One of our goals with the launch of Farmville the Magazine was to bring a smile to the faces of its readers.

With your overwhelming response to the magazine’s debut issue, you’ve brought one to ours.

I’ve enjoyed seeing my staff, a talented, hard-working team of professionals who don’t always get the credit they deserve from the boss, beam with pride over every congratulatory note or email, comment on the streets, and request for additional copies. And there has been lots of that feedback.

Concepts are easy. I’ve envisioned a high-quality lifestyle magazine from the day I first stepped foot in Farmville more than a year ago and became instantly hooked by this community and its people. Executing a good concept is the hard part. My staff did the executing. 

We printed and distributed 3,000 copies of the debut issue last month. At the rate you gobbled them up when they hit the streets, we could have printed 10,000 and not met reader demand. We’re blown away by that response. So, too, are the magazine’s advertisers, who took a leap of faith with us, investing in an untested, unproven product. It is their support that made our vision reality.

Farmville the Magazine is distributed free at some 50 locations throughout the readership area: restaurants, retail shops, grocery stores, hotels and professional offices. If you missed the debut edition, a digital replica is available for your reading pleasure at www.FarmvilletheMag.com.

Some have been confused by the opportunity to subscribe to a free magazine. To clarify the system, for those willing to pay for the convenience, we are happy to mail the magazine to your home as soon as it is published, eight times a year, for $30 annually. If you’d rather pick it up free at one of our distribution points, that’s fine, too.

Look for the September issue in less than three weeks.

Steve Stewart is publisher of The Farmville Herald. His e-mail address is steve.stewart@farmvilleherald.com.