BoSacks Interviews the Publisher of Oh Reader Magazine – Gemma Peckham

Oh Reader Magazine is a distinctive voice in today’s publishing ecosystem. Instead of chasing trends or focusing only on books, it turns the spotlight on readers themselves—their habits, rituals, and the meaning they draw from the written word. In doing so, Oh Reader not only celebrates the culture of reading but also reminds the industry why audiences matter most. With elegant design, thoughtful essays, and a devotion to storytelling, the magazine stands as both a love letter to readers and a model of how independent publishing can thrive by serving passion with purpose.

Warming Up: The Personal Journey

Bo: Before we get into Oh Reader, let’s start with you. How did you get here? What’s your personal history in publishing, books, or reading that led you to launch this magazine?

Gemma: It certainly hasn’t been a linear trajectory to get here! Reading was always something that I loved, from my childhood right through to now. But it was a hobby—not something I ever thought I could integrate into my career. So, I took reading with me as I became a student, an athlete, a cook, a world traveler, and a travel agent. Then I saw a movie that featured an editor, enrolled in a master’s degree of publishing and editing, and got a job in publishing off the back of that degree. The job was at a niche publisher in Melbourne, Australia, that published (still publishes, actually) a huge range of magazines—from B2B publications to government and consumer titles. I started as a receptionist and sometime proofreader, and I became a senior editor after four years. When I moved to New York in 2016, my employer was optimistic (or crazy) enough to allow me to start an American office for the business, where it was my job to conceive of new ideas for magazines, and make them work (easy peasy!).

On Origins and Intent

Bo: Every magazine has a creation myth. What’s yours? Was Oh Reader born out of passion, frustration, or maybe stubbornness?

Gemma: All three! The idea for Oh Reader happened in the middle of COVID; I was sitting in café opposite a bookstore in Saugerties, Upstate New York, and I was racking my brain for magazine ideas—the pandemic had thrown a curveball and we needed to increase our output, to create something new that had potential to be successful (this was where the frustration contributed—how could we keep the business afloat?). I’d just bought several books across the street, and I felt excited about the prospect of what they could bring into my life (see: passion!). And I realized that there are so many stories to be told about how books affect readers. They inspire self-reflection, change, empathy, knowledge-seeking, travel, critical thinking… just for a start! And people who read love to share those revelations with one another—so why not do that in print? The stubbornness came when I had to convince my higher-ups to take a chance on a magazine about reading that didn’t feature book reviews or author interviews. There was a lot of head-scratching on the other side of the Zoom screen, but I held my ground and maintained my stance that it could be something great.

Bo: You didn’t make a magazine about authors or publishing. You made one about reading itself. That’s unusual. Were you out to rebel against the industry, or to celebrate what it forgot?

Gemma: I was going to say that Oh Reader didn’t come from a place of rebellion; however, now that I think about it, maybe it did. I love to read (obviously), but whenever I stood at a newsstand looking for something that spoke to my inner bookworm, I only saw book reviews and author interviews—but I wanted to know about the people who read. Why do they choose the books they read? What does reading give to them? How have they changed after reading a particular book? So, it was, I suppose, a personal reaction to a lack of something that I wanted. That said, as soon as the idea came to me, Oh Reader became a celebration of reading and the people who do it, which I do think is something that is forgotten when we talk about books in mainstream media.

On Readers and Culture

Bo: Reading is supposedly in decline, yet here you are publishing a magazine about it. Is Oh Reader proof the obituary writers were wrong, or are you fighting a last noble battle?

Gemma: The obituary writers are always wrong—or at least, they like to generalize without looking at nuance. Print has been dying since radio arrived, according to the harbingers of literary doom. And I am aware of the statistics—reading for pleasure is on the decline, but that’s also in the face of reduced leisure time and increased economic strain. When (if) those metrics change, we might see an increase in reading for pleasure again. And if you look at the number of BookTok posts on TikTok (52 million posts with 370 billion views), it’s hard to concede that the book industry is taking its last choking breaths. No matter how much reading for pleasure declines, there will always be passionate readers who seek to engage with the literary world—and for them, there will always be Oh Reader.

