How to get libraries to carry your magazine

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Annual, 1995 by Eric Bryant

In spite of budget cuts and branch closings, libraries are allocating more than $600 million annually for periodicals. If you are intent on increasing your paid subscriber base, this is a market that deserves your attention.

Libraries fall into four basic categories: college, corporate, elementary and high school, and the over 15,000 U.S. public libraries. Each type tends to carry somewhat different magazines.

College libraries often stock thousands of titles, the lion's share being journals published by various scholarly and professional organizations. Still, colleges are good targets for trade magazines. The publishers of Hogs Today or Fabrication News, for example, would do well to keep the veterinary and engineering schools in mind.

Corporate libraries are the more obvious depositories for trade magazines, and they are also the richest--making them the most likely to pick up new subscriptions. Libraries serving elementary and high schools, on the other hand, operate under the tightest budgets. Nonetheless, they offer a valuable opportunity to reach new, individual readers who may well become new, individual subscribers.

Public libraries carry primarily consumer magazines, and they have a particular taste for those titles serving the same niche markets the libraries serve. Although public libraries are open to everyone, they know who their most supportive constituencies are--the environmental group that meets there Tuesday nights, for example, or the chamber of commerce that donates materials. Public libraries also stock all manner of regionally focused titles.

Services that agents provide

Regardless of the type of library, magazine subscriptions are always ordered through an agent. After decades of mergers, there are only two major agents left: The Faxon Co. in Westwood, Massachusetts, and Ebsco Publisher Relations, based in Birmingham, Alabama. They operate in a similar fashion, and publishers should open communications with both.

Although the agents will take a percentage of the subscription price, they offer a valuable service to the publisher. Agents always assume automatic renewal, and will renew a subscription unless directed not to do so by the librarian. Furthermore, they want the transaction, and they will therefore act as seller, trying to keep any subscriptions that are canceled.

Perhaps the best that service agents provide is bringing the magazine to the attention of librarians. Your magazine will be entered in the agents' online databases, searchable by topic. It will be listed in their annual catalogs the first year you sign up and in subsequent years if you pick up a handful of orders. A listing may also appear in catalogs put out covering specific subject areas or in customer newsletters at the agents' discretion.

To get all this, all you need to do is contact the agents and offer a good deal of information. The agents know that librarians require hard facts to justify any purchase. Little emotion is involved in the decision--they will skip right over elegant reproductions of your magazine's pages or gushing testimonials about the editorial and look for objective criteria such as market served, circulation, average pages per issue, a list of contributors and their affiliations, titles of articles, or even abstracts of recent articles.

Sending sample copies

Librarians may also request a sample copy before placing an order. If you are asked for a copy of your magazine, send a sample clearly marked as such, and a simple letter containing the information the librarian will need to place an order with the agent. This includes price, frequency, and especially the International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). That standard is used in ordering, tracking and cataloging, and it makes the librarian's job easier. (If your magazine does not have an ISSN number, contact the ISSN Bureau at 202-707-6452.)

You may also want to send a sample copy direct to various libraries to bring your magazine to their attention so it can be ordered through an agent. Librarians agree that a copy clearly marked "sample" with a simple letter is the most persuasive. A bright orange sticker on the cover is a good way to flag your copy as a sample and to prevent its becoming misrouted. And the letter should contain the same basic information that you would give an agent.

Reaching the right people

Once you have the perfect package, all you have to do is find the customer. As a rule, the addressee you will be given by a list vendor will be for the serials/periodicals check-in department. But it is the collections development team (and usually there are teams for arts, medicine, and so forth) that actually chooses which magazines to subscribe to.

At school and corporate libraries, the staffs are so small that any mailing will be passed along to the right people. But in public and academic libraries, your sample copy and letter will be in danger of disappearing if not properly addressed. If the list provider cannot promise the collection development staffs as addressees, take the generic address and add that department as a slug. Better still, use a specific category such as "science collection development."