Sandbook PenPal Magazine August 2011

August 2011 PenPal Magazine

Welcome to yet another review of the Sandbook PenPal Magazine from August 2011. Yes, it's the summer and you simply get the warm and sunny feeling just by looking at the cover of this issue.
Ever since the July 2011 issue, the Sandbook Net team are sticking to the cute and coverful new look of the cover. You simply have to wonder about all those articles that are waiting for you once you manage to download the new issue and start reading it through. The leading stories are 2012 Stamp Program, Aurorae Yoga, Send more Mail, Waffles tasting with an awesome article by Missive Maven, Write around the world and let's not forget my personal favorite: PenPal Interviews! Of course there are lots of other articles in the issue. Let's take a look inside.

The magazine starts with Editorial from the Editor in Chief: 

 And here are previews of some of the stories in the content section:

The new feature that you can enjoy is placed all over the content pages - simply click on the article/photo that present interest for you and you will be automatically taken to the article. Hopping through the issue is now easier than ever! That's a wise little feature, but it saves a lot of time and I must admit I simply love it! Thanks for the surprise there, Sandbook!

This issue includes a 6 page article on the wonderful postcards from the Missive Maven :

 a review on Send more mail

 and a yummy waffle's article by PenPalling and Letters:

If you have enjoyed this review of the issue 10, August 2011 of Sandbook PenPal Magazine, be sure to read all the stories in the magazine, which you can download for free at www.sandbook.net (or just click on the This Isssue link here).

Sandbook PenPal Magazine July 2011

The cover  July 2011

The guys from SandbookNet never seem to disappoint! The new July 2011 issue is released and it is looking absolutely gorgeous! Few things about the magazine make a huge impression! 

Firstly, the design. As a big fan of the 80s/grunge style, I think that this issue is totally made to my likings! Thank you, Sandbook! I love the overall designer touch to the magazine. When the magazine firstly hit the "market" (or should I say the internet, since it is a totally free e-zine, for now anyways!), we could see that the SandbookNet Team had made their best to come up with an original and cute design of the magazine. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the newspaper/ad design that most (if not all) other penpal related magazines had. The first issues of the Sandbook magazines had the side bars that framed the pages. Personally, I really liked those and did think that removing them wouldn't do much good for the design. Boy, I really love to be proven wrong! The latest issue of the magazine doesn't have the side bars, but the design didn't lose anything from that, even more than ever, I really found myself enjoying the full pages of the magazine.The hip and new "80s" look of this issue, surely points to the creativity of the design team.

The magazine starts with Editorial from the Editor in Chief:

The Content pages are totally redone: What can I say I simply love, love the colors:

 The articles that you can read inside the magazine are totally diverse and I am sure that everyone will find something that would personally intrigue him/her. For example, the Write Around the World Project that deals with the upcoming Pen Pal Movie made by Glass Completely Empty Productions:

 Or if you are feeling like reading something about stationery, SandbookNet has thought about you, too. They are making an awesome collaboration with Letters Parade. Check out the Letters Parade Blog and then don't forget to use the coupon discount (free shipping) code for all of the Sandbook Readers (see details in the magazine) in the Letters Parade Etsy Shop.

Discover Letter Parade Etsy Shop and Blog

And if that's not diverse enough for you, make sure you read the articles about MidSummer in Sweden, Clava's handwork with patched blankets or catch up on articles about the holidays (July 4th, Canada's Day, Lammas). Personally I find the Lifestyle Article Section (ADHD, Peace, Love, Respect article, etc) quite interesting! 

If you have enjoyed this review of the issue 9, July 2011 of Sandbook PenPal Magazine, be sure to read all the stories in the magazine, which you can download for free at www.sandbook.net (or just click on the This Isssue link here).

Letternet, LetterMag and DeutschePost

The LetterMag Post seemed to have a lot of feedback. Generally, people have been searching the web to find previous issues and any information about this penpal magazine, but encountered two problems: either there wasn't any working links or the links that they discovered were only in German.

I will try to bring things to prospective (as far as I know them). By the time that the LetterMag was released, Deutsche Post (German Post Service) had undertaken this project to keep the art of penpalling and correspondence alive. You could sign up with email, but the correspondence was strictly snail mail. It was a win-win situation for both Deutsche Post who marked increase in the use of their service and of course for all of the penpals who got to have a free and totally new paper magazine, called LetterMag.

 Letternet is advertised as the world's largest penpal club.When you "arrive" at their website you can look through their news and updates. However, for all of the features to become available to you, you will need to register.You fill out their application and in a couple of days you will receive the activation code in your snail mail. You can read in the FAQ questions that "Letternet is both an online magazine and a network of pen pals, so Lettermag was discontinued when Letternet was created.". 

