Solimar Publisher Sunni Taliaferro
By Gayle Vassar Melvin, Times Staff Writer
Angels at Work
Heavenly voices prompt launch of a spirited enterprise...
Christina "Sunni" Taliaferro credits angels for her success, and an observer might agree that heaven does appear to be on her side.
How else to explain the February unveiling of the preview copy of her new magazine, Solimar; Living in the New Millennium, just four months after she broached the idea to her hip, young staff in Lafayette? Or her dizzying 10-month metamorphosis from grocery store bagger to business owner with the September 1997 opening of Wings of Solimar...an Angel Gallery?
"I am divinely guided," say Taliaferro, 33, during an afternoon interview in her gold-and-silver office. "I open up, and I listen."
Unseen advisers
Of course, listening isn't a new trick - it's whom Taliaferro says she listens to that might raise a few eyebrows. The Archangel Michael, the Archangel Gabriel, other, unnamed angels who talk to her in the shower or while she's parking her car. "The angels are my connection to God. They are the messengers."
And those messages, says Taliaferro, are embodied in Solimar magazine, a glossy lifestyle periodical that dates its issues, not by month but, by equinox, with articles running the gamut from the spiritual to the mundane.
In the cover story, former "All My Children" soap opera star, Kathleen Noone, shares her views on divine intervention; inside, Moraga resident, Cynthia Brian, shares her love for her deceased father.
Big dreams
Taliaferro's plans for Solimar are grand - 40,000 paid subscribers by the end of the first year; 100,00 by the end of the third year. The preview edition, unveiled at a swank party in San Francisco, is available at the Lafayette angel gallery, and the magazine has been picked up for distribution by Borders Books & Music and Barnes & Noble. The first issue will be published Aug. 30.
Among the preview party guests was Barnet Bain, whose Metafilmics company produced the 1998 Robin Williams film "What Dreams May Come." Bain, the subject of a Solimar feature story, dismisses skepticism over the magazine's earnest style as '90's cynicism.
"(Sunni and her staff) have made their passion very public. They are courageous enough to go out there in a genuine way. A lot of people are uncomfortable with anything that smacks of sentiment, so they take potshots at it."
Taliaferro is undeterred by the skeptics. A single mom to Nicolas, 8, she is a savvy self-promoter who knows how to connect with celebrities and uses her own forceful personality to its best advantage. She changes her appearance as easily as Madonna - in one photo, she is an elegant businesswoman with upswept hair and a decidedly feminine suit, in another, she's a tropical party girl, a wreath of flowers in bright tropical colors circling her hair. Her nickname, Sunni, is a recent addition, given to her by a Lucky grocery store customer two years ago.
Her current style is reminiscent of a Hindu goddess, short-cropped hair slicked along the curve of her skull, eyebrows penciled in a dramatic, thick arch, a diamond stud sparkling - "my Marilyn," she says - just above her lip, where a beauty mark would go.
It is her eyes, however, that are most remarkable, irises the color of topaz surrounded by a ring of darkest brown. When she talks about her celestial visitors, they sparkle. A minute later, they're somber and filled with unshed tears as she recounts the events that led her to the angelic way.
It is a story she's told many times, in Essence magazine, on television, in the press releases touting Solimar.
"My back story is that I was raped in 1986., she says. From there, Taliaferro says she fell prey to depression and bulimia. Several suicide attempts followed; today, Taliaferro declines describing those attempts, saying she doesn't want to give young girls any examples to follow.
Her epiphany came during a morning visit to her beloved grandmother's grave in Richmond in early 1996. Taliaferro says her grandmother appeared to her in angelic form and told her everything would be all right. "It was electrifying...from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. I felt like I could move mountains."
She abandoned her career as an independent music promoter and go a job at Lucky grocery store in Lafayette, first as a bagger, and then a bookkeeper. Parking her car one day in the Lucky lot, an audible voice - "like it was coming from the radio," describes Taliaferro - told her to quit her job.
"I think, 'Right,'" she says wryly. "My dead grandmother comes to me, I hear voices. People will think I'm crazy." But she quit her job anyway. At 6 a.m. the following day, her mother called and said she wanted to go into business with her.
