Roy Reiman
| Roy J. Reiman | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 16, 1934 |
Roy J. Reiman (born May 16, 1934) is the founder of Reiman Publications based in Greendale, Wisconsin, which is best known for its country-oriented magazines, books, and other home products. Roy Reiman is credited with building the country’s largest, private, subscription-based publishing company. In 2003, it was reported that one out of every eight households in the United States subscribed to a Reiman magazine. Roy Reiman was named publisher of the year in 1991 by Magazine Weekly and Wisconsin’s Master Entrepreneur in 1992. Reiman Publications, now affiliated with the Reader's Digest Corporation, currently publishes thirteen national consumer magazines, including Taste of Home, the most popular cooking magazine worldwide.
Roy Reiman was born May 16, 1934, and grew up on a farm near Auburn, Iowa. He graduated from Auburn High School in 1952. He worked in a creamery to pay for his college tuition. Reiman graduated from Iowa State University in 1957 with a degree in agricultural journalism. His first publishing job was for the farming journal Capper’s Farmer, where he became managing editor at the age of 23. This magazine went out of business after John Deere pulled its advertising and other companies followed suit. Reiman then worked for three more years at Agricultural Publishers in Milwaukee, which allowed him to save money.
His first magazine, Pepperette, a magazine aimed at teenaged cheerleaders, band, and pep-squad members, failed after only two issues. Reiman did have some success with the publication of Farm Building News. He officially started Reiman Publications in 1965 in the basement of his Hales Corners, Wisconsin home.
In the 1970s, Reiman noticed that traditional farm magazines were eliminating their women’s sections. According to Reiman “I wondered what was going to happen to all those women like my mother, who were the ones who really read those magazines. I figured they still wanted to read something.” This led to the birth of Farm Wife News. For the initial test issue, Reiman created a 16-page magazine with articles on everything from recipes to gardening tips. He made 40,000 copies of the issue and mailed them to farm families at a cost of $20,000. 16,000 of the readers sent back payments for a year’s subscription. Eventually, after sending more promotional copies to additional farm families, Reiman had an initial subscription base of over 80,000.
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