And there you have it - the connection between Letternet, Lettermag and Deutsche Post and why the search engines are giving the same search results. I will try to get a hold of the new online magazine of Letternet and I will be back with a review real soon!

Letter Mag

Once, not so long ago, there was a time when a free paper magazine was on the market. Unfortunerely, like all good things that are for free, eventually they simply cease to exist. Why? My best bet is that the management wasn't able to sustain the magazine due to financial reasons, since we are more than well aware of the fact that the interest for such media is huge.

The magazine that I have is issue 2 from 2007. Here is the cover:

As you can see, it is made by the Deutsche Post and was available for free for quite some time. The whole magazine is bilingual, which means that the articles are written in both German and English. It was a wonderful source of new ideas and topics to discuss. On the other hand, you could practice your German/English while learning about new things. The articles inside the issues were pretty diverse - there were of course some penpalling articles like "Tips for writing letters abroad":

 But also there were pretty diverse topics discussed in the issue that have little to do with penpalling or correspondence. For example, in this very same issue there is an article about the Climate change:

 and about Live Earth - Rock in the greenhouse:

 In conclusion, the magazine was pretty interesting in its topics and as well as the upside of being paper and free, delivered right to your doorstep. It could only get better than this, if the magazine actually made it through to nowadays. But you can't ask for everything, right?

PenPal Interviews at Sandbook Net

Pen Pal Interviews

Would you like to be interviewed and share your penpalling experience with over 2500 people world-wide? We would like to question you about your penpalling experience and get to know you a bit better! The interviews will be published in the penpal magazine and of course here on our website.

How to participate?

Copy the questions and answer them! Then select several photos of you, your friends or country and then send us all of the information back to us at raiasandbook(at)gmail.com (just change the (at) with @).

Interview Questions:

1. Hello there! How are you doing? Tell us more about yourself, your hobbies, personal life, interests.

2. If you have to describe yourself in only 5 words what would they be?

3. Tell us something about your town, city or country.

4. How did you start penpalling? When was that? And why did you decide to start Penpalling?

5. What do you like / dislike about Penpalling/correspondence?

6. How do your friends react when they discover you are into Penpalling? Are they also into it or they give you the “strange” faces?

7. Do you still stay in touch with your first penpal? Tell us about your first penpal even if you have lost touch with them. We might be able to help you locate him/her.  

8.  How many Penpals do you have? Where are they from?

9.  Are you searching for new Penpals? If yes, please give us some contact information that we can publish in the magazine so that people can write to you back.  

10.  What are you looking for in a penpal?

11. Where do you find new Penpals from? Do you rely on FBs or Facebook or other websites/blogs.
12. Tell us a funny/interesting story from your Penpalling experience? 

13. How do you keep track of your mail? Share your tip on how to organize ourselves.

14. Do you swap things? Do you like sending gifts to friends? If yes, what is the funniest gift you have ever sent/received?
15. Have you met a penpal? If so, let us know how the meeting went.
16. What do you usually like writing/reading about in the letters?

17. When it comes to making cute and personal letters, everyone has his/her own style. Tell us your trick how to make a letter/envelope unique? Do you decorate it? If yes, how. Give us some tips on how to make the letters more interesting.
18. Where do you buy your stationery supplies from? Do you prefer traditional shops or e-shops? If so, give us some links. 

Photos:
1) Send us a photo(s) of yourself so we can print it with the article and show that you are a real person! You can also include other photos of your friends and you, your mail and mailbox, etc. anything that you would like to share with us will be more than welcome!

2) Write us a message in your own handwriting (sample handwriting), decorate the message if you like and finally snap a photo of the handwriting/message sample and email it to us so we can print it on the magazine’s pages and of course on our website and blog.

Your contact information:
1) Your Email

2) Facebook user

3) Twitter

4) Blog/website, etc
5) Any other profile or way you want people to contact you.

Letters & Journals: The e-Newsletter (since June 2010) & Paper Magazine (2011)

Letters & Journals - one of my favorite websites so far offer you an electronic newsletter and a promise for a paper magazine that is going to be released somewhere in 2011. Judging by the cover it will be a must see one! I am already excited about it and decided to share it will all of you out there!

http://lettersandjournals.com

"The launch of the print version of Letters & Journals is scheduled for 2011. It’s been a long time in research and planning and the challenge in 2010 has been to build a following of potential subscribers.

To date we have a list of 2,300 names of possible subscribers/ buyers. Our goal is to get 5,000 names. Once we have a list of 5,000 names then we will begin approaching advertisers and following up with the ones who have already expressed interest (thank you!).
If you know some people or groups who would be interested, please encourage them to sign up for the website, the e-newsletter or just let me know to add them to my Magazine Updates Only list. None of the lists are being sold or shared and there is no obligation." Text from: Letters & Journals Official Blog.
  