"She was always making money for other people, and I told her she has such great skills, she should turn it around and do it for herself," says Marie Taliaferro, a financial analyst for UCSF. "With that little nibble, she turned it around and came up with the idea of an angel gallery. It is a great vehicle for her."
She didn't come up with the idea herself, says Taliaferro. It was two angels, speaking in childlike voices while she was taking a shower, that urged her to turn heavenward for success. She typed the word "angel" into her computer and discovered a thriving $6 billion market.
Taliaferro opened the doors of Wings of Solimar...an Angel Gallery in September 1997, 10 months after leaving Lucky. The interior is a tranquil oasis, with water bubbling in three angel-themed fountains and the scent of aromatherapy candles wafting through the air. There is a reading room with shelves of self-help books, and a Christmas tree in the window sill sparkling with crystal angel ornaments. A bulletin board is filled with business card touting New Age professions, from aromatherapists to Rent-a-Psychic.
Wings of Solimar quickly became a player in the local business scene, and Taliaferro was named Businessperson of the Month by the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce. Chamber director Ann Denny praised the angel gallery for its support of events such as the Lafayette Reservoir Run and the Teddy Bear Brunch.
For now, Taliaferro intends to focus on her magazine and plans for AngelHouse, which she describes as a future "healing center" for abused women and children no longer in immediate crisis. Taliaferro says the turn of the century is the perfect time for plans such as hers.
"I believe people are searching for something to believe in. We are all looking to dream a deeper dream."
Jennifer Shaw /STAFF WRITER --Wednesday, February 17, 1999
Local angel sprouts national wings
Since opening the doors of a gallery for angels in Lafayette, Wings of Solimar in 1997, Christina "Sunni" Taliaferro has been clear on a cause - creating world peace through inner peace.
Last summer, she realized it was time to take that message to a national audience by way of a feature magazine. The concept came to Taliaferro during a morning meditation. She has learned that the intuitive insights which have an actual heartwarming feel are the ones to which she must adhere. The path to its fruition has been characteristically fortuitous. Her lead story came unsolicited.
Taliaferro was attending a conference last fall when she was approached by Kathleen Noone, an actress who appears on "Sunset Beach" and is known for her portrayal of Ellen Dalton on "All My Children."
"I have an inner knowing of nothing is going to stop me," she reflected on her good fortune. She can pinpoint that moment of profound understanding to the day in January 1996 at her grandmother's grave. Feeling "divinely guided," she had a palpable sense that "all things are possible."
On Thursday, her non-profit Solimar, Inc. launches its national magazine - Solimar: Living in the New Millennium. It is being disseminated nationwide by Big Top, the only women-owned magazine distributor in the United States.
"We are ready for a magazine with this diversity'" said Big Top president Ellen Sugarman, who signed Solimar to a three-year contract "They are going after something so unique. It looks like a way of life," said Sugarman. "I believe that they have something extraordinary results."
And by sharing their life's travails, the spiritual challenges and the everyday problems - balancing work and family - the seasonal magazine will offer a forum to demystify celebrities. "We are uncovering a conversation that's always been going on," noted Taliaferro, who will be featured in the March issue of Essence magazine.
The vision for the magazine is also to debunk myths - namely how the layperson regards artisans with connotations of the fast-paced life of drugs, alcohol and promiscuity. "That's a scary place to put someone who just wants to make music," she said.
"We aren't trying to change people, we're changing perspective. We believe when you change your perspective, you change your thoughts. When you change your thoughts, you can change anything," she said.
Her literary vessel is large enough to hold seemingly spiritual paradox - with God and Buddha appearing together. "All we're doing is sharing people's stories from their heart," said Sarah Lenz, vice president and creative director for Solimar Inc.
Be it the advertisers they will solicit or the people they will interview, the criteria will be that "they are using their power and influence for the betterment of the planet," said Taliaferro.
And for all those who remain dubious, Taliaferro has this to add:
"If all of this is smoke in mirrors, then explain how all this is happening."
The Preview Issue of Solimar features Kathleen Noone of "Sunset Beach" and formerly of "All My Children" on the cover.
SERVING THE 680 CORRIDOR IN CONTRA COSTA, ALAMEDA, AND SOLANO COUNTIES
Solimar Magazine launched
BY GLENN FRANCO, SIMMONS STAFF REPORTER
LAFAYETTE, CA, APRIL 1999 --
Solimar Magazine is marketed as honoring unlimited possibilities and potential within each person, but behind those lofty goals are the challenges of circulation, ad sales, and editorial content.
