PIECES A magazine for Autism parenting

Created by Kayleigh Wilson & Emily Wellborn

OUR MISSION

Pieces is dedicated to creating a worry-free life for parents within the Autism community.

We connect and inspire parents through our magazine features, website, and social media by

providing information on education, transitioning, travel, health, and the sharing the stories of

our community. With each issue we strive to find new ways for parents to engage and interact

with their children.

PROOF OF NEED

Pieces has no existing competition that offers readers the community, warmth, and

information that we offer.

1 in 68 children are diagnosed with autism1

Over 1,088,235 children in the United States have autism2

Parents need help navigating the costs of caring for an autistic child, which costs

$17,000 annually. The price only increases with age, as it is more expensive to

care for an adult with autism than a child, about $1.4-2.3M in their lifetime. 34

Readers of Pieces are searching for the best products for their families. Companies that

produce food, health products, specialized technology, and educational products will find a place

in Pieces. Beyond consumers, our readers are searching for a community. Eager to share,

encourage, and inspire one another nationally. Nonprofits, blogs, medical communities, and

national autism societies are welcomed to advertise and connect with our readers.

1 https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/prevalence 2 http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html 3 https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/costs-autism-study-tallies-kids%E2%80%99-higher-health-and-

education-needs 4 https://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/docs/annual_report_9-11.pdf

AUDIENCE

While parenting can be considered a two-party job, mothers are more likely to be reading

magazines and participating online, making women our primary audience. Ninety- four percent

have a mobile phone and eighty-six percent are connected with social media.5 With one third of

mothers being under the age of 35, Pieces’ core audience ranges between the ages of 25-45. And

while a dual parent household is still the norm in families, 4 out of every 10 parents are single

mothers. 6 Our readers are educated with low to high-income jobs. Our audience is diverse in

class, ethnicity, and religion. The majority of our readers have at least a high school diploma.

Demographics Age 25-45

Income 30-100K

Gender Male and Female with a female majority (70/30)

Education High School or higher education

Geographic National

PHYSCOGRAPHICS

Our readers are stressed, patient, and dedicated. Parents are dedicated to their children

and would do anything for them, including quitting work to stay home with their child. Parents

of an autistic child earn fifty-six percent less than parents with a healthy child.7 Forty- six

percent of fathers report that having an autistic child creates a negative impact on their career,

opposed to fifty-nine percent of mothers.8

Our readers are also stressed. Pieces readers typically have an income between $30,000 -

100,000 annually. According to Pew Research Center 4 out of every 10 parents are single parents

with an average income of $25,493. A huge part of being a parent is budgeting. For autistic

parenting it costs on average $17,000 per year. For an adult with autism it is even more

expensive with costs totaling to $1.4- 2.3 M over a lifetime.

Having a child with autism also pushes patience of parents; however parents try their best

to remain calm. Symptoms of an autistic child include: mood/ anxiety disorders, sleep and social

deficits.9 These symptoms affect not only the child, but also leave the parents feeling

disconnected from their child. 10

Family oriented

5 http://www.pewresearch.org//search/?query=moms%20use%20technology%20more 6 https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/millennials_report.pdf 7 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AutismCommunity/autism-moms-pay-cut-care-kids/story?id=15939892 8 https://www.autismspeaks.org/news/news-item/ian-research-report-family-stress-%E2%80%94-part-2 9 https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/symptoms 10 https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2014/04/01/10-things-autism-parents-wish-you-knew

Value community, family, and creativity

⅓ of moms are under the age of 35 11

85 million mothers in America12

1 in 68 children have autism13

4 in 10 are single parents14

READER PROFILES: Darlene

Darlene is a 56-year-old mother and wife. She lives in La Habra, California with her youngest

child, Chloe. Chloe just turned 27 and has high functioning autism. Darlene was widowed after

her first son, Tommy, was born and remarried George prior to having Chloe. Darlene is retired,

but worked for AT&T for 20 years. She loves spending time traveling, cooking, trying new foods

and places with her husband and Chloe. Her favorite place they have traveled was Paris, and she

hopes to return there soon with her daughter.

Darlene is constantly with her family. Recently, her son moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, with his

wife and three kids so she is often traveling there to visit them. Although she is staying in state

more often, she always finds new cafes or restaurants that remind her of vacations she has taken.

