Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association marks 25th anniversary.

Twenty-five years ago, with the newsletter business in its infancy, 17 publishers banded together to form the Newsletter Publishers Association as a means to exchange information and ideas in their struggle to develop their fledgling newsletter companies and make them profitable.

The organization is known today as the Newsletter & Electronic Publishers Association (NEPA). The growth of NEPA has mirrored in many ways the success and growth enjoyed by those businesses operated by the original 17 founding publishers.

NEPA has grown significantly in 25 years. From an organization with only two score members and a few thousand dollars in the bank, today it has more than 800 members, assets of more than $1 million, and--as the last financial report shows--$850,000 in cash.

Struggling newsletter publishers today, who find themselves in the same position as some of the founding members 25 years ago, can take heart from the extraordinary accomplishments of many of the founding members.

The first modern-era news letter was the Whaley-Eaton Report, founded in 1918, just five years before Willard M. Kiplinger founded The Kiplinger Washington Letter.

The 1960s proliferation of newsletters

But until the 1960s there were only a handful of subscription-based publications that could be termed newsletters.

All this began to change in Washington in the '60s with the advent of the Great Society and a proliferation of niche publications that covered the executive branch, various governmental agencies, legislative and regulatory initiatives, and federal funding programs.

At that time a small group of "for-profit" newsletter publishers in Washington, D.C. formed the Independent Newsletter Association to push for accreditation for newsletters in the Congressional Press Gallery. This was followed by the formation of the New York Newsletter Publishers Association.

Howard Penn Hudson

At that time there was only one place where newsletter publishers could to turn for information. It was The Newsletter on Newsletters, published by Howard Penn Hudson for more than 30 years until I purchased it from him in 1999.

Howard soon became known as the "newsletter guru" as he sponsored conferences in New York City that focused on various aspects of the newsletter business. He also started his "dog and pony show" called "How to Start a Newsletter," a two-day workshop which he ran in many cities around the country until five years ago.

It was the participants who attended Howard's large New York City conferences in the early 1970s who formed the nucleus of the Newsletter Publishers Association.

But not all the publishers, particularly some in the Washington Independent Newsletter Association, were enamored with the idea of a national organization. For various reasons, they declined to become founding NPA members.

If any one person should receive an accolade for the establishment of NPA, it is Howard Penn Hudson. That's the reason that NPA honored and named him the only Life/Founder Member of the organization.

$1,000 pledges begin the association

In 1976, I was owner and publisher of Government Information Services and its sister organization, the Education Funding Research Council. I was struggling to keep the company solvent.

I had attended a number of Howard's conferences in New York City and thought that a national organization made a lot of sense. I pledged, as did the other 16, to contribute $1,000 (a hefty sum for me at the time) over a three-year period to get the organization up and running.

It was money well spent. The NPA and its members taught me a great deal. Mine was a middling success story compared to some of the other founding members. But the sale of my company and its eight newsletters and eight loose-leaf publications, to Thompson Publishing Group in 1997, has given me a modest retirement cushion that I only dreamed about 25 years ago. I've never regretted the decision to sell, unlike some publishers who find it hard to let go.

Surprisingly, only one of the 17 founding members of NPA went "bust."

Unfortunately, he was NPA president at the time, and it turned into a very public bankruptcy. His newsletter properties were auctioned off along with his office furniture. Only his desk and office chair were saved when one of his publishing colleagues bid on them and returned them to him.

Newsletter success stories

At the other end of the spectrum, you have Ken Callaway, Tom Phillips, and Marvin Shanken.

Ken Callaway was the first to hit the jackpot. He inspired many of his colleagues to believe that maybe there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

He parlayed a $700 Christmas bonus into one of the Washington area's biggest independent newsletter firms, Capitol Publication, whose first newsletter reported on the Great Society's poverty program.

Ken recalled that in the early days the "most exciting part of the day was waiting for the mailman to come to see if anyone had sent an order or a check, or when we met a cash-flow crisis by drawing straws to see what partner went off salary."

He sold his firm in 1985 to several key employees in a LBO for well over $10 million.

And then there is Tom Phillips, who launched his company in 1974 with two newsletters, three employees, and a $1,000 investment.

Last September Tom sold Phillips Business Information (PBI), the b-to-b division of his multi-media parent company, Phillips. International Inc. (PII), to two private-equity affiliates of the New York-based Veronis Suhler & Associates. PBI had revenues of $110 million.

Meanwhile, Tom reported that sales reached $245 million last year for its parent company, PPI, which has health and investment-related publications and products.

One of the most interesting stories is that of Marvin Shanken, no longer active in NEPA.

He "built one of the most influential groups of lifestyle publications in the world by sharing his personal pleasures with readers around the world," according to a recent profile.

He is publisher of Wine Spectator, the world's largest circulation consumer wine magazine, with some 250,000 paid subscribers. He is also publisher of Cigar Afcionado magazine, with a circulation of 400,000.

And some founding members are still expanding their companies and are active in the newsletter industry.

Len Eiserer started Business Publishers Inc. in 1963. The Maryland firm has more than 40 niche publications in the b-to-b market. Len, 84 years old, still comes into the office at least three times a week (NL/NL 4/ 15/01). Five years ago, Len gave NEPA $50,000 to fund the report "Survey of Newsletter Executives on the Status and Future of the Industry."

Some founding companies now run by second generation

The first husband-and-wife team in the industry, Shirley and Larry Alexander, continue their involvement with their 14 newsletters plus a wide range of collateral products, although they have turned the reins of publisher of Alexander Communications Group Inc. over to their daughter, Margaret DeWitt.

Bill Bland has done the same. He has turned over to his children the operation of William Bland Inc., and its oil and petrochemical newsletters.

And there is Al Goodloe. He was president of Alexander Hamilton Institute, a leading publisher of newsletters and ancillary products for the over seas market in 1976.

Al, an authority on international direct marketing, now heads Publisher's Multinational Direct and gives advice to savvy international marketers in his newsletter, Publisher's Multinational Direct, while consulting around the world.

Three founding members who also served as president of the association have died. They are David Swit, Ed Brown, and Ray Henry.

The other founding members were George Lutjen of McGraw-Hill, now retired; George Spencer, who launched and later sold more newsletters than any other independent publisher; and Ken Campbell, Pat Haskell, John Jeffers, and Daniel Sullivan.

NEPA staff

In 1979, NPA hired its first executive director, Fred Goss, who is now a contributing editor of NL/NL. During his tenure, membership went from 257 to more than 700 (hitting a peak of 891 in 1985).

Since his departure in 1994, Patti Wysocki has been executive director, assisted by a staff of four.