Bo: Everyone has reading rituals. Some dog-ear pages, some smell the spine, some only read in bed. What have you learned about the quirks of readers that surprised you most?

Gemma: It’s less about the quirks and more about the passion. If someone posts a picture of a dog-eared book, the vitriol that arises from that is quite remarkable. People are either in the “underline and highlight” camp, or they’re incensed by it. There are people who painstakingly add mini Post-its to the pages of their books, people who keep each of their books in Ziploc bags, people who won’t lend books to anyone, people who color-coordinate their bookshelves. The passion is REAL in the book world!

Bo: Social media rewired attention spans. Audiobooks exploded. TikTok sells more books than book reviews ever did. Is all this good for the act of reading, or have we confused content consumption with deep engagement?

Gemma: I think social media has a lot to answer for when it comes to the ability of folks to sit and concentrate on one thing for decent blocks of time. And yes, I think it’s easy to believe that if we’ve been consuming content, we’ve been engaged. But I think that audiobooks and BookTok are great! With the aforementioned loss of leisure time, it’s valuable to be able to walk your dog and be in nature and listen to a book all at the same time. You can cook while you’re listening to Anthony Bourdain’s memoir. You can clean the house and be entertained by your favorite writer. In terms of TikTok, I’m a millennial so I can’t claim to be an expert on the platform, but if so many young people are reading and recommending books, it doesn’t matter what the platform is. That said, there is a lack of range when it comes to books that are recommended on TikTok. There are huge trends in romantasy, fantasy and romance, and most of the books that keep coming up are recently published works; you won’t see obscure novels from 1987 pop up much. However, there have been reports of decades-old books becoming bestsellers for the first time because they’ve been popular on BookTok. If you get the algorithm right, you can get some great suggestions.

On Print in 2025

Bo: Your audience presumably loves the tactile, the intentional, the analog. How much of Oh Reader’s success is about content, and how much is about the physical experience of the magazine itself?

Gemma: I think the content should always come first—it’s what the magazine is built on, and, in our case, I think it’s quite unique. I receive many emails from readers who want to tell me how the stories in the magazine make them feel seen, or feel part of a community of readers, or inspire them. But we also place great importance on the quality of our paper stock, and the design of the magazine. Most of our readers read our magazine in print, despite digital editions being available and costing less than print. Our readers love to hold the magazine in their hands.

Bo: Magazines were once mass. Now they are more like bespoke luxury goods. Do you see Oh Reader as collectible art, as cultural commentary, or as a love letter readers keep on their shelves?

Gemma: I think any niche publication should aim to be something that the reader wants to keep. If a reader pages through a magazine and then throws it away, it seems to me that they haven’t found real value in it. We have many readers who have the entire collection of Oh Reader issues, and our cover artists are brilliant, so sure, I’ll add “collectible art” to what the magazine is. I wouldn’t say that Oh Reader is cultural commentary as such, but there are certainly themes that apply to what’s happening in the world—from resistance to LGBTQ+ rights, to book-banning and medical care, all related to people’s experience with particular literary works. And, of course, Oh Reader is a heartfelt love letter to books and reading, which resonates with so many who share that love.

On Business and Survival

Bo: Publishing is romantic until you look at the balance sheet. How do you keep the lights on? Subscriptions, ads, events, divine intervention?

Gemma: Oh yes, money… not surprisingly to anyone reading this, it’s not easy to keep a print magazine afloat. At Executive Media Global, we print several titles that bring in revenue in different ways. With Oh Reader, it’s subscriptions—we have a very loyal following. Another of our magazines is held up by advertising sales, and we also create paid custom publications for businesses or organizations that are looking for something in particular. You can’t rely on just one income stream—even if you only have one magazine, you need to leverage subscriptions, newsstand sales, advertising sales, and things like events (though we haven’t done any events yet). I wish it were divine intervention—my job would be a lot easier if I could just defer to a holy being to make things work!

