General Info

A table saw, his life savings, a little frustration, and a dream. That's what it took for Donald Peschke to publish the first issue of Woodsmith magazine in 1979. Within ten years his entrepreneurial efforts paid off, as the publishing company he founded landed twice on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing privately owned companies in America. Today, August Home Publishing Company publishes five national, award winning magazines: Woodsmith, ShopNotes, Garden Gate, Cuisine at home, and My Home My Style. In addition, it has expanded in many ways to meet its mission of surrounding our customers with service. August Home provides home centers and woodworking stores around the country with Woodsmith Tools, plans, and hardware kits through its wholesale division, operates The Woodsmith Store in Clive, Iowa ( a dream store for woodworkers ), has a mail-order business that supplies woodworking and gardening products, and has a new media group devoted to producing an active commerce and information site on the Web ( www.AugustHome.com ). Of course, it didn't all start out this way. In 1978, Peschke was 30 years old and a frustrated, beginning woodworker. He wanted plans and instructions to help him build furniture, but all he could find in magazines at the time were articles that showed a picture of the project, one large drawing, and a few details about building it. What he wanted was a magazine that showed how to build projects, step-by-step, down to the last detail, in down-to-earth language. That magazine didn't exist. So he quit his job and set out to produce it on his own. The first issue of Woodsmith magazine was only eight pages long, with no advertising. Peschke designed and built the projects in his basement shop, wrote the copy on a small desk in a spare bedroom, and learned how to draw the illustrations. Then he spent his life savings of $7, 000 to print and promote the first issue. His dream worked. There were thousands of frustrated woodworkers, like him, around the country. That was all it took for Woodsmith Publishing Company ( as it was known then ) to be born.