Local Publisher Rough Draft Atlanta Makes First Acquisition Amid Growth Plans

Rough Draft Atlanta, a four-year-old news venture, made its first acquisition last month as part of a growth plan to better cover the region.

Georgia Voice, with a circulation of about 4,500, covers the region’s LGBTQ+ community and is distributed for free at local businesses. It is a new vertical for the company, which publishes Reporter Newspapers, covering five communities on a print monthly basis; Atlanta Intown, which reaches five different zip codes; and Rough Draft, a morning newsletter with about 50,000 subscribers. Altogether, the company has a monthly readership of almost 1 million across print and digital.

Rough Draft Atlanta came about when Keith Pepper, a former sales and marketing executive and newspaper aficionado, acquired Springs Publishing at the end of 2020. The Atlanta native had been looking at small businesses and stumbled upon Springs, which was profitable but not heading in the right direction—98% of revenue was from print and there was almost no digital business to speak of. Pepper was very well aware that the news industry had not been a thriving one for many years. Still, it was a good brand and Atlanta was becoming increasingly more interesting politically, culturally and business-wise.

Pepper self-financed the purchase, and three months later revenue dropped 20%. After a moment of panic, he put together a plan. He streamlined software and shifted the philosophy of the organization to being digital first. They launched a newsletter, which has become their most high-profile success story to date, naming it Rough Draft.

“We launched that, we regrouped, got ourselves together and we’ve grown every year since,” Pepper told AMO.

The future will be self-funded, with any investment contributing to revenue immediately and in communities that are contiguous to where they are now, Pepper said. “There’s communities that are attached to the ones that we already are covering, that have small publications that I think would be really good to partner with, or to look at adding into our portfolio. I like this idea of becoming a hub for Atlanta.”

Revenue Up, Print Costs Down

The financials at Rough Draft Atlanta tell the story:

• Digital revenue for Rough Draft in 2024 was 26% of the total, up from 2% in 2020.
• Print revenue dropped 7% from 2020 while print costs fell 12%.
• Revenue as a whole rose 16% from 2020 to just under $2 million in 2024, which should grow this year with 11% growth thanks largely to the addition of Georgia Voice and continued interest in newsletters.

Rough Draft Atlanta has no programmatic advertising and instead features “high-impact branding opportunities for local businesses and sponsored content opportunities.” The brand sells ads in chunks of 10% share of voice that “maximizes user experience and advertiser value.”

“Our advertising business is pretty healthy,” Pepper said.

And while print revenue is down and not the future of the business, the segment is still a big part of revenue. By controlling the number of pages printed and pushing a higher percentage of ads in print, Rough Draft has kept margins healthy. The monthly printed editions are sent via direct mail. Each community has its own cover, but the inside content is the same across editions.

Georgia Voice is distributed in physical locations like restaurants and grocery stores, and the plan is to place it in fewer but better places with businesses that will advertise in the papers.

“I don’t know that that side of the business is going to continue to grow, the distribution side,” Pepper said. “We’re going to grow that through newsletters and through digital audience.”

Hard News, Culture & Newsletters

Content-wise, Rough Draft is trying to cover both hard news from public safety to city council meetings, to the cultural scene in Atlanta, with seven full-time journalists, up from three when Pepper first bought the company. They also have about a dozen freelancers and a total staff of 21.

“I’m pretty bullish [that] people are still going to want to know what’s happening in their communities,” Pepper said.

With an open rate of well over 40%, it does seem that people are reading. In December, Rough Draft sent out 1.6 million emails, which includes the eponymous weekday morning headliner, as well as editions targeted at seniors, foodies and book-lovers, among others.

Rough Draft is looking at expanding its digital newsletters into new verticals, though Pepper wasn’t ready to share specifics at the time of publication.

“I’m optimistic about the growth, about our place in the community, and the cadence of what we do with print, the cost structure of what we do with print, the way we distribute print, is makes me feel like that’s going to be around for a long time,” Pepper said. And “there’s no reason that we shouldn’t be able to keep that profitable.”