In a world in which publishing companies are generally named for their founders, Don Peschke realized that “Peschke Publishing” might be a mouthful for people. Originally calling his business Woodsmith Publishing Co., Peschke changed the name to August Home Publishing Co. in the mid-1990s as it branched out from woodworking by adding titles in gardening, cooking and home improvement. Why August? Besides being his birth month, Peschke liked the fact that the month’s namesake, the Roman emperor Augustus, was known for sparking an age of learning and literature.

“I think that sort of in a nutshell is what this company is about,” said

Peschke, who launched his flagship magazine, Woodsmith, 25 years ago. He began the magazine with $5,000 in savings, after searching in vain for a how-to publication that would guide him as a beginning woodworker step-by-step through a project. “We focus on the how-to. We’re very enthusiastic about the fields we’re in.”

That enthusiasm sparked rapid growth for the Des Moines-based publishing company, landing it on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing privately-owned companies in the United States in the mid-1980s. Now, with annual sales of $35 million and 160 employees, Peschke says across-the-board growth for the magazines should allow him to add another 100 employees within the next year.

As August Home moves forward, it is aggressively adopting new technologies designed to give its hobbyist-readers more options in how they access and view the publications. Earlier this month, for instance, the company launched its first fully electronic magazine, which it delivers to subscribers via e-mail. Other projects include discussions of launching woodworking, gardening and cooking programs on Iowa Public Television, as well as plans for Webcasts of how-to shows on the company’s Web sites.

August Home’s stable of magazines currently includes three woodworking magazines: Woodsmith, ShopNotes and Workbench. In 1995 the company launched Garden Gate, a magazine for home gardeners, and a year later started Cuisine at Home, targeting home chefs.

As the Baby Boom generation shifts to the 45- to 55-year-old age range, magazines that focus on creative, at-home hobbies will increasingly appeal to that demographic, Peschke said.

The company’s retail-product side is anchored by The Woodsmith Store in Clive, a 30,000-square-foot mecca for woodworkers that follows the magazines’ hands-on teaching approach by offering regular in-store classes in woodworking techniques. August Home also operates a mail-order business for woodworking and gardening supplies, which Peschke views as another way of fulfilling his goal of “surrounding the customer with service.”

Though its retail operations now account for about 15 percent of the company’s revenues, Peschke said there are no plans to expand or franchise bricks-and-mortar stores beyond Greater Des Moines.

“We want to use this as a base to sell our tools via the phone and the Internet,” he said. The company also sells how-to DVDs and videotapes that it produces in-house.

“It’s an interesting concept for a publishing company to own a retail store,” Peschke said, “the important piece of it being the education side.”

The convergence of print and online media is creating growth opportunities for August Home, which produces all of its video- and computer animation work for its five magazine Web sites in-house. The first electronically-delivered version of one of its magazines, Cuisineathome.com, went online just three weeks ago, to be followed by electronic versions of the other four publications.

“It’s what we call Magazine 2.0,” Peschke said. With both still photos and video clips, the electronic version of the magazines can show hobbyists how to accomplish certain tasks, such as how a futon sofa that can be built as a project can convert to a bed. A “page-flipping” technology allows users to electronically turn pages and use a stylus on their notebook computer to enlarge photos or diagrams.

In addition to sending out samples of its magazines by mail, the company is increasingly finding new subscribers through its Web sites, Peschke said. “We get about 1.5 million unique visitors per month to our Web sites, which is a lot,” he said. Additionally, the print magazines direct readers to online extras that readers can access, as well as an online archive of past issues of Woodsmith.

“We’re looking strongly at the delivery of information on the Web on an as-it’s-ready basis versus monthly or bimonthly,” he said. Though access to each magazine’s Web site is now free, the company plans to begin charging subscription fees for them soon. It also sells individual copies of woodworking project plans on the Web sites.

Reaching out to subscribers through multiple channels is a smart approach for publishers, said Ron Maahs, vice president for client services of Trilix Marketing Group, an Urbandale-based advertising agency.

“It all comes down to that nobody can get caught in a single-media channel anymore,” Maahs said. “There are so many ways to get your message out. You see them all crossing over (one into the other), and they’re all getting onto the Internet. I think that if someone doesn’t do it, it’s at their own peril.”

The technology costs of producing and accessing electronic magazines on hand-held devices will probably need to come down before it becomes more widely used, he said, and so far few publishers have ventured into it.

“But I applaud anyone who’s giving it a shot. If people aren’t pushing, it won’t move forward,” Maahs said.

With the exception of Workbench, which August Home bought eight years ago, the company’s magazines don’t accept advertising and rely solely on subscription revenue.

“What it does is focus us very intently on the reader,” Peschke said. “If they’re not happy, we’re not successful at all.”

The magazines’ circulations vary, with about 400,000 subscribers for Workbench, 325,000 for Garden Gate, 250,000 for Woodsmith and 180,000 for ShopNotes, he said. The company’s fastest-growing title is its 7-year-old Cuisine at Home magazine, which Peschke expects will expand its readership from 325,000 subscribers currently to 400,000 by the end of the year.

“It’s our rising star right now,” he said.

That wasn’t always the case for Cuisine at home, which seemed stuck on simmer until a focus group was brought in about three years ago to turn up the burners.

One of the problems, Peschke discovered, was that the magazine had too closely emulated Woodsmith’s style of step-by-step instructions, which made its readers think the recipe was too complicated and time-consuming.

“In cooking, it didn’t have to be the grand explanation, because too many people have too little time,” he said. “We also changed the photography, from showing just the completed plate of food to putting it in a setting in the room. It gave it the context of family and friends, rather than just food on a plate.”

Peschke, who before striking out on his own worked at Meredith Corp. as a training editor before “we agreed I wasn’t cut out for corporate life,” said he views Meredith as more complementary than competitor. Among the Des Moines-based publisher’s titles are Better Homes & Gardens, Wood magazine and Midwest Living.

“I think they tend to be inspirational,” he said. “We take it to the next step and show how to make it come alive. … Once you get to know about something and get interested in it, hopefully these people will turn to us when they want to learn more.”