Darlene and her family own a vacation home in Oceanside, California where they take week trips

to play by the ocean and enjoy the small town offerings.

Darlene does a lot of cooking as well. She loves to cook and Chloe loves to help! She takes pride

in her Hispanic culture and loves to share the new foods she is creating with her family through

social media. Darlene is constantly uploading pictures to Facebook of Chloe, George, and

herself.

11 http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/05/07/family-size-among-mothers/ 12 http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/09/5-questions-and-answers-about-american-moms-today/ 13 http://www.autism-society.org/what-is/facts-and-statistics/ 14 https://www.legalmomentum.org/sites/default/files/reports/SingleParentSnapshot2014.pdf

EDITORIAL FORMULA

Frequency:

Twelve times per year/ monthly

Total Number of Pages:

64+ 4 cover pages

Pages of Editorial:

48

Pages of Advertising:

16

Ad/ Editorial Ratio:

25/75

Total Number of Department Pages:

20

Total Number of Feature Pages:

28

Department/Feature Ratio:

60/40

Departments: Masthead (1 page)

Editor’s Letter (1 page)

Table of Contents (2 page)

One For The Road (1 page, back page)

HOME

Pieces is separated into three sections. Our HOME section incorporates everything that

would be related to care and family life including homework help, health, postgraduate tips, and

engaging activities for all spectrums of autism. Our HOME section will guide parents on

increasing activity and education all while being family oriented.

Homework help (2 pages)

- How to best help your child while still pushing them to grow

- Susan M. Wilczynski gives expert advice on ways to better engage your child in the

classroom

EDITORIAL FORMULA

Health in the home (4 pages)

Michele G. Kilo of Children’s Mercy Kansas City gives advice on how to keep your child

healthy during flu season

Healthy and happy eating for your child

Post graduate (3 pages)

Moving your child out of the home

Getting involved: best volunteer work for your child

Job Hunt: Companies that hire, testimonies, and how it helps

Seasonal Activities (4 pages)

Family fun for the Holidays (2 pages)

Crafts to engage your child and decorate your home

Recipes that are healthy and easy to make for the holidays

SOCIAL Our SOCIAL section will follow HOME, focusing on all things outside the house.

SOCIAL caters to personal and honest advice and tips for parents regarding: friendship, dating,

sibling relationships, and getting your child comfortable with the world.

Friendship (4 pages- 2 features 1 page each)

Social stories and tips to increase long-term friendships for your child. Centering on

middle to high school how to encourage and promote friendships between your child and

classmates.

Sibling life (2)

Tips on sibling engagement as well as how siblings can reach out to their autistic sibling.

Comfort in the community (3 pages)

Features on ways to get involved in your community with your child, Volunteering,

clubs, and events

Quick Tips (1 page)

Tips on acquiring and promoting social skills

EDITORIAL FORMULA

Features (First Issue) The features of Pieces will include profiles that take a thorough look at families that are

involved in the autism community. It will also include fun, interesting, and new takes on the

more mundane aspects of daily life to revamp them for our readers.

Travel Light

Travel tips to ensure a relaxing, stress free environment from packing up to

departures)

Where in the world Spotlight family vacation spots, local events, and stories from family vacations. (5 pages)

App and at em’

New and engaging apps for your kiddos to try (2 pages)

H.S Heroes: Spotlight stories featuring high school students and their achievements in sports,

extracurricular activities, dance preparation, friendship stories, relationships,

etc: Anthony Lanni, the first individual with autism to play Division I Basketball.

https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2015/05/13/division-basketball-player-autisms-story-will-

inspire-you (4 pages)

From the heart

Family stories of inspiration and trials featuring their child, siblings, family as a whole: ’s

parents were told he would never read, write, talk, or even attend school without assistance and

now he is a 22 year old high school graduate.

https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2015/07/22/they-told-my-parents-i-wouldnt-talk-now-im-

graduating-college (6 pages)

Back Page

Fan Photos is our back page featuring a collage of our grid from the month where readers

can see their names and photos in print.

PLATFORMS

Website Pieces website features digital content of publications, articles, features, and

photo galleries all featuring our readers. We offer a warm and inviting website that

encourages parents to interact with one another and us instead of a one-sided clinical

approach. We open up our website for a community interaction where readers can share

stories, successes, trials, ask questions and advice from licensed professionals. It will

include comment sections and forums to keep communication open with our readers to

continually improve the content we produce. With links to all social media accounts and

an easy login that connects to Facebook, we hope to cause inspiration in your own lives.