Bo: What’s the hardest part about running a niche magazine today: finding readers, finding money, or finding time?

Gemma: All of the above, but it all comes back to money. Finding an audience is about marketing, and marketing can be expensive. Finding time means having a decent sized staff; however, salaries take away from the bottom line. And finding money is impossible—it’s not just sitting there waiting to be found. You have to generate it, by finding your audience and making something that they want, and will continue to want, which brings advertisers and revenue.

On the Future of Reading

Bo: Gen Z is reading books in record numbers but also scrolling endlessly. Are they our salvation or our distraction?

Gemma: Like I mentioned earlier, Gen Z is making a splash on TikTok with their BookTok accounts, and studies show that they’re reading more. My hope is that they’ll tire of the endless scrolling and be drawn back to analog pursuits and things that feed into their well-being. They’re a pretty switched-on generation, and they understand social issues and mental health much better than my generation did a decade or two ago. I hope that they can balance their screen time with other pastimes that give them calm and contentment. Like… reading!

Bo: Looking ten years out, what’s your prediction: more people reading, fewer people, or a radical shift in what “reading” even means?

Gemma: There are so many factors that can affect this that it’s very hard to predict. Economics, education, the amount of input that our brains are required to process—it all affects how much we read. But while the decline in reading for pleasure will most likely create a smaller cohort of readers, perhaps these readers will really engage with longer texts and be affected by them; will exist in a community of likeminded bibliophiles who share in the pursuit of literary goodness. I think that “reading” will continue to mean what we have known it to mean for a long time, and it will retain its place as a sacred thing. People, starved, for the most part, by digital media—and particularly AI—of thoughtful creative expression will be more likely to read for the poetics and individual thought that a well-crafted novel, short story or poem can provide. That group of readers will be smaller, though. But I honestly have no idea, mostly because technology moves so fast. Maybe reading will become a game like Pokémon Go, and we’ll see the youth out in public completely immersed in books.

On the Personal Side

Bo: Tell me the book that made you first fall in love with reading. Do you still revisit it, or is it like a first romance better remembered than relived?

Gemma: I read a lot when I was a kid, and I know I loved British adventure stories like Enid Blyton’s books—The Famous Five, in particular. But the book that I remember being really affected by was one called A Fortunate Life, by Australian writer A. B. Facey. My uncle gave it to me for Christmas, and I think I read it when I was around ten years old. I remember taking it to my mother and telling her, “This is an amazing book!” I haven’t read it since, but I remember being completely drawn into it. It’s just the story of one man’s life in Australia, through hardship and wars and family struggles. I think it’s probably the first book that really showed me what storytelling is about—not that I could have articulated that to you then. I think I’d like to read it again, but I am concerned that it was a book for me at a particular time in my life, and maybe I won’t love it as much as I did then.

Bo: What was the last book that genuinely made you miss your subway stop, your bedtime, or maybe even a meeting?

Gemma: I missed a subway stop or two when I was reading 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster. It’s a massive book, around 800 pages, and I got really sucked into it. I had this one Mogwai album that I’d listen to to drown out the sounds of the other commuters, and I’d get totally absorbed and forget where I was. More recently, I read Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness, and that kept me up past my bedtime (but that might have been because I had to finish it for book club with only a few days up my sleeve—a great book, though!).

Bo: And finally, when readers look back decades from now, what do you want them to say Oh Reader meant to the culture?

Gemma: I would love for readers to say that Oh Reader made them fall more deeply in love with reading, or that it made them feel more connected to the culture and community of reading. I’d love for them to say that it created a way to connect around something that is typically a solitary activity. Ideally, they would say that Oh Reader single-handedly resurrected the popularity of reading and the book publishing industry, but that might be a bit of a stretch! J