Published in Lafayette, the new our-color glossy nationwide magazine was unveiled at a press conference in San Francisco in February. The press run for that preview issue was 25,000, and Solimar plans to increase that to 50,000 for its June premiere issue and 100,000 for its August issue.
"We are going to be bimonthly in our second year and monthly by our third year," says publisher Sunni Taliaferro. "By August 2002, our goal is to have distributed 22 issues, reaching more than seven million readers. Single-copy sales will exceed 250,000, and subscriptions will top 100,000."
The paid ad lineage for the 68-page preview issue was 11 pages, and Ms. Taliaferro expects 45 pages of paid ads for the 98-page June premiere issue. Her goal for future issues is 60% advertising and 40% editorial content.
She estimates the magazine will generate $7 million to $9 million in annual revenues by the end of the third year of publication. The open rate for a full-page, four-color ad is $3,000.
Business sense & sensibility
If the magazine is successful, it will largely be due to Ms. Taliaferro's business acumen. She started her career in retail women's clothing and jewelry and went on to work at Polygram Records, RIZE Up Management, Front & Back Management, and Alice In Wholesale Land Clothing Co.
She also founded Wings of Solimar, and art gallery and retail store in Lafayette.
"I dream a deeper dream. I trust my inner wisdom; I follow my inner instincts; and I act upon them," says Ms. Taliaferro. "I don't second-guess myself or my heart. My secret is : Trust myself."
In acting upon her instincts, she helped pull together a group of individuals who, in four months, conceived of and published the first issue of Solimar.
"We open ourselves up n myriad and unexpected ways, like when we met John Morthanos, a respected individual in the publishing industry and now the circulation manager at Primedia," Ms. Taliaferro says. "He took us under his wing and generously answered all our questions."
Sarah Lenz, the magazine's vice-president and associate publisher, has been a graphic designer for 15 years.
Consulting publisher Gary Markowitz launched several magazines in the past and owned an advertising agency for 12 years.
Starting up
The magazine's startup was financed from venture capital invested in Solimar Inc., the corporate owner of Solimar Magazine. As CEO of Solimar Inc., Ms. Taliaferro says her goal is to build a multimedia corporation, with the magazine appealing to the "cultural and creative."
"The target audience for Solimar is a diverse group, primarily - but not exclusively - women who share distinct demographic characteristics, political convictions, civic behavior, and purchasing patterns," according to Solimar's media kit. "This emerging group, identified and studied by American LIVES of San Francisco, is called cultural creatives, and it currently represents almost one-fourth of the adult population in the United States."
This group also includes men 25 to 45 years old.
Demographics and advertising are only part of the puzzle. Finding interesting stories is an integral element in any publication's success.
According to the magazine's writers' guidelines: "We seed stories about the essence of the person, not the usual description of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. What we usually get from media are stories about the glamorous lives of the stars. What we want is to uncover the difficulties and sacrifices that celebrities have faced, which make them just like people everywhere, and their unique responses."
For more information, call 925-299-1548
THE MAGAZINE FOR MAGAZINE MANAGEMENT
New Magazine
Title: Solimar:Living in the New Millennium
Launch date: August 1999; February 1999 for preview issue.
Mission: A lifestyle title that inspires readers to "create and sustain joy in their selves, relationships, families and communities."
Target audience: Married and single female professionals, ages 25 through 54.
Circulation: 25,000 initial pressrun for the preview, 50,000 for the first regular quarterly issue; $18.75 for four issues; $4.95 on newsstands.
Editorial highlights: Profiles of celebrities' spiritual lives, with rotating departments on family, health, entertainment, art/literature and relationships.
Ad rates: $2,000, full-page, black-and-white; $3,000, four-color.
Ad targets: Travel, clothing, books, vitamins and homeopathic medicines. Staff: CEO and founder Christina "Sunni" Taliaferro is publisher and editor in chief; Sarah Lenz is managing editor.
Publisher: Solimar Inc., 3717 Mount Diablo Blvd., Suite 109, Lafayette, CA 94549.
925-284-1213.