Literary Magazine Kiosk Launched
The Only Website for Exclusive Sale of Literary Magazines

New York City—Today, Small Press Distribution (SPD) and The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) launch a groundbreaking new website designed to place literary magazines from across the country directly in the hands of readers.  The Literary Magazine Kiosk (www.litmagkiosk.com) is the only sales venue created by nonprofit literary organizations for the benefit of literary magazines and their readers.  This online newsstand, which features 50 literary magazines selected through a rigorous application process, will enable a diverse range of the nation’s finest poets, fiction writers, and essayists to reach the widest available audience.

"Literary magazines are perhaps the nation's greatest source of new and challenging writing," says Susan Kenny, CLMP's interim executive director. "Important American writers such as Rita Dove, Rick Moody and Philip Roth published their first work in literary magazines.  But in a marketplace dominated by mainstream publications and mainstream distributors interested primarily in giant circulation magazines, literary magazines have an uphill battle reaching readers."

The Georgia Review's business manager, Brenda Keen, agrees.  "Distributors are accustomed to working with commercial magazines with a short shelf life. Often, The Georgia Review is pulled from bookstores soon after it arrives, even though its content is timeless.  Not only will The Literary Magazine Kiosk make literary magazines readily available, it will also provide users with links to web pages that show a generous sampling of current and past issues.  We are excited to see the literary community join together in bringing this service to the public."

The Literary Magazine Kiosk links directly to SPD's online fulfillment system.  The site features a home page and subsequent "catalogue" pages including facsimiles of magazine covers, descriptions of current magazine issues and links to individual magazine websites.  Users can browse catalogue pages by genre and subject.  Single-copy purchases can be made with a simple “click” which takes the user to SPD's magazine shopping cart. 

The Literary Magazine Kiosk offers free shipping for the literary magazines it carries. "The mission of The Literary Magazine Kiosk is to connect the many readers interested in contemporary writing with some of the best magazines publishing it," says Laura Moriarty, SPD’s director of marketing and acquisitions.  "By making these magazines easily available, and by eliminating the cost of shipping, CLMP and SPD will also cultivate and expand the audience for independent publishing."

The 50 magazines available through The Literary Magazine Kiosk include established titles such as Agni, The Georgia Review, Fiction, Kenyon Review, and the Sewanee Review, and up-and-comers such as Barrow Street, Fence, Five Points, Many Mountains Moving, and 3rd Bed.  The website offers magazines with diverse geographic, ethnic, and stylistic sensibilities — but with the common goal of presenting the best literary work of the nation’s emerging and established writers.

The Literary Magazine Kiosk is the only website for literary magazine sales that benefits readers in two important ways: by providing convenient access to some of the finest magazines from across the nation and by supporting the nonprofit literary community through the partnership of SPD and CLMP.  Vincent Standley, editor-in-chief of 3rd Bed, a recently established literary magazine based in Massachusetts, sees this partnership as a great predictor of success for the website.  "CLMP and SPD understand that literary magazines are not ordinary commodities; they know that the value comes from a magazine's content.  Without profit as the bottom line, 3rd Bed is always concerned about whether our next issue will be our last.  Literary magazines will be represented in a very efficient and very human manner at The Literary Magazine Kiosk — I'm truly excited about this project’s potential to help 3rd Bed reach its maximum audience, and therefore continue to publish in the future."

Small Press Distribution, based in Berkeley, California, is the only nonprofit wholesaler of literary presses and magazines in the nation and represents more than 500 publishers nationwide.  The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses is the national nonprofit membership organization for literary magazines and presses.  CLMP exists to serve, support, and advocate on behalf of US independent literary publishers. 

The Literary Magazine Kiosk is generously funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds as part of CLMP/SPD's "New Readers for New Writers" program.  "New Readers for New Writers" is a one-year pilot program that aims to make literary magazines more readily available to bookstores, libraries and individual buyers through subsidized distribution and a series of concurrent marketing activities.  For a full list of participating magazines, please visit the website or contact Susan Kenny at CLMP at (212) 741-9110 ext. 18.

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