Summer Message

I wanted to wish all of your a restful and rejuvenating summer. I am going to be working on the blog over the summer. I am hoping to get a post or two up over the summer, but I will mainly be working on a list of articles and topics to write about this coming year.

Sales

"I was wondering if your group sells copies of your magazine once they are printed to raise money? If you do, how much do you charge and how successful is it? In the past we've tried to sell some but never sold more than a few copies at graduation." -Lars

Yes we do sell the magazine. In the two years that I have been involved in selling the magazine we have sold it for $5 and then the following year $7. This year we are talking about selling it for $10. Our problem has been, and always will be, No matter what we sell it at we will never reclaim the cost of publishing. This year's price is an attempt to maximize the amount of money that we can get.
We print 200 to 250 copies of the magazine. We sell 60 copies on average. We feel that we can sell the higher quality magazine to the same 60 people at $10 instead of $5 or $7. In this way we can gain a little more revenue to put towards next year. This is only a theory. Time will tell if it works.

I can't remember where I heard the idea, or who mentioned it; however, there is an idea floating around about the possibility of selling the magazines on Amazon or eBay. We haven't seriously pursued the idea, but it is an avenue that we are going to be looking into. At this point in the game, we (As lit mag people) are going to have to come up with some creative solutions to this problem.

Unfortunately, I cannot ever see a high school literary magazine being published and paid for through sales. Sponsorships, patrons, and donations are always going to have to be a part of the equation. I hope that I will be proved wrong in the future.

Printing Time

So we have gotten to the time of year when the printer comes around. I would be interested to here from you how your magazine is printed. Do you do it yourself? Do you use an Internet printer? Do you use a local printer?
Our philosophy (The advisers) is to use a local printer. We feel it is important to keep our business in the area. In the past, we have had problems with a local printer, only to have another local printer come to our rescue. After that company was bought out we found another local print shop and we are now working with them for a second year.
We met with our account representative from the printer last evening. He came to the school to talk with us. We outlined our ideas with the rep and looked at samples. I cannot tell you how important it is to be able to have a face to face. We were able to see and touch actual samples of the cover stock and text stock that we wanted to use in this years mag. We were able to talk about the paper size and the colors we wanted to use.
The other benefit that we found, with our present printer, is the technological aspect of printing. We are able to work on our file in Adobe InDesign CS at school, burn it on a CD and send it to them. They pull it into their system and we have a proof in a few days. Now it's gotten better! The have an FTP site that we can upload the file to! That means that when we are finished we send it to their server and they pull it down. The amount of time that this saves us, from even two years ago, is staggering. Going from printing our magazine completely ourselves, to sending the file electronically, in less than three years?!

Find a printer that will talk to you. Better yet find a printer that will sit down and show you printing and paper samples. The printer has probably done this for a while and can help you with problems as they arise.

Pushing the Envelope

How far can you push the design envelope? Is it possible to have the concept of your magazine's layout go over the reader's head?
Before I go on about this topic I want to make two things perfectly clear: I tend to design on the conservative side and this topic came about because of our scores in this year's competitions. I don't want you to think that this is anything other than constructive criticism/reflection on my part.

Two and a half years ago, when I first joined Charisma, we crated Surfaces. The magazine had a fairly conservative layout. There were a few twists, but not many. The major twist was the fact that we chose to layout the magazine on 8 1/2 x 11 paper in the landscape orientation. That meant that the magazine was bound on the short side (I would not recommend this due to printing issues). The spread was divided into either four or six columns or a combination of each on a page.
Last year's magazine ! (that's right "!"), went in a completely different direction. There wasn't a spread that was similar. The only thing that tied the pages together was the folio, and the use of an exclamation point in some manner. We went from 4 color ink-jet printing on Surfaces to Duotone professional printing. The print quality was extraordinary and the magazine looked good.

The second magazine that I was involved with was hard for me to get my head around at first. It went against my philosophy of design, but I came to love it. Now that we have gotten three of our four competition results back, we have been less than thrilled.
As my colleague and I have let this sink in and we have discussed it, we are coming to the realization that the design concept for ! may have been too much. There are a lot of things that are happening from page to page and even on the page. For some this may be too hard to get their head around, and can end up overwhelming the reader. It distracts them from reading or enjoying the art.

So the moral of the story here? Take risks in your layout, but make sure that what you are doing does not overpower the content. I am by no means saying that conservative is the way to go. After last year's magazine I have begun to appreciate less conservative layout ideas. I have, however, come to appreciate that the cutting edge can be dangerous.

Submissions: Feast or Famine

"However, there is one problem we have run into: a lack of submissions. Has your magazine experienced this? If so, then how did you deal with it?" -Lars

Lars, I would guess that this is one of the biggest issues that plagues a majority of Lit Mags. I wish that I could give you a clear cut solution. Our publication is in a similar situation.
One of the things that We have done (being that I am an art teacher) to increase the Art Submissions, is to work with our high school Art Club. Our Art Club takes images of students work to put on the district web site. We have begun having one of the Art Club members also be a member of the staff. They help to take the images and can pull pieces they think could be used. If you have an Art Club that is a great avenue to getting Art submissions.
As for Literary submissions, English teachers are the best avenue. Have the staff talk to their English teachers and ask for students who are good writers. Search out those students and ask them for some of their writing. If you know someone who likes to write ask them for work.

Finally, Advertise! Put up posters, run ads in the school newspaper, and run commercials on the school television news (If you have one). Get the word out!