This story is part of our November 2025 issue. To read the print version, click here.

If you’re reading this article in print, what led you to pick up the magazine? Was it the eye-catching cover, the local issues mentioned in the headlines or just the evocative scent of paper and ink? If it’s your first time encountering Comstock’s — at an office, a local hotel or a newsstand — you may have been surprised to see that a metropolitan area the size of the Capital Region still supports a monthly print magazine.

Comstock’s, at 36, is indeed one of the last remaining monthly magazines based in Sacramento, but it’s now part of a rising international trend. Print magazines are enjoying a resurgence in cache, perhaps driven by some of the same physical-object nostalgia that recently led to vinyl records outpacing digital downloads in terms of revenue.

Walk into your local bookstore, and you’re likely to see an array of design-forward magazines priced at $20 or above per issue, such as Richmond-based arts quarterly Hi-Fructose or the San Francisco photography magazine Pamplemousse. These magazines, many of which were founded in the past decade or so, are marketed as art objects worth displaying, much like a coffee table book or a record in its sleeve.

Legacy print publications are also holding strong. According to the print-industry trade journal Press Gazette, the largest magazines in the U.S., including Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping, retained 95 percent of their subscriptions between 2020 and 2021, despite predictions that the pandemic would prompt a precipitous decline.

This trend continued into the 2020s, according to Pew Research, which found that print news consumption rose between 2023 and 2024 and predicted it would continue to rise. The rise in demand for print is even resurrecting some publications from the online grave. Last year, both the food magazine Saveur and the parody newspaper The Onion returned to print after years as web-only publications.

That may be hopeful news for print fans in Sacramento. While the Capital Region has lost several print publications in the past decade, including the monthly Sacramento Magazine in 2023, small business owners still see the value of paper and ink. We spoke to several fellow print devotees who have found success by showcasing what small-scale print can offer, including targeted distribution, niche coverage and hyperlocal focus.

‘They’re still picking it up’

For the past 16 years, Miguel Borges has published the Spanish-language magazine d’primeramano. Borges, an immigrant from Mexico, said he used to work for newspapers and radio stations, but felt they underserved the local Hispanic community. He wanted accurate, well-written news that wasn’t copied and pasted from Google Translate. Hence the name of his publication, which translates to “first hand.” Borges said his readers still want to read in print. He distributes 30,000 copies across 1,200 different locations.

“They’re still picking it up,” Borges says. “That’s what they said a long time ago, ‘The internet is coming, everything is dying.’ I don’t think so, as long as you work.”

Borges has seen other magazines come and go in the city. He doesn’t know why. Bad management? Bad staff? He said there’s still a demand for print. And if there’s a will, there’s a way. “I’ve been working, like a lot, and it’s been working for us.

Related: Local Journalist Receives $100,000 Grant to Support Hmong Daily News

“We’re getting better and better. I don’t want to sound cocky. People love the fact that we’re the only magazine in town in Spanish and it’s legit, and someone you can trust,” Borges says.

Newer publisher Laurie Blanchard is off to a good start. She raised nearly $6,000 on Kickstarter to publish the first issue of the “quarterly-ish” Spirited Soul Magazine in March of this year. Articles focus on spirituality and wellness. It has a print run of 2,000 free copies distributed at select local businesses around Sacramento, like coffee shops, yoga studios and metaphysical stores. The second issue was released in July, and the third is underway.

Blanchard is optimistic about the future of print but thinks it’ll have a smaller appeal moving forward. “It’s going to be niche, but I think that’s okay,” Blanchard says. “I think if there is a need, and you stand out, and you create something that’s beautiful and provides value, people will want it.”

Blanchard is an artist and professional tarot card reader who does livestreamed readings on TikTok. She started Spirited Soul because she felt there wasn’t a magazine in town for people who were spiritual like her. She wondered: “Why isn’t anyone making a magazine like what I want?”

The magazine wasn’t just a business decision for Blanchard. It’s “a passion project,” one part of the larger brand she’s trying to build, including a podcast and online business directory. Her goal is to break even. She recently recruited equity investors and an advertising salesperson. Even as Facebook and Google dominate the ad market, businesses have bought ads from small publications like Spirited Soul. Blanchard thinks it could be a trend.

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“Everything was going online. Now it’s kind of come back around full circle, where everything went so far online that now some people like the idea that their ad is out there, and multiple people will see it in print, and they’re not being bombarded with 5,000 other ads,” Blanchard says. “It stands out. It’s different.”