The magazine idea of "Letters and Journals" sounded awesome to me and with such a cover - I simply could not resist to send an email to Jackie and I asked about an exclusive interview. She responded really quickly and here is the sneak peek of what's coming our way in the first paper issue of the magazine "Letters and Journals".

Maxine: Tell us more about how the idea about the website and of course the e-newsletter and the magazine came to be?

Jackie: I got the idea for a magazine on letter writing while completing my master's thesis on the history of letter writing in 2004. During my research I came across hundreds of newspaper and internet articles bemoaning the loss of letter writing. These articles were written by people who love letter writing and miss it in their lives and I remember thinking, 'Who are all these people (like me) who love letter writing? Wouldn't it be great if we had a community or a magazine where we could share our appreciation of this hobby?' And that got me to thinking that there should be one. Then a light bulb went off and I thought 'Why don't I do one?' I have some related background (BA in English, worked on HS and college newspapers, bookstore manager for 10 yrs and district manager for a book company for 7 years, love the printed word, letters and mail and soon I will have my Master's degree in Communication (which I have now).

Adding journals seemed a natural fit as it's not just letters/mail that I love, but also pens, notebooks, journals, ink, pencils, postcards, stamps, etc.

So began my research into how to start a magazine. Reading books, searching online, noting ideas in other magazines that would work, talking to others who have done it (Kim at Faerie Magazine, Lydia at Performing Songwriter magazine and Cathy Scheibe of Toy Farmer magazine who is from ND (like me). Finding blogs and groups by people with the same interest. Joining groups like Exceptional Women in Publishing and the MN Magazine Periodical Association. Attending conferences as my budget allows.

Thinking big and starting small. An example of this is designing my perfect magazine in my head and then listing what makes it exceptional. Next, I choose one aspect of that and find out what I need to do to make it happen. In this case, I spoke to printers at a conference and got feedback on some of my ideas (quarterly issues, perfect bound, wt of the paper). I went to a paper show courtesy of my graphic designer who attends these regularly and was kind enough to ask me if I wanted to attend one with her.

The website was a natural choice since it's something I can do right away without the funds like I'll need to print the magazine. Also, for my day job I work at a website company that happens to cater to publishers. It's a small company and our president is brilliant. I have learned a lot about what to do/not do. If only I could afford them. Ha!

Maxine:A question that I am sure everyone will be asking, when is the paper magazine going to be released?

Jackie: I hope to have a print edition out sometime in 2011. At this point it is looking to be later in the year. I have the editor and art director ready to go, but what's missing at this point is having enough people to sell it to. Apparently, where a lot of new publishers go wrong is to create a magazine that doesn't have enough subscribers to sustain it. But it's hard to get all the subscribers you can when the magazine isn't around to show them all it can be. So it's been a longer process than I had hoped, but we're more than halfway to our goal of 5,000 interested people (potential subscribers). Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear from someone expressing interest in the magazine.

Maxine: Can you tell us more about the topics/sections that are going to be included in the paper version?

Jackie: I am continually adding to my list of topics for the print magazine! It surprises people how many topics there are. And since the magazine will only always be quarterly, we hope to keep the quality of the stories top notch. Here are some examples.

For the Paper Enthusiast - Product Reviews

From the Desk of… - Writing areas of famous people and L&J readers

L&J Online- Highlights of online only content available to all

City by City Guide to Stationery Stores- Features reviews, pictures, highlights of stationery stores

Fan Mail- Who gets it? How has it changed? What does it look like today? 20 years ago?

Calendar- Online contests (monthly), conferences, seminars, trade shows, retreats

Travel- Writing retreats, journal workshops, conferences, trade shows, seminars

Exotic Postmarks- History of postmarks, stamp collecting, postcards, foreign mail

Pen Pal Corner- Profile of pen pals, tools for writer, how to find/become one, class assignments

Letters in the Attic- found collections of letters, genealogy, saved letters, letters bought at an auction

Famous Letter Collections- Excerpts/highlights from books on letter collections

Mail Art- What it is, how to, reviews of mail art/artists

Scrapbook Journals- Journaling for scrapbook enthusiasts

Journal Type- Experiment with different journals (Nature, Daily, Art, Travel, Child, etc)

Fun with Day Planners- Review of different types of people’s planners

Famous Journal Collections- Excerpts/highlights from famous journals

Blog- The online journal experience

Letter Writing and Pen Pal Blogs

Maxine Is the paper magazine going to be a paid one? If so, any estimates about pages/prices that you can share with us?

