Living At Home + Holly Magazine in English and German

February 22, 2019 Holly Becker

Today is a super special day because I am officially announcing my new decor and lifestyle magazine, powered by Living At Home (and Sinja Schütte, Editor in Chief) in Germany, called LIVING AT HOME + HOLLY! (which most people are just calling HOLLY magazine over here, which makes me happy!).

The DEBUT print issue with over 165 pages was released on January 24th in German-speaking Europe and in select international newsstands, with 100,000 (ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND!!!) copies in circulation, so this was no DIY or self-publishing effort - the entire project was backed by Living At Home magazine and I’m so honored to have this amazing second platform to show people, stories and to share the experiences I have in this amazing design industry in which I’ve been a part actively now for 13 years — only in a fresh, new way! Also, a magazine gives me a team of amazingly talented and cool people, and the financial backing to produce stories in other cities and hire creative people to work with me to produce fantastic content, and also to reach an even broader market than I already do online and through my books. There is so much opportunity with a magazine on this scale, I am ready to go forth and do my best and to show the best - to inspire and make people happy, to give you a good feeling about your home, and to give you ideas that you can use to create a space that you feel great to go home to at night.

The magazine will have my LITTLE BLACK BOOK with its pages spread throughout each issue. These pages contain personal notes and things I find and the people I am inspired by that I want you to know about, too.

I was thinking recently, how many digital influencers in Europe (or in the rest of the world) have their own paper magazine backed by a publishing house? It’s an entirely new experience for all of us! But it’s something I had to do when I was approached because it felt RIGHT. And so far, from the response I’ve received, readers are happy with it and find the text inspiring, down-to-earth, inspirational and warm - exactly as I hoped. I want people to see me for who I am - but also, to see me as a friend, a mama, a sister, a blogger - someone who can relate to them but also who is a relatable woman. I’m not a super model or a super celebrity, I’m Holly, and I’m proud to represent this new batch of women who are successful but in a non-Kardashian way - who are real women with real issues and problems and families - and who have budgets, bad days and don’t always have the perfect life. But we are still strong, successful and inspiring because we stick to our goals, reach them, fail and succeed, rise and fall, but most of all - we are consistent and just keep going. We are the REAL DEAL. I am here to represent THOSE women (and men).

I wondered if print would inspire me the same as digital and it really does - it feels very special to hold stories in my hand and to be able to have something tangible to give to others, to read on the train where the wifi is always horrible, to share with my mother who doesn’t read on a tablet, and to take apart for my many mood boards. I also see firsthand that many people are sick and tired of always consuming content digitally. We need a good balance, a good mix. I personally like giving my eyes a break and to take a magazine or a good book to bed at night instead of my iPhone. I find I sleep better without my iPhone in bed but, I also read better when I read magazines and books. When I read online, it’s a different experience - I scan. I was reading a book to my son the other night and noticed a big improvement in how fluent I read in German and in English since he was born - because I had to shift from digital content to books when I had a baby. You can’t read a baby books on a tablet! I remember back then, I struggled with some words and made a lot of errors. Now, I read great because I read books constantly again.

And I went back to reading magazines now too. I stopped buying MilK, Kinfolk, and the others that I once loved because I was a victim of, “I get everything for free online and I’m already got enough to read! I’m consumed!”… But now that I cut back on my screen time in order to reduce headaches and eye strain, I notice that I’m reading magazines again and LEARNING more and also, faster! I stay with articles now, I don’t scan them and click on to the next thing. I also don’t feel so stressed - on my phone I’m on Instagram, Whatsapp and Messanger, and on my Yahoo mail simultaneously at times… this is super draining and stressing me out because I cannot focus on one thing and enjoy it.

With a magazine, I find focus again, comfort, and I’m learning and my vocabulary is expanding in both German and English. So why not run a magazine! The best of both worlds!

I can’t have a magazine without spotlighting a favorite creative friend of mine. This month, it’s a fantastic Finnish photographer and floral designer. You have to get the issue to learn more!

I believe good magazines and books will always have a chance, and can definitely survive into the future - but they need to provide something of value or else getting free things online will always be the first choice. That is why, for the magazine, we create stories only for the issue that aren’t found in other magazines or online - so you really get what you paid for - exclusive, never-seen-before, content.

A column all about strong women in each issue, who have done great things, like my friend shown here in the debut issue- Jennifer Reaves, A German-American who is the CEO of BLICKFANG.

There is so much that I want to tell you about the magazine - WHY, HOW, and so many of the stories behind it… That is took us a year to work on (very secretly) so ALL of 2018 I was working on issue one - from January until a few days before Christmas! But I will tell you details in another blog post, most likely next week…

Home Stories? Of course! We send in our photographers to shoot them though, so they are not bought in from other magazines or something shot and seen already on Pinterest. We try to make each story unique with interesting home owners, and teach something to our readers about ways to make their style your own. We want you to learn from our home stories, not just OOOH and AHHH.

I can’t wait to see what you think! Please share it with everyone and email me with story ideas, feedback, things you loved, things you would like to see in the next issue (coming out in September 2019), etc.

Each issue will feature an in-depth column about a current trend in decor, detailing roots and details about the trend - for this issue, we've dug deep into JAPANDI - the how, the why, the what.

There is so much that I want to tell you about the magazine - WHY, HOW, and so many of the stories behind it… That it took us a year to work on (very secretly) so ALL of 2018 I was working on issue one - from January until a few days before Christmas! But I will tell you details in another blog post, most likely next week…

In each issue, I will have my own column where you will meet a client of mine and I’ll show you how I “solved” their problem. For the first issue, we helped a single career woman find her style at home.

So… those are some spreads from the magazine. I hope that you will find it interesting and inspirational!

Buy a hard copy of the magazine HERE

or

DOWNLOAD a digital copy in GERMAN or ENGLISH here to read it instantly.

Also, if you share the magazine on Instagram, please use hashtag #livingathomeXholly so I can share it on my Instagram Stories!

Love,

HOLLY

(Photographs: Holly Becker)