Weekender Magazine in Fair Oaks is another print publication founded in the Capital Region post-pandemic. Tom Beauchamp, owner of the marketing agency Monster Design Co., had been working on the project since 2018 and finally released his first issue this year. Around 6,500 copies are distributed to residents and businesses throughout the area.

“It’s too good of an idea,” Beauchamp says. “The way the magazine was structured always kind of hit with me.” The quarterly magazine is a cross between an event calendar and a shopping guide showcasing “the spirit of the town.” There’s also stories of local interest. Beauchamp plans to slowly expand into more editorial content. But why print? Well, he said there’s an authenticity that comes with the physical form that’s able to grab someone’s full attention.

“There’s definitely a space for the hyperlocal, targeted editorial and advertising that people can come to both rely on and look forward to,” Beauchamp says. Not all businesses are on board with print advertising. “It takes some convincing,” he said. But the magazine has been building momentum with readers. He thinks the future of print is local. “I think if there’s publications that are about where people live, that’s enticing.”

‘Newsprint on your fingers’

While magazines are enjoying a modest resurgence, newspapers do not appear to be gleaning as much benefit from physical-object nostalgia. In 2020, two of Sacramento’s free weekly newspapers — the Sacramento News & Review and Submerge Magazine — ceased printing (SNR still publishes online), and the Sacramento Bee was sold to the hedge fund Chatham Asset Management in a bankruptcy auction. In 2024, the average print run per issue for the Sacramento Bee was 21,367 copies, lower than the now-quarterly Sactown Magazine at 28,681 copies, according to ownership statements obtained from the U.S. Postal Service via FOIA request.

“In a world of scrolling and screens, it’s a call to slow down and to dive in.”

― Hanna Nakano, publisher, The Dirt

However, many small community papers targeting neighborhood and rural communities in the Capital Region continue to publish. Most in the Capital Region have been bought and consolidated over the past decades by Paul Scholl, owner of the Carmichael-based Messenger Publishing Group. His chain includes 18 titles (11 weeklies, five bi-weeklies and two monthly) covering 13 cities across six counties. The group he built has a total monthly print circulation of 230,000. When interviewed for a profile last year, Scholl said there are still qualities in print that a website can’t replicate.

“There’s a place for all the internet news, but there’s also room for print,” Scholl says. “Nobody ever says, ‘Hey, did you see that e-blast that had Johnny’s picture in it for Little League?’ But ‘Did you see Johnny and his team in the local newspaper?’ They keep it forever.”

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Cecily Hastings, owner of the free newspaper Inside Sacramento, agrees about the power of print. “Everyone threw themselves at websites and put all this content online, and I looked at the price and I thought, there’s not enough margin in this business to do this, and why? I want them to read this when it arrives in their mailbox, because the advertisers are here, and the advertisers pay all the bills,” Hastings says.

Another example of the hyperlocal newspaper is The Dirt in Davis, which originated in 2010 as a monthly events calendar. It was a single broadsheet pamphlet when Ashley Muir Bruhn became the owner. Muir Bruhn created a new website for The Dirt, then released a redesigned and expanded paper right before going on print hiatus during the pandemic.

Even with the internet, Muir Bruhn said people still longed for a physical, curated event list with local activities worth people’s time. “You couldn’t really tell how accurate the information was (online). It lacked, sometimes, a sense of local credibility that the print could give,” she says. A $10,000 grant from Davis’ art program helped The Dirt return to print in December 2022.

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Soon after relaunching, Muir Bruhn wanted to spend more time with family and looked for a successor. She was then introduced to journalist Hanna Nakano. When approached with an opportunity to buy The Dirt, Nakano asked herself: “Should I really buy this in 2023? But then I was like, it’s cheap. If I kill it in three months, then it’s dead, and it wasn’t meant to be. But instead, it has turned out to be beautiful.”

Nakano has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, mostly in local television. She had never owned a print publication before. The Dirt already had a “cult following,” and the overhead was “incredibly low.” Her biggest cost was printing 3,000 copies a month to distribute around town, “which isn’t all that expensive.” For comparison, The Davis Enterprise has an average print run of 3,108, according to its post office ownership statement.

Working from home, Nakano recruited freelance writers like former Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning, who freely contributes his Substack columns, and sold enough ads to more than double the page count to 36 on average, all filled with original “fresh community content.” The business is sustainable because of people who still value print and are drawn to its physicality, just like music lovers to vinyl records.

“In a world of scrolling and screens, it’s a call to slow down and to dive in,” Nakano says. “Just like records, you want to hear that little bit of hiss on your music, because that’s how you know it’s good. You want to get a little bit of newsprint on your fingers.”

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