MAGAZINE TRAINING INTERNATIONAL INC

Our goal is to see Christian magazines flourish around the world and particularly in the Developing World. In many parts of the world Christians desire to publish print or online magazines to share the gospel or lead others in discipleship. However, these passionate individuals have little in the way of training or formal education in publishing. We empower them with knowledge and skills to help their magazines grow and make an impact in their societies.

We provide training both onsite and online. We use a variety of online formats in order to make it convenient for publishers to get the knowledge and answers they need. Our trainers are all volunteers who work for Christian publications. They can address the concerns publishers have and give real world solutions and best practices. We make all this available at minimal cost to the publishers because many of them could not afford a formal academic or for-profit training program.

Volunteers: Since 1989 we have grown a strong base of professional editors, publishers, designers, and writers who volunteer their time to teach and share their expertise and passion with others.

Resources: We have also developed a variety of print and online resources that are readily available to publishers who need help in specific areas as they grow their publications. The resources have been developed based on the experience of the professionals who wrote them, but uniquely geared to a multi-cultural Christian audience. The terms and examples used are chosen carefully to speak effectively to this particular audience. These resources include manuals, training videos, forms and samples from existing magazines.

Our resources and trainers together make it possible for someone without prior publishing experience or education to learn the steps needed to create and produce a successful magazine.

Since 1989 we have been able to influence and train staff members from more than 500 magazines from 60 countries at on-site conferences. Many more have taken advantage of our resources and training provided online.

Even though we were primarily focused on Eastern European countries in the beginning, our trainees now represent six of the seven continents.

Many new magazines have launched and many more improved based on the training.

Individuals, who came to us unknown, have grown in influence partly because of the training they received and the success they have been able to achieve.

Publisher associations have started to help publishers in countries such as Romania form networks that build the publishing industry in their counties.

Because of our limited staff, budgets and language barriers, we have not been able to fully explore training individuals in Spanish-speaking countries, and some Asian countries. This would require more on-site training and more of our resources translated into Spanish, Chinese, and several of the other major world languages.

As many magazines in the U.S. close and/or tighten their budgets, we have found it more difficult to gather trainers who can afford to fully cover their travel to conferences overseas. This has put extra burden on our budget as we now need to cover travel and accommodation expenses for our trainers at on-site conferences.