With four quarterly issues published, we are entering the second year of the Adelaide Literary Magazine. Over five hundred pages of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, book reviews, news, interviews, and art; thirty-six authors from nine countries on three continents; in two languages; printed paperback, eBook, and online editions; it has been a lot of work for our small team of editors, graphic, and web designers. It was the labor of love. Sounds like a phrase used too often, but it is true. Just flipping and scrolling through the pages of our magazines is enough to make us proud of our accomplishment.
Nevertheless, it is a work in progress. With every subsequent issue, we try to improve the general appearance of the magazine and the quality of the contents. We are not yet where we want to be, particularly with the commercial side of our literary project.
The magazine is almost not present on the online social media channels which make for the low visibility of the great reads our contributors offer. This, in turn, affects our funding. Being completely self-dependent in the financing of the Adelaide Magazine project, contributions from donors and subscribers are very important to us. Without proper marketing, it just won’t happen.
In the second year, together with the constant improvement of the magazine contents, we must work on the social media channels and marketing. One of the important tools of our marketing strategy – Book Chat Live is already set to go, but due to the conflict of schedules, never utilized. By moving it to Wednesday evenings, we hope to finally make it happen.
Regarding magazine subscriptions and sale, we will discontinue offering a subscription for our magazine and readers will be able to purchase only single copies of the issues through amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other online retailers. Also, we will offer e-book editions in all available e-book formats through amazon Kindle and Smashwords.com. And last, digital versions of our magazines will be available online for free for all of those who cannot afford to support us through donations or purchase of single copies of our publication. Furthermore, our website contains digital archives of all published works. So, all this together will enable us to have better visibility and more sustainable publishing environment, and give to our authors well deserved attention.
With our next issue, we will start Adelaide Magazine Literary Contest in several categories – short story, poetry, and novel. In addition, we will start with Adelaide Magazine Book of the Month Contest which will be completely based on the votes from our readers.
There is a lot of work ahead of us. Before we continue, I would like to thank all our authors, contributors, subscribers, and donors who helped us go through the first year. Everything wasn’t perfect, but as I said in one of the previous notes, it is a learning process. We strive to contribute our part to the literary world to