Tag Archives: Magazine Training International

Honoring two who stayed the course

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Do you have staying power? Some 20, 30, or 40 years from now, will people look back at your career in publishing and see a faithful communicator who skillfully and consistently carried out the ministry to which he had been entrusted by God?

Two such faithful communicators were honored recently for their decades of service in Christian publishing.

KennethTaylorPhotoThe Evangelical Christian Publishers Association posthumously honored writer/publisher Ken Taylor, author of The Living Bible and founder of Tyndale House Publishers, when they announced the Kenneth N. Taylor Lifetime Achievement Award at an Industry Awards Celebration May 3. According to ECPA Executive Director Stan Jantz, the award was “established to recognize a Christian publishing leader who exemplifies a lifetime of achievement through initiatives and programs that have spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.”

Les_StobbeTwo weeks later, the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Institute presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Les Stobbe, whose career in Christian publishing to date has spanned 60 years. Over the years, Stobbe has served as a writer/author/journalist, magazine editor, bookstore buyer and supervisor, book publisher, educator, CEO, trainer, and literary agent. He continues to serve as a writer, literary agent, and workshop leader.

Not everyone is recognized with a lifetime achievement award as they come to the end of their career in Christian publishing. But there is One who does recognize the years of faithful service. And his “Well done, good and faithful servant” is all the recognition we need.

Publishers look to Facebook to increase audience engagement

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Screen Shot 2016-04-25 at 2.45.34 PM.pngBy Friday morning last week 30,389 people had been talking about Dabira, a magazine that has been in existence only a short time. How is it possible that so many people were talking about a Nigerian Christian magazine? Dabira Editor Lara Odebiyi discovered long ago how a Facebook page for her magazine could impact and influence current and potential readers of her magazine. With nearly 6,000 likes, Dabira’s Facebook page has the potential to engage tens of thousands of people.

Publishers have come to recognize the value of Facebook engagement in reaching and responding to their current and potential readers. Facebook defines the engagement rate as the percentage of people who saw a post and reacted to it, sharing, clicking, or commenting on it. Page administrators can view the engagement rate for each post and to see certain limited demographic statistics on those who “like” the page.

In order to reach more people and to increase engagement, Facebook suggests using Page Insights to learn how the audience is engaging with the posts. The Post Types section will allow you to see the kinds of posts that have the highest average reach and engagement.. You can use this information to create more of the types of posts that your audience wants to see

You can also increase engagement by:

* Offering useful content, rather than simply filling up the columns with your own advertising and promotions.

* Asking questions your readers would want to answer. Get a conversation going to increase response.

* Host contests. Use Facebook’s Events Page feature for an attractive and efficient way to organize your contest and receive feedback.

* Offering conference registration. If your magazine is planning a conference, make it possible for people to link to your registration form from Facebook.

* Posting on the days and at the times when your users are on Facebook looking for content. This information is available in your Page Insights.

* Using Facebook apps to add extra features to your page, including RSS feeds,; quizzes, and contact forms.

* Posting videos. Videos get more attention than any other type of post. They can be quite short and don’t have to be professional quality. Interview authors, record readers’ comments about the magazine or topics covered by the magazine. Share appropriate videos from other Facebook users.

* Using pictures with your written posts to grab readers’ attention.

When you’re busy producing a magazine, keeping up a Facebook page can seem like simply another burdensome job. Yet a magazine, with its rich content and articulate authors, has more resources to work with than most other businesses and is ideal for generating Facebook engagement.

Dabira and many other magazines have already discovered the value of Facebook and are using it to their advantage. If your magazine hasn’t yet set goals for your Facebook page and generated a plan for increasing your engagement, it may be time to take a new look at this potentially important tool in your tool box.

Fresh out of ideas for Facebook posts? Check out this  blog post on MagazineTraining.com for a list of suggestions.

Out of the Classroom and into the World: MTI trainer’s students experience real-world reporting

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Dr. Michael Ray Smith

Dr. Michael Ray Smith is a journalism professor and campus newspaper advisor at Palm Beach Atlantic University.

Dr. Michael Ray Smith’s journalism students are having the time of their lives. Smith, who is a trainer with Magazine Training International (MTI) and a member of MTI’s Board of Directors, is also a journalism professor and campus newspaper advisor at Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida.

The student journalists are excited because they are reporting not only on school and student concerns, but on America’s wild national politics, attending press conferences and interviewing supporters. Along the way, they are gaining valuable real-world experience and bylines not only in the school paper, but in a local daily newspaper, as well.

Students have also covered West Palm Beach events and city government, as well as church and ministry issues.

“Our program is deliberately focused on getting student journalists reporting off campus,” Smith said. “It helps students to get a realistic experience of working in news.”

Smith has written for major U.S. newspapers and has led journalism programs in universities across the nation. He taught a writing course for Magazine Training International in Manila in 2009. He has written a number of books, including “The ABC List of Feature Ideas” available on MTI’s website. His most recent book is “7 Days to a Byline That Pays.”

11 Christian magazine professionals from four countries headline Indian training events

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Join the excitement as magazine staff from around the world come together in Bangalore in October to jump start their careers and inject fresh impetus into their magazine ministries. You’ll sit under the teaching of experienced magazine editors, publishers, and designers from the United States, Ukraine, Brazil, and India, and you’ll network with other Christians in magazine publishing from around the world.

