Exotic Postmarks

I love the name of this department, Exotic Postmarks! What does that bring to mind for you?

Besides stamps, as shown in this sample article, I think of postcards, penpals, old letters found at an estate sale, vacations, Agatha Christie.

Or, how about a Vintage Paper Fair held three times a year in different CA locations? I recently read about this at the blog, where Annie at Curbside Treasure (don't you love that name?) wrote about it in her May 24, 2009 post. The pictures in her post are samples of exotic postmarks.

How many other Vintage Paper Fairs are going on around the world? How about a story highlighting them, their dates and places with some bloggers/writers/visitors offering feedback on what can be found there? I am dizzy with possibilities!

Exotic Postmarks, will be a regular department featured in Letters & Journals. I would love to hear your ideas and suggestions for this department.

Department Pages for Letters & Journals

Here is the first look at a sample of one of the department pages of the magazine Letters & Journals. I was so excited to see this when Kathy at DaisyMaeDesign sent it to me this week.

There will be 3-4 departments for articles on journals and 3-4 departments for articles on letter writing. This picture is a sample from one of the journal departments. In a later post I will show a sample of a Feature article.

I love the font she chose for the 'Journal Themes' heading as well as the placement for the title and the byline. I also like how she left a lot of white space so that the page is not crowded and tight.

One of my favorites things is how the background at the top of the page changes with the article background of the article. It's intoxicating thinking of all the stories that will be featured here.

I also am quite pleased with the red page number and the black magazine logo at the bottom of the page. They contrast each other nicely.

My next blog will be a sampling of the Letter department layout followed by a preview of the magazine's flag (or logo) for the cover.

Who Do You Write To?

The first question people ask when I tell them I'm starting a magazine on letter writing and journaling, is " Does anyone write letters any more?" And when I assure them we do, their follow question is "Who do you write to?"

The most common answers are friends, relatives and pen pals. Even with email and Facebook, people still do write letters. Results from the ongoing online survey I'm conducting on letter writing show

50% write 1-3 letters per month

And of those 243 respondents, here is who they write to:

74% write to friends
58% write to relatives
47% write to pen pals
22% write to someone in a category not listed

They could choose more than 1 category.

Some people want to write letters or just send/receive mail, but have no one to write to. That's where sites like Sendsomething.net, Postcrossing.com, Just Letter Rip, the Missive Maven, We Love Snail Mail and 365 Letters come in. You can find like-minded people here looking to talk about letter writing, read about it, comment on it and share in the passion of letter writing even without someone to write to. And if you are looking for people to write to, you can find those online as well.

There are also two popular pen pal newsletters that you can check out. They both have a printed newsletter and offer articles and information online as well.

Inky Trails
Lex Letters

Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper

Nifty at Notebook Stories has created a nice collection of various blogs and articles all about pens, pencils, and notebooks which is called the Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Notebook. Here is the description of the carnival

The Carnival of Pen, Pencil and Paper is a traveling monthly collection of the best blog posts about notebooks, pens, pencils, paper products and anything else deemed relevant by the editors. The Carnival appears the first Tuesday of every month, starting August 4th, 2009. It will feature product reviews, photos of users’ collections, sketchbook art and doodles, and more!

There are a TON of links in the article and on the site itself. So if you are interested in pens, pencils or paper be sure to visit Notebook Stories.

Letters & Journals was featured as Notebook Addict of the Week on July 14, 2009. I shouldn't admit it, but I'll tell you -that the picture of my stack of journals/notebooks featured in the Addict of the Week was not even all of my collection. What can I say? Some people collect stuffed animals, coffee mugs, porcelain dolls, and whatnot. I collect notebooks and journals. And this awesome carnival of pen, pencil and paper shows that I am not alone.

Missive Maven

The Missive Maven is one of my favorite blogs on letter writing. She sends and receives the coolest mail and she includes photos that show you her fun cool mail. And, I've found that if you send her something, she will most likely post about it and send something back to you! How cool is that?

She's also got a ton of cool links on her site that will take you to all kinds of other interesting blogs, mostly on letter writing, stationery, postcards, stamps. I love it!

Miss Maven also did a blog on my letter writing and journal surveys and I got a lot of people saying they found the surveys through her blog. Thanks, Ilona!

More Survey Results for Letters & Journals

The results from the Journal portion of the survey show a propensity for voyeurism as many people responded that they would like to see articles on how other people journal. I confess that I'm fascinated with that too.

Here are some of the highlights of the Journal Survey:

75.6% would like to see new/different ways of keeping a journal

74.4% would like to see how other people experience journaling

66.3% would like to read about different products in the journal market

66.3% would like to see different types of journals (art, nature, parenting, treasure maps, travel, idea).

People have been very generous with their time and ideas in sharing this information and offering suggestions and comments for things they would like to see in the magazine Letters & Journals. Thank you! (If you haven't taken this quick 3 minute survey, there is still time and I would encourage you to do so.)

Finally, as an added bonus for those who are interested, Becky Higgins is offering two printable PDFs (one for adults and one for teens) on her blog. This is to help you write your life story. If you've been meaning to do it but don't know where to start, this is a good place.

Some Survey Results for Letters & Journals

I've been watching the surveys come in for the letter writing and journal writing surveys that I've been conducting. I'm trying to gather additional information of what types of articles people want to see in the Letters & Journals magazine. I've gotten some great feedback and am taking copious notes for future articles and potential advertisers.

In this post I will focus on the letter writing survey. In my next post I will look at the results from the journaling survey.

Letter Writing
For the letter writing survey 50% of the 100+ respondents said that they write between 1-3 letters per month. 17% said they wrote over ten letters a month (I would be in this group) and 16% said they wrote 4-6 letters per month. I realize that the survey is skewed because most of the people taking the survey are letter writers, which drives the number up. It's not like surveying the general public of which many would say they write 0 letters a month.

Some of the articles that people said they would like to see in Letters & Journals include:

58.7% Product Reviews of Pen & Stationery items
57.9% Art of Mail Art
51.6% Pen Pal Corner
50.8% Letters in the Attic (Genealogy)
49.2% Desks of Famous Letter Writers (and Readers)

Some interesting suggestions that readers offered include these great ideas:

History of letter delivery (in the US and other places)
Letter writing protocol over the ages
Postcards (web sites that promote them, collections, etc)
Stamps (like an intro to stamp collecting)
Letter writing campaigns- Do they work?

If you haven't taken either of the two surveys, you can visit them here. They take less than 3 minutes to complete (unless you're in the mood to offer lots of suggestions, which are very welcome). Please forward this link on to others who may be interested. Thanks!

A special thanks to my friends who took the surveys even though they don't write letters or keep a journal. Thank you!