Social Media

Facebook

Pieces uses Facebook to further engage our readers. Here we will share posts

daily including events nation-wide like the Autism Speaks Walks that are hosted

throughout the year or the Families with Autism Medical Lecture Series put on by

Nationwide Children’s Hospitals. The page will also feature fun activities such as DIY

crafts for your child’s bedroom or links to the best vetted websites for children with

autism. There will be inspirational stories from our readers, discussions on the articles we

publish, and links between Facebook and our website to make sharing easier with your

friends and family. Striving to be community based we hope our readers will join us in

celebrating the greatness by liking, sharing, and commenting their own experiences.

Instagram

Pieces uses Instagram to feature photos from our community. Updating daily,

sharing posts from our readers about the great things they’re doing, great places they’re

going, or the successes of their loved ones. From graduation to vacation we invite readers

to share it all with us. We will further increase our community interaction by following

up on featured families throughout our various platforms allowing viewers to comment,

share, and connect with one another.

Twitter Pieces uses Twitter to provide updates about the magazine, website, and events

nationwide. We also use our account to promote our readers’ stories, sharing links to our

Instagram and Facebook posts for the on-the-go and younger reader. Our twitter account

allows us to connect quickly, answer any questions or concerns, and efficiently take polls

to better serve our readers. Always striving to stay in touch with our audience, our

account would be our fastest way to reach out to our readers that might not have time for

longer posts.

COMPETITION ANALYSIS

Points of Difference

A strong sense of community both online and in print

An inviting design to be inviting and not just clinical.

Online and social media platforms for engagement between readers, editors, experts and

therapists.

Downloadable content including recipes, activities, and breakthrough information from

the autism community.

Community focused content online and in print featuring our readers and their stories.

One to One Comparison

Autism Parenting

Autism Parenting began in 2012 and focuses on publishing autism- related topics, events,

treatments, and news stories. This magazine targets parents of autistic children along with

professionals working with them. According to Autism Parenting’s website, it is the leading

magazine for its target market. However, being a fairly new magazine with nothing to compare

to it haven’t had time to flourish or compete as a publication.

Magazine Philosophy

The Autism Parenting website states: “We Believe: Focusing on people’s strengths and

interests will increase optimism and thereby foster the view that children and adults with autism

can go forth and live the most independent and successful life possible. Each child with autism is

different, and as such, will respond differently to a variety of approaches and techniques. Our

approach is about finding what ‘works’ for each child and we don’t consider there to be a one-

size-fits-all. Parents need support and reassurance as much as the children and we aim to provide

this through our magazine, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Neurotypical individuals are NOT

better than people with autism Spectrum Disorder and we can all learn from one another. All

people with autism Spectrum Disorders should have the same opportunities presented to them

with assistance as needed. Treatments claiming to “cure autism” give false hope and deplete

financial stability of families in need of caring for their child and saving for their child’s future.”

The Media Kit goes on to say, “...our focus remains on objectively. Publishing autism-related

topics, events, developments, treatments and news stories. We also cover a variety of inspiring

real-life stories to help parents make informed decisions and keep them updated on the latest

therapeutic and treatment options.”

CIRCULATION FREQUENCY

Dist. 50,000

Published monthly

AD RATE & CPM:

Full color page: $478.80 // CPM: $30.00

CONTINUED

Strengths/ Weaknesses/ Opportunities

Editorial content is lacking in Autism Parenting. The magazine doesn’t separate what is a

department or a feature as nothing is recurring in the magazine. It is clinical and the features on

families seem to lack warmth. Pieces will have the opportunity to provide a community focus as

well as bring warmth into the magazine.

The magazine design of Autism Parenting is bland and unenticing. Articles are multiple page

spreads, but the titles take up quite a bit of the page causing the content to be cluttered. It also uses

the same font throughout the whole magazine, which lacks visual personality. Pieces will clearly

distinguish our departments and features, and offer a warm, pleasing design. We will use a

maximum of five different fonts throughout our magazine excluding titles and headers for different

stories.

Autism Parenting has an online presence, but it isn’t a strong suit. The website lacks warmth.

