Shavonne Blades

Shavonne Blades is the publisher and advertising salesperson for the 22-year-old Yellow Scene Magazine based in Boulder, Colorado. The magazine is dedicated to creating “community conversations” about the social, political, and cultural topics that impact Boulder, according to its website. 

Blades is a self-described “art-school dropout” who got her start in journalism in Santa Cruz, California, in the 1980s. She worked at an alt-weekly called Good Times, which also employed Matt Groening (creator of “The Simpsons” and “Futurama”). 

After returning home to Colorado in the 1990s, Blades worked at local magazines and newspapers like the Boulder Weekly. She struck out on her own after seeing writers at both publications struggle to make ends meet, founding Yellow Scene Magazine in 2001. 

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By Robert Davis

Everybody is telling me that print is dead. No, print isn’t dead — it’s different. Newspapers, on the other hand, are dying, and it’s not just because they lost the classifieds. It’s not just because they’re not printing anything worth subscribing to, but because they hired advertising salespeople who just sat back and answered phones for years. When it came time for the advertising salespeople to actually use their skills, they didn’t know how to. They had no gumption. 

People have this idea that selling advertising is magical, and that I’m magical because I can sell a lot of it. There is nothing magical about it. I know my market well and have spent most of my lifetime building a platform that people want to read. They’re excited to get our magazine in the mail. And I hear it all the time: People will read print if you give them something worthwhile.

When Yellow Scene published a story on the sexual-assault allegations against Tay Anderson [a former director of the Denver Public Schools Board], people were very skeptical. Other local journalists and editors said, “Oh, Shavonne isn’t a journalist.” They tried to ignore our story, but it stood up to scrutiny. Hell, it had even more details than the story in the Denver Post. That’s journalism, and that’s what our readers keep coming back for. 

From Salesperson to Entrepreneur

I’d say my career in journalism really began when I went to Santa Cruz in the 1980s and got the worst sales job. It had the words “advertising” and “sales” in the title, but it was basically a guy in an office space who gave me books and told me to go sell them on the street. There was no money in it. I started selling hats, pins, and jackets, whatever I could get my hands on. I think my biggest check was $600 for a month’s work. I did that for about six months. 

I started Yellow Scene after moving to Colorado in 2001 when I turned 32. I thought I wanted an alt-weekly because that was the hot thing at the time. Instead, I wanted to work somewhere that published hard-hitting, watchdog-style journalism.

Everybody is telling me that print is dead. No, print isn’t dead — it’s different.

I had been working alongside journalists like Joel Dyer at the Boulder Weekly, and that experience really shaped me. I remember one article he published during the Waco massacre that said it was militia members and not terrorists like the media had been claiming at the time. Three days later, everyone found out he was dead-on right. He went on to publish a book called “The Perpetual Prisoner Machine” in 2000 about the criminal-justice system. 

Yellow Scene took off right away because it impacted the community right away. For example, we’ve published stories that gave our community new perspectives on national musical acts that come to town, like Blues Traveler. We also cover the local city council and the political and social issues of today. But it hasn’t always been easy. 

When Yellow Scene started, I thought I was this badass negotiator. But I learned that changing from a salesperson to an entrepreneur was a lot harder than I thought. I felt this great responsibility because I didn’t want to lose anybody’s money, and so I had to figure out how to sell strategically. I had to learn to compete with the behemoths like the Denver Post used to be. I had to learn how to position my business against my competitors and how to sell my value. 

Selling ads is much different today compared to when I started. It’s harder, much harder. There’s a lot more competition and people don’t just fork over wads of cash to run ads right away. The reason I continue to sell ads is because I’m also selling strategy. When people ask me how much do my ads cost, my first response is always “Well, what are your growth objectives?” Because of that, I could die tomorrow and have no regrets for the work I’ve contributed to this planet. 

Why Print Still Matters

There is a power in print that digital does not have. I trust something 100 times more printed than if it was just published on the internet. The problem with digital is that we don’t read it; we surf the web. However, we swim in print. There was a study in Scientific American that said we are seven times more likely to retain information from print than we are from digital platforms. That’s just one reason why I don’t think journalism will continue to exist (or survive or thrive) in the digital space alone.

I think we need to work more collaboratively. Our industry does not support businesses with marketing or design, and that is a fatal mistake. We need to help our advertisers with ad conceps and copywriting. We need to help them understand that you’re not going to write one Facebook post or one Instagram post and then suddenly double your sales. It’s about consistency.

I’ve seen so many business owners, both large and small, make so many advertising mistakes because they’re chasing a response on a certain platform instead of building their reputation.

I had someone ask me to do an Instagram campaign and I said no. I used to hate Instagram. People just scroll through it looking for pretty pictures. There’s no dialogue, no conversation in it. The articles that people spend the most time on are the ones that create conversations. I have changed my position on IG somewhat, but it isn’t the only thing businesses should do.

That’s why Yellow Scene continues to run ads from small, local businesses. They need the help, and we have the skills to help deliver results for them.