally to throw up. And so in the middle of the podcast, I’d have to go throw up. So if you’re my really good friend, you’re like, yep, that’s Jo alright. We get it. If you’re a total stranger, you’re thinking, okay, this chick is so weird. There is no way that I wanna be part of that. So I’ve kind of gotten used to it now, and I’m a little more comfortable. It still takes me all morning to get prepared. I psych myself out so much.
Jo Packham: No, I can’t do anything else. I can’t get distracted. I have to concentrate. I have to be quiet. I have to do all my homework. Read about you, read about everything you do, read about all those things, and then I feel a little more secure.
Sharri Harmel: I think it’s fantastic though. Truly from the perspective that it encourages other people, it encourages women, and your podcast is really about paying it forward, which is kind of what you’ve done all along, which is to encourage the next generation or even honestly, you know, you said you’re 70, a 70 old woman. That you don’t necessarily just have to, you know, get your remote in your hand and join bridge. I don’t wanna join bridge at my age any more than I wanted to join a bridge group when I was 30. So what are we going to do? And maybe that’s the next question for you is what do you do with all this? What do you do with Jo as Jo ages?
Jo Packham: I don’t know, and my children are terrified. I do have to tell you a story. When I went to work for Matador, I was 71 when I signed my contract with Matador and the president of Matador said to me, we’ll do a 10-year contract and I just started laughing right out loud. He goes, what in the hell? I said, I will be 81 in 10 years. I think let’s start with five and we’ll see what happens there. You know, I honestly, I think I’m really, really involved in my community. I am the woman who does the art projects for the community. I built an E I, built the largest Christmas village in the Western U.S. And my horses for the 24th of July so I think when I retire, I think I’ll probably pick up a new project for the town and cuz my son owns a restaurant here and my daughter is the president of the convention and visitor’s bureau, so it’s a natural fit for the family.
Sharri Harmel: Perfect. It’s perfect. So last question. If you could share a dinner or tea or lunch with, say a few people alive or not, no longer alive living.
Jo Packham: I love this question.
Sharri Harmel: Who would you want at your table to break bread with so to speak?
Jo Packham: Well, I think one would have to be Michelle Obama because I think she is so strong ethically and personally, you know, I mean she put up with a lot and she did it with such dignity. I would like to know her. I of course, would like to meet Brene Brown because I think she is such a genius. Just to sit at dinner with her. I could learn more than I could learn in five years at college. There are several artists that I would sit down with, but with the art community, I just call ’em up and say, can I, will you be in my magazine? Can I come? Will you know, those kinds of things. But it would be a group of those you, I mean, the people that I admire, right. I actually believe more in the underdog than I do in the famous it’s why in the magazines. Of course, we feature famous people who have a million Facebook followers you’ll have to sell magazines. But the vast majority of my people are people that nobody’s ever heard of. And I think it’s because everybody should have the opportunity to tell their story.
Sharri Harmel: That’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. I think we would all like to be little flies on the wall when you have that dinner party.
Jo Packham: Oh, you’ll all be there. Right? How can we leave anybody out?
Sharri Harmel: I love that five-year plan. Let’s go with five years and think about where we’ll be in five years. So thank you. I so appreciate it. I really do from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Jo Packham: Yeah, it is always an honor.
Jo Packham: Thank you for having faith in me and for spreading the word about the magazines for these women that are featured on our pages. And like I said, anything I can ever do for you or your audience, I’m always here.
Sharri Harmel: Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah.
Sharri Harmel: Thank you everyone for joining us today. I know we went a little bit longer than usual, but Jo shared so many fabulous ideas and insights that I just didn’t want to cut this podcast short. Now, if you like this conversation, please press the like button subscribe and share this podcast to other extraordinary women like you, who you think might enjoy this conversation and join our community of extraordinary women. We might seem like a group of just average, regular gals but we are doing extraordinary things and that’s the key to creating a magical and purposeful life. So I hope you join us. Take good care. And as I say, in Paris, À bientôt.
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