Mark Simpson - Publisher of By The Dart magazine
How did a studious, south east London born and bred boy with a love of geography come to work at the top levels of British publishing and then end up founding By the Dart?
Mark Simpson was an academic young man and dreamed of using his love of geography to earn a living. But when he was studying “the prevailing wisdom in the mid 70s was you had to become a town planner and I definitely didn’t want to do that. I rather fancied becoming a Geologist but I don’t think North Sea oil had quite captured the headlines at that point - if I had I could have gone prospecting for oil!”
But he also had a talent for economics and Mark went on to study the subject at Bristol University - and upon leaving believes he missed another opportunity.
“Someone got me an interview with a merchant bank,” he said. “But I’d already secured a job as an Economist for the Society of British Motor Manufacturers - looking back I could have been retired by now if I’d gone to that interview!”
His position allowed him huge opportunities for such a young man: travelling to Japan for trade negotiations with Japanese motor manufacturers – “The British car industry wanted to keep Japanese imports to 10 per cent of the market,” said Mark, “which clearly failed! I got to meet the founding family of Toyota and other major industry figures. I would prepare the briefing papers, take minutes of the meetings etc. Exciting times and I learned a lot for my first job.”
After this he became personal assistant to a high powered executive of a large multinational company and when his boss retired after a couple of years he was given the option of going into any of the company’s myriad businesses.
This chance to pick and choose his career left Mark with a choice few young men get – and his decision was to shape the rest of his life.
“I’d done some work connected with magazine publishing and said I’d like to try that. For want of a better place they stuck me in the marketing department of one of the country’s biggest trade publishers. After a little while I came up with an idea for an farming magazine, called “Crops Weekly”.”
This choice was not without irony for Mark’s family: “I’m a bit of a city lad really and I could barely tell the difference between wheat and barley! My grandfather, who was a real country man, was quite perplexed. However, I realised there was a gap in the market and the magazine was a big success.”
Mark’s career as a magazine publisher had started, and he was on track for future success.
He was headhunted by another publishing company and got busy publishing a wide range of different publications – taking on trade, commercial, directory and specialist titles. He then moved on to publish one of the world’s most expensive subscription magazines – covering global investment banking travelling all over the world to its various offices.
A dreaded ‘company restructure’ saw him made redundant a few years later however – and he needed a new direction and quick.
“I had to do something – and decided I would try to convince someone to back me in buying my own magazine company.”
Mark paired up with the City investment fund 3i and bought Paragon Publishing in Bournemouth.
It had made its name producing magazines for computer games enthusiasts and the early adopters of personal computers. Mark and his team increased the company’s magazines from 12 to 30 in just fewer than four years.
“It was a terrific business with great people in which I am very proud to have been involved,” he said.
Four years later he and his backers sold it to a large competitor for a big profit. This company then got into financial difficulties and Mark was invited to help ‘save’ the business as Chief Executive. That was a prelude to a roller-coaster two years involving aborted takeovers, Office of Fair Trading rulings etc that it could not be sold to another competitor. Eventually, controversial ex-Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie wrested control of the company and Mark happily left.
Mark and his wife Ruth – who had met when they were both at college and have had two sons together – had bought a holiday home in Kingswear in 2003.
“I used to come sailing at Dartmouth as a boy and was delighted to buy a home here.”
After a couple of years’ sabbatical, they decided to move here permanently, renovating a large house in Kingswear and had planned to get involved with another company in North Devon of all places. “ I would have exchanged a weekly commute from Dorset to London to one from North to South Devon! Anyhow, the deal fell over just at the last moment and I started to look for business opportunities in this area. “
Which brings us to By the Dart.
“I thought it would be a fun little project to start a small publishing company here, publishing a number of titles, starting with By the Dart,” he said. “The first couple of issues were a real family affair. Actually, until By The Dart, I had never written a word, designed a page or even directly sold an advertisement in a magazine – I used to manage others to do that.
So we rolled up our sleeves with my son Tom taking charge of design and layout – teaching himself how to use the software - both Ruth and I wrote some stuff for it, Ruth did the admin and I got some advertising in. It was a steep learning curve but it became clear quickly that this was a special area and we could create a wonderful magazine.”
With a small team of loyal and hard-working part time and freelance staff and willing contributors, By the Dart soon became a success and Mark has a clear idea why.
“I think it reflects back to the community why we all love being here – it’s why our magazine strap line is ‘Celebrating local life’,” he said. “
By design and a bit of accident, we quickly established the winning formula. A Paul Barclay logo, a nice photograph on the cover, quality design and glossy paper, the special size (since copied by many other magazines) and a comprehensive distribution delivering directly to people’s homes were all important to its success. We also decided to concentrate on interviews with local people – I don’t think we can underestimate how interested everyone is in people from their community.
“And we also make sure we have great editorial with lots of people writing for us and have a comprehensive ‘what’s on’ section. There is so much to see and do in this community and the magazine has an important role in keeping everyone informed and entertained. The reaction from readers has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s unusual to get such positive and constant feedback when publishing a magazine, as obviously the readers are my neighbours! The key thing has always been to publish what we at By The Dart are interested in reading ourselves about Dartmouth. It works well for advertisers as they can guarantee being seen by everyone in a magazine that is very well read and kept. We are delighted people like it - but, by golly, hitting the deadlines every issue is a killer!”
Four years and fifty editions later, Mark and Ruth are part of the community, have fun ‘messing about in boats’ at every opportunity (well, Mark does) and seem settled and content. So what has he learned thanks to By the Dart?
“That it’s wonderful living and working in this beautiful place – and the commute by the Lower Ferry beats a London tube any day!”
First Published December 2012 By The Dart