| Mike
has been in the printing and publishing business
almost his entire life. He began working in a print
shop when he was only 12 years old. He learned how
to set type by hand, working with lead on the old
typesetting litho machines. Mike’s experience
is in all facets of printing, from striping the
film, to writing sales and media kits to running
the 4-color sheet feed to the 6- color web presses.
At the State University of New York at Farmingdale,
Mike wrote and published his first book, “The
Deer Hunter’s Guide”. Upon graduation,
he printed The Long Island Disco Guide which then
led him to his first magazine The Suffolk Welcome
Train. In a move that would then change his life,
Mike published Nightlife Magazine in 1979.
Channel 4 News broadcast the launching of this
new hot publication and Mike knew he had a winner!
The very next day, Mike was served with several
law suits trying to prevent the publishing of
this magazine’s title. Spending almost everything
he had to protect the name Nightlife, Mike is
the rightful owner of the Federal Trademark for
Nightlife, Nightlife TV in radio, press and television.
During this time, Mike was also publishing other
Nightlife magazines in Long Island and Chicago.
Nightlife TV and The Travel Network teamed together
to produce 72 shows which were seen in 32 million
homes in 36 different countries and broadcast
on local cable and television stations throughout
the United States. During this exciting and busy
time, Mike still found time to write his second
book called “Say Yes to Life” written
for parents and children. Over 70 Chambers of
Commerce and even past President George Bush Sr.
wrote letters stating that the book was an outstanding
guide to help children.
Mike’s third book Common Sense and Timing
came next, written about everyday life and everyday
people and the everyday problems faced by all.
Sales were so high; the book was later published
in Korea and Israel.
Mike likes to keep busy and somehow found the
time to become a highly ranked Black Belt and
Teacher in Jiu-Jitsu Karate. He organized the
Junior Karate World Championships which became
the largest Karate tournament for kids in the
world. Children form over 50 countries worldwide
came to the United States to compete.
A friend of Mike’s, the great publisher
Malcolm Forbes, invited Mike onto his yacht, along
with Elizabeth Taylor to talk about doing a project
together. Malcolm asked Mike for ideas for a magazine
title. With Mike’s vast knowledge of the
market, he pointed out that there were no sports
magazines representing only the New York professional
sports teams. An idea was born, but with Malcolm’s
untimely passing, plans were placed on hold for
two years until the New York Rangers were in the
Stanley Cup Finals in 1990. Within one month,
Mike sold a year’s worth of advertising
space for the whole year. New York Sportscene
Magazine was born. Following up with the NY Sportscene
Children’s Fund and the NY Sportscene Sports
Award Dinner, Mike was able to bring the entire
New York and New Jersey sports teams under one
roof. He then produced the NY Sports Award TV
Show which aired on the Madison Square Garden
network.
Mike wrote a movie in 1990 titled “The
Adventures of the Karate Wizards”. He sent
the script to Disney who was interested in it
but only offered a small amount of money. He turned
it down, rewrote the movie into a book and decided
to keep the rights for himself.
In 2001, Mike designed the Nightlife Interactive
TV System which made the cover of Kiosk Magazine
as the hottest advertising and direct response
product to come onto the market. In 2004, Mike
took on another exciting adventure and took over
the publishing of a paintball magazine, renaming
it Paintball Sports and turning it into the number
one paintball magazine in the United States. He
also found the time to write a fourth book. Since
his first “Common Sense and Timing”
was such a hit, he released a second edition titled
“Common Sense and Timing Two”. His
latest project is that of CEO/Publisher of a new
magazine promoting heath, fitness and well-being
called DASH Magazine.
In his private life, Mike is a captain in the
Nesconset fire department where he has been a
volunteer fireman for over 20 years. He returned
back to school to pursue another love of his,
cooking, and because of his love for cooking,
he shares recipes with us in a fifth book, “Easy
Cooking”.
Michael is married to his lovely wife Rebecca
for almost thirty years and has raised three sons
in Long Island. I’m sure we can all look
forward to hearing about new ventures from Michael
in the years to come.
Meet
our Founder Eric J. Aronson
Meet
our Editor-in-Chief, Fran Petito
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