Two key training events include a five-day Advanced Magazine Publishing Institute Oct, 8-12 and a four-day  intensive Digital Magazine Publishing Seminar Oct. 14-17. In the Advanced Magazine Publishing Institute you’ll sit in on sessions designed to introduce you to the full spectrum of magazine publishing and you’ll get specialized training in the track of your choice, whether magazine editing, magazine management, or magazine design.  In each track, international teams of three trainers will delve deeper into the secrets of success in magazine publishing, imparting insights, tips, and wisdom gained by years of experience in publishing.

Is the whole area of digital publishing still a mystery to you? Or do you feel like you’ve only scratched the surface of the possibilities digital publishing offers to you and your magazine? Then this very full four-day introduction to digital publishing is for you. Whether you’re considering developing a Web site, an app, a video, or e-reader option, you’ll find the information you need to develop your own digital brand strategy. You’ll learn how to develop a business model for your publication, editorial workflow, and production schedule. Two internationally recognized digital publishing experts will discuss emerging trends in digital models and help you to see how you and your magazine can best take advantage  of the new opportunities in digital publishing.

These two training events specifically for Christian magazine staff will be followed by a workshop on Communicating Through Comics. Although the first two events are open only to people working with a Christian magazine either as a volunteer or staff member, the comics workshop is open to any Christian who would like to use comics as a tool of communication. The workshop will be taught by a team of four trainers from three countries.

For more information about all these programs: http://www.magazinetraining.com/UpcomingConferences/India2012/

The art of the interview–10 guidelines for a successful interview

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Unless all your magazine and newspaper articles are written in the first person, at some point you will need to interview someone. Can you guarantee that every interview you attempt will be be successful? Probably not. But, there are some guidelines you can follow that will make it far more likely your interview will yield exactly the information you need for a successful article.

1. Be prepared. Define your purpose; know exactly what you hope to gain from the interview. Research the person to be interviewed and the topic. If you don’t prepare well, how will you know what questions to ask in order to elicit the information you need?

2. Prepare your key questions in advance and write them down. You will want to explore new directions and interesting possibilities during the interview, but prepared questions ensure that you will not forget the important things you want to ask.

3. Make an appointment if possible and establish a time limit. Don’t just try to catch your interviewee in a free moment. You will have a better, more relaxed interview if your interviewee has set aside the time to talk with you.

4. Select the right interview location. Be aware that interviews in the interviewee’s office may be interrupted by the telephone and interviews of mothers in their homes may be interrupted by the demands of children. Try to find a private place where you won’t be interrupted.

5. Set the tone of the interview. Break the ice right at the beginning; set a friendly, non-threatening tone and explain what you want to accomplish with your interview.

6. Even if you must ask some tough, sensitive questions during the interview, start with the easy, non-threatening questions to get the interviewee comfortable with the interview and used to talking.

7. Ask the right questions. Don’t assume anything; even ask questions with an “obvious” answer. You may be surprised by a response you could never have predicted. Don’t ask “leading” questions that assume a certain answer and don’t ask a question every time the interviewee pauses for breath. Ask concrete questions to elicit details that will make your article more interesting.

8. Guide the interview. Don’t interrupt a helpful train of thought; write down questions to follow up. But, don’t let the interviewee take off on an unhelpful tangent.

9. Avoid debating with the interviewee. Your interviewee may express opinions with which you don’t agree. Avoid the temptation to turn the interview into either a conversation or a debate. You’re there to get the information you need, not to have a discussion. Set aside your own opinions until the end of the interview and then if you wish to get into it with the interviewee, feel free to wade in.

10. Ask for final thoughts. You may discover important information you hadn’t thought to ask about.

For more information on the Art of the Interview, you may download a free ebook from Magazine Training International.

What is a magazine?

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Everyone knows what a magazine is. Or, do we? It used to be easy to recognize a magazine. It was a printed and bound sheaf of pages that was published periodically, whether weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Then came the Internet. Wow! That solved the printing and distribution problem. Just take the magazine and put all the content up there for everyone (or no one) to read. Wait a minute. Is it a Web site now or a magazine?

What distinguishes a Web site from an e-zine, or, for that matter, from a print magazine with a presence on the Internet? Can someone who is publishing only on the World Wide Web call themselves a magazine? How do they know they aren’t simply another Web site or even just a blog? Traditionally, a magazine has been categorized as a periodical. If we keep that category as a defining characteristic, then the question is whether the “magazine” on the Web is published on a regular periodical schedule or whether information is entered haphazardly.

I asked Idelette Vicker, editor of the beautiful “She Loves Magazine” on the Internet, how she distinguishes the site from a Web site or a blog. She responded: “To me, a Web site is more static with basic information about a business, church, or product.  You can order a product, get contact information, reserve a stay for your pet at a kennel, etc. Blog content is more personal. A magazine is creating content around the issues of the day or questions of the heart, just as a print publication might do.”

You might ask why defining what a magazine is matters. It matters to me because our name is Magazine Training International and our mission is to provide training and resources for Christian magazine publishers. So, we have to know what a magazine is and who we are supposed to be training in what kind of skills. We’ve just added digital publishing to our training program. But if Web sites can also be magazines, how far do we go in changing who we are and what we do?