Jackie: If all goes according to plan the magazine will retail for $7.99 or $8.99. Ideally we would offer electronic copy at a cheaper rate (and free if you purchase a subscription which will probably be $25-$30 for an annual subscripton. This will depend on timing, advertising, etc. so is subject to change, but that is what I am estimating at this point.

Maxine:Are there going to be PenPal and Swappers Ads in the magazine?

Jackie: I am undecided on this. There are so many other places where you can advertise for free, I'm not sure that people would pay for a personal ad. But you never know and there is always on online option down the road, in which case, it would be free.

Maxine: Do you plan to release "samples" of the magazine, so our readers can check them out first before ordering the magazine? 

Jackie: Yes. I am at the very beginning stages of putting together a zine which I would like to offer online and in print. I see this as a miniature version of the magazine.

Also, if I could find a magazine sponsor who would want to partner with L&J for the premiere edition and foot the bill for printing a limited run, then we could give those away as samples to the first 5,000 or 10,000 people who sent in their mailing address (or confirmed the address already on file). Possibly the lucky recipients would have to pay $2 or so for postage, but until a sponsor is found, that is all hypothetical.

Maxine: Once again, thank you for agreeing to be featured in the blog. I really enjoyed the idea about the interview, so that we can jazz up the whole blog entry about Letters and Journals. Needless to say that I am a huge fan of your website! Keep up the amazing work!

Jackie: Thank you for the opportunity to help get the word out about L&J! Thanks also for supporting other letter writing publications. I had not seen your site before. It's very well done and I think a lot of people will find it useful as well.

 

So my opinion about Letters&Journals: the e-newsletter and the paper magazine:

Subscription: Easy - just get on their website: http://lettersandjournals.com

Magazine type: Prelaunch state of the paper version. Waiting anxiously to see it in 2011. For now you will have to settle with the e-newsletter, which covers interesting stories and updates from the site itself.

Payment: Free e-newsletter. The paper magazine will be paid.

Information wise: e-newsletter: includes updates and interesting topics.

Sections in the magazine: It looks like it will be the go-to magazine of everything that's cool and new in regards from writing supplies to journals and journal keeping.

Design: Pretty Good judging by the cover of the paper issue. E-newsletter: cute! Check out previous newsletters on their website!

PenPal Connection Paper Magazine:

Welcome to yet another review of Pen Pal Media. This time we are going to take a look at a paper magazine, called Pen Pal Connections (by Dawn Thomas).

Here's some information about the magazine:

"The Pen Pal Connection is a group for people who love to snail mail pen pal. We share pen pal stories, the pen pal experience, tips on letter writing, organizing your pen pals, pals looking for more pen pals & much more.
The Pen Pal Connection is a quarterly published magazine. In this group we can also submit articles and stories for publication, receive magazine updates, announcements & much more.
The Pen Pal Connection is $5.00 for a sample copy USA only ($6.00 US funds only for International orders)
One year subscription $18.00 (4 issues) (One year for International orders $25.00 US Funds only)"

So my opinion about the Pen Pal Connection Paper Magazine:

Subscription: Easy - just get in touch with the team!

Magazine type: Paid, paper magazine, issued quarterly. You can pretty much make the conclusions yourself - advantages: paper (yeah!), disadvantages - you have to pay for the issues. Shipping is included. Keep in mind that each issue is 28 to 32 pages long. Guess that it comes pricey to run a paper magazine! Payment: Checks or Money orders. That makes it hard to get from outside the US. However, you can contact the owner and see if other payment options are available.

Information wise: It includes articles and Ads - quite well maintained.

Ads from Pen Pals: Good job presenting the pen pals!

Design: You can get a feeling of the magazine's design from the photos that I have included. Sadly, they have not released officially other photos and I can't upload you photos from inside the magazine as they are their property. Hope it makes sense. But overall you can get a general idea of the magazine's design from its cover.

Join their yahoo group at: Y! Group: PenPalConnections.

Connect with them via Facebook: PenPal Connections on Facebook

PenPal Magazine - what to expect

Hi, readers!

This blog will present to you all of the Active PenPal Magazines that there are out there: digital or paper, free or paid. We are going to show you inside information from within the pages of PenPal Magazines, newsletters or any form of organized penpal edition/issue. Yes, when you google "PenPal Magazines" there are a lot of links coming up, but unfortunetely those that Google rate highest are either outdated or simply floaded with "suspicious" Ads. You don't want to publish your snail mail or even email address there! Believe me! I have made that mistake! That's how the idea of this blog came to be! I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I will enjoy getting first hand interviews and reviews of magazines, newsletters and more.

So, if you know a good PenPal Magazine or Newsletter or you happen to own one - comment here, or get back in touch with me. I would love to make a review of it on this blog or even interview you! The sky is the limit as they say!