PR By the Book and Texas Lifestyle Magazine were founded on Aggie spirit.
Marika and Doug Flatt first met at Texas A&M and graduated with degrees in communication and marketing, respectively. They’re now married with three children and they’ve founded and currently own two companies — PR By the Book and Texas Lifestyle Magazine.
PR By the Book was founded in 2002 and is a literary publicity firm based in Austin where they specialize in helping authors spread the word about their books across all kinds of media platforms. Marika is the chief publicity strategist and Doug runs the business side of the firm as chief operations officer.
Marika, Class of 1997, said working at a small literary publicity company introduced the inspiration for creating PR By the Book with her husband.
“I thought that was the perfect job for me,” Marika said. “It was a really neat way for me to combine a lot of my passions, which are books and the media. It’s really exciting to help people hear about new books that they want to read.”
Business development coordinator Babs Chandrasoma has seen the growth of PR By the Book. Chandrasoma was a neighbor of the Flatts when they first proposed to the idea to her, and she has supported and worked with them for 13 years.
“Because they were my neighbors, they’re friends too, so we really found a really good way to blend that,” Chandrasoma said.
Marika said Doug, Class of 1995, grew up with an entrepreneurial background from working with his family’s 75-year-old company, Flatt Stationers. Marika said when she and Doug came to Texas A&M, being on their own was the start of their entrepreneurial journey.
“One of the things that I found really important to me while at A&M was the initiative of taking control of what needed to be done,” Marika said. “That’s the spark of being an entrepreneur is realizing that nobody’s going to take care of you.”
Marika said her experience interning in various media outlets during college helped her develop her own passion for entrepreneurship. Her internship at a TV station in Dallas ignited her initiative to gain experience writing. Marika said she spent her senior year of college working at The Battalion and her most memorable story was interviewing James Earl Rudder’s widow, Margaret Rudder.
Marika keeps in touch with her journalism roots with Texas Lifestyle Magazine, which was founded in 2014 as an expansion of Austin Lifestyle Magazine and is published solely online. There, Marika Flatt is the travel and associate editor and Doug is the publisher.
Contributing writer Dana Kent mainly writes about local Austin events as well as a segment titled “Travel Tuesdays.”
“It’s added a lot to my life,” Kent said. “I’m able to combine something that I love doing, which is traveling, and then writing and sharing it with other people.”
Like Texas Lifestyle Magazine, PR By the Book is primarily based online. Flatt said both companies have remote internship programs and they have had interns from Texas A&M.
“I am a huge advocate of internships,” Flatt said. “I learned so much through my internships, so I really recommend college students take their fields seriously and get that experience while they’re still in college.”