Unique places, interesting events, fine dining, great shopping and the
special life-style of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware

County Lines Magazine is the most comprehensive monthly guide to the special lifestyle and leisure-time activities in suburban southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware. More than 40,000 readers see each monthly issue. About 90% of them live or work in Chester County and the western Main Line.

The magazine reaches readers in several ways:

• Directly through our advertisers — the finest restaurants, shops, realtors and specialty services in the entire area
• At carefully selected special events and places of interest, e.g., community festivals, VIP tents at equestrian events; antique shows, garden tours, show houses, area arboretums; concierge desks at hotels & B&Bs; etc.
• By direct-mail to subscribers and selected physicians, dentists, attorneys, corporate executives, business owners, and other affluent and influential people
• By “welcome neighbor” services targeting new homeowners of $350K+ properties.

This coveted, long-standing readership is, quite simply, unmatched. That is why our remarkable advertising base continues to grow with every year. We do the job our advertisers want us to do, cost effectively and imaginatively, bringing their message directly to the people they most want to target.

Click to view our Editorial Schedule Click to view our Digital requirements

	"We advertised in the first issue of County Lines and have been in it ever since. It reaches the customer we want. It is loaded with information on the things that bring people to the area. Gallery customers look forward to picking it up every month; tourists walk in with it. It’s a very, very reliable and informative magazine…easy to pick up and carry with you. The editorial content is great." Barbara Moore Director, Chadds Ford Gallery
"Ball and Ball has advertised with you (County Lines) for many years – almost since you began! The quality of your magazine matches ours, and we are proud to have you in our showroom for our customers. You have become part of Chester County as we have in our 75 years of business, and we look forward to being a part of your advertising family in the years to come." Whitman Ball, William & JoAnn W. Ball, Robert & Pamela Ball Partners, Ball and Ball
	"We have been a fixture on the back cover of County Lines for many years. It is always a pleasure to visit local businesses and see the magazine proudly displayed. I have lost count of the many people who tell us they see our ads and how impressed they are with the high quality of the magazine." Chuck Walsh President, Wall & Walsh, Inc.
	"Country Properties has a special affinity with County Lines as we have both served the community for over 30 years! We have grown up together! We value County Lines as it is unique among other advertising venues as the shelf life of County Lines is so long. Their special issues serve as reference material for their readers." Georgianna Hannum Stapleton Owner, Country Properties
	"I like the fact that County Lines is like a handbook. It’s something to use as a reference to remind you of a boutique, salon or restaurant you’ve forgotten about. Also, it’s great to see what’s new in Chester County. You can put in your handbag or your glove compartment for convenience. Since we are a more boutique type salon, I like that we get more intimate exposure." Bridget White Owner, Blaze Hair Salon, West Chester

Currently, there are three key initiatives under weigh aimed at providing better service to our readers, our advertisers, and the community at large. This website, County Lines Online, is one of them. Before this website was launched, for the 31 years since its founding, the content of County Lines Magazine was available only in hard copy. Indeed, the time-honored way for a reader to get a copy was to visit a County Lines advertiser and pick one up.

And, the time-honored way is still the way we recommend. If you visit one of our advertisers, you’ll probably be able to get a free copy of “the book.” (We recommend that you visit early in the month. Our advertisers do run out.) You’ll also be visiting a place or event you should be visiting anyway. (If you need to find an advertiser distributing the current issue, click here.)

The time-honored way, however, isn’t necessarily the most convenient or only way. Furthermore, it has become increasingly difficult, not only for us but also for some of our readers, to provide as much coverage and as many copies as our readership wants. Over the past several decades, the population of County Lines country has been growing by leaps and bounds. As a result, there are not only many more people looking for copies, there are also many more “unique places, interesting events, fine restaurants, and great shopping opportunities” to be included in the contents of our magazine. Meanwhile, a a growing segment of our audience has become more inclined to visit a website than visit a store in order to find “unique places, interesting events, fine restaurants, and great shopping opportunities.” They want our content, but they want it delivered differently.

County Lines Online, first launched in April 2008, is our solution to the problem. The aim of County Lines Online is to combine the content of the magazine with the power and reach of the web, mainly to make it more accessible to more people. We don’t view it as a separate business. Thus, you’ll note, the site is currently advertisement-free. Rather, it’s our way of making County Lines conveniently available to more people AND making space for more editorial content than can economically be incorporated into our printed books.

For the foreseeable future, we expect the print medium to remain our main method of circulating County Lines. County Lines “regulars” love the look and feel. The books are well-crafted; collectable. They are also convenient and portable: slipping easily into a purse or glove compartment or gym bag. They would rather read a book than a screen.

But times change and we at County Lines are willing to accommodate. When all is said and done, County Lines Online isn’t intended as “one great leap” for the citizens of County Lines country. It’s not about the “miracles of modern technology.” It’s a solution to a problem: our way of making an ever-thicker book conveniently available to more people.

Besides County Lines Online, another key initiative is “special” issues. Today, most people think of County Lines as a “monthly.” And they certainly aren’t wrong. On the other hand, the idea that we are a monthly overlooks an important fact: that we published 13 issues of County Lines in 2007, and are on a course to print 14 in 2008. The 13th was our 1st Annual Guide to Education. It was published in February, but not as a substitute for the February issue.

In 2008 we published the 2nd Annual Guide to Education and later in the year will publish a 14th issue, currently coded Silver and focused on senior and retirement living. For 2009, we there may be two more special issues, bringing the total to 16 per year. At some point, one does have to start asking what exactly is the definition of monthly. And, recognizing that many of our monthly issues already have stable, recurring themes – for example, the January issue is the “Dining Guide,” March is the “Antiques Issue,” May is the “Equestrian Issue” — a curious person could easily start wondering whether County Lines is a “monthly magazine with a number of special issues,” or rather a “series of annual issues some of which get distributed out on the 1st of the month.”

In any case, the initiative to create and distribute Special Issues enable us to create targeted, somewhat more serious and educational publications, beneficial to segments of our readership and advertisers who want to associate with particular topics. Also, special issues can and will be distributed differently than monthly issues. For example, the Guide to Education is direct-mailed to the households in our area most likely to be considering enrollment in private schools. Similarly, the content and distribution plan for the Guide to Senior Living will have its own strategic distribution plan, emphasizing seniors, their family members, and the opportunities and decisions they confront.

Finally, our third key initiative is to build circulation and reader visibility on at frontiers of County Lines country. Geographically, County Lines’ readership is currently strongest in and around West Chester. It also strong among long-time residents of Chester County. For them, County Lines is an institution.

One of our major goals today is that County Lines become as well known and widely read in Phoenixville and in West Chester; as well known in Media as it is in Downingtown; as well known in Collegeville as it is in Kennett Square. And to do that, we are increasingly directing our writers, editors, and other staff to the corners of our geographic and demographic envelope. Recently, for example, we have done “Closer Looks At” Wilmington, Lancaster, Media, and Pottstown. We are turning our attention from quilts to bikes, from Simultaneously, through banks, bookstores, chambers of commerce, and advertisers, and direct mail, we are putting more books into frontier circulation