Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Launches Literary Journal Institute Toolkit

Comprehensive Guide to Operational Issues for Literary Magazines at www. clmp.org

New York City—The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses, America's leading service organization for independent literary book and magazine publishers, has announced the launch of the LJI Toolkit, a comprehensive guide to operational issues for literary magazine publishers. Coined as "the best" of the Literary Journal Institute -- a program designed to strengthen operations and enhance revenue for the nation's literary magazines and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts -- the Toolkit addresses the complexities of circulation marketing, fulfillment, customer service, distribution, and fundraising.  The Toolkit is housed on the CLMP website at www.clmp.org.

The Literary Journal Institute, which concluded its programming in October 2000, aided more than 120 literary magazines of every conceivable genre and size, and included more than half of CLMP's member magazines and more than 10% of the estimated 1000 literary magazines published in the United States.  Magazines participated in LJI national workshops, one-on-one consultations and a peer support network.

According to Susan Kenny, the LJI Program Director and CLMP's Literary Magazine Specialist, "about 14 months into the 2-year program we began to wonder if there was an innovative way to extend the program to the many magazines that did not or could not participate. Thus, the idea of a "Toolkit" housed on CLMP's website that would document the program's most salient and useful lessons was born."

The Toolkit contains materials identified as most useful by LJI graduates, resources developed for LJI's four national workshops, instructive case studies on lessons learned through the program, and an additional 30 pieces that provide instruction, training and advice on all manner of literary magazine operations. Within the "pages" of the Toolkit, magazine publishers will find information on building individual donor campaigns; how to make literary magazines "newsstand friendly;" benchmarks for renewal rates and new business campaigns; links to printers, distributors and subscription agents; how to develop a mission statement; how to get a Business Reply Mail permit from the post office; and where to look for potential readers when there's no marketing budget.

Mature organizations will find downloadable, preformatted reports for analyzing renewals, new subscriptions, and projecting future subscription income, as well as worksheets on how to keep track of single-copy sales and make sense of distribution reports.  Also available at www.clmp.org is the Literary Journal Institute's Circulation Database Template, an affordable, easy to use circulation tracking system designed in Filemaker Pro ($50 for members; $100 non-members).  CLMP sees the Toolkit as a work in progress and hopes to collect feedback from Toolkit users in order to make changes and updates to its contents.  Questions about Toolkit content should be directed to CLMP's Literary Magazine Specialist Susan Kenny at skenny@clmp.org.

CLMP was founded in 1967 as the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, adding presses to its constituency in 1991.  For over 30 years CLMP has supported the country's diverse literary culture by promoting and advocating on behalf of its publishers and nurturing their business and organizational capacity.  CLMP strengthens its membership by offering marketing and organizational workshops, hosting a national membership meeting for the field, sponsoring technical assistance programs, representing the voice of its publishers in the media, maintaining a comprehensive website, and providing basic information services and publications.  In addition, CLMP informs funders and other arts groups about the role of literary publishing in American culture, conducts research about the field, and ensures that literature has a voice in the politics of cultural policy.

CLMP receives generous support from the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, the New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wendling Foundation, Deutsche Bank and gifts from the Friends of CLMP.

More news