It posts to Facebook multiple times every day; however, the posts consist of links to articles from

the magazine. Although its Facebook and Pinterest are content filled, they lack the sense of

community that Pieces will fulfill. Here we have an opportunity to create multiple social media

platforms that involve the community as well as experts and staff throughout our website forum,

daily posts, and interactive posts.

Advertising in Autism Parenting reaches a strong demographic within the autistic community

and can serve companies who make health, educational, and child products. The magazine features

ads from Helping Hands Art and a number of therapy and sensory products. All of the ads offer

information about their products, but restrain from offering any form of coupon to customers.

Overall, Autism Parenting has great content that is strongly targeted towards its demographic.

However, the magazine’s focus is clinical. Though it has a website and social media, they too are

lacking the warmth or community based focus that it advertises. Pieces will engage readers on

multiple platforms as well as inform and inspire our readers with health, education, relationships,

and features on our subscribers and their stories. Our online presence is extremely community

focused and offers a forum for readers to connect and stay inspired.

MARKETING PLAN

CPM

$30.00 Pieces plan’s to compete with other magazines with a CPM of $30.00. While it is higher

than our main competitor Autism Parenting by almost $20.00, we provide more platforms for

that price, such as print. This will also create pass-along rates as our readers share our tactile,

actual publications that Autism Parenting cannot produce by only being a PDF.

Rate Base Projected Circulation: 60,000

We project that Pieces can reach the circulation of our competitor and even go beyond.

With not only an online platform, but also an in print, we can reach a greater audience through

our readers sharing our product, or potential readers being able to see it in stores. 60,000 is a

fraction of the estimated 3.5 million families with an autistic family member in the United States.

Ad Rate

$1,500 Pieces ad rate will start at $1,500 for a full page, 4 - color advertisement to run one time

in our print magazine. This is compared to our competitions rate of $478.80 and our projected

circulation of 50,000. The numbers aim to allow us to compete with our competition, Autism

Parenting, who offers digital copies only. Pieces will offer a discounted price with more

advertisements purchased, beginning at 25 percent.

MARKETING PLAN

Advertising Specifics Pieces ideal advertisers are companies that have shown an interest in the autism

community and have made some sort of contribution in the past. Many of these companies are

partnered with our advertising partner Autism Speaks, employ people with autism, and/or have

given their resources to provide support to families such as our readers.

Education

Learning Express, K’NEX, Toys R Us

Health

Walgreens, Sprouts

Home

Vivint, Home Depot

Sensory

World Market, Bed Bath and Beyond, Build-A-Bear

Technology

Microsoft, Apple, Activision

Events

Autism Walk, Alpha Xi Delta National Philanthropy

Advertising Rates

Circulation Frequency Rate Base Ad Rate CPM

Autism Parenting 53,000 12/ year 53,000 $478.80 $9.02

Pieces 50,000 12/ year 60,000 $1,500 $30.00

Advertising Vision Pieces cater’s to the families who are searching for the best companies and products to

bring into their home. Our target audience ranges from ages 25-45, their purchasing habits are

motivated by saving money on quality products for their family.

Pieces appeal’s to parents with children across the spectrum, from low to high levels of

autism. Our publication features advice and tools to reduce stress and simplify living, as well as

fun and engaging activities. Ideal advertisers know that our readers need a plethora of products

and services to help their children live a healthy and happy life and will look to Pieces to fulfill

those needs.

Our audience is also highly involved online, eighty six percent turn to social media to

gather information. Advertisers can reach our audience through print, and on our website.

Design Philosophy

The design of Pieces will exemplify the home for love, guidance, and community we are

striving to create in print, online, and through our social media platforms. A substantial portion

of our magazine is reader-submitted. We want to showcase our content in a clean, warm and

accessible design.

Pieces’ editorial contains the heart of our message. To keep our information clear, our

editorial includes no more than six fonts and three families, excluding the logo. The Bodoni 72

font will make the departments and features easy to read, while the bolded, Bodoni 72 Oldstyle

on the cover will complement the rest of the magazine, but will still stand out against any cover

photo.

Photography is important to our magazine. Our photographs are the visual foundation for

stories about people. Our photos will always be printed in color.

We understand that our readers and their families don’t have time for distracting colors

and styles. They want their content displayed in a warm design that will provide them

information with ease. Everything we did is for our readers and our design will insure that they

will experience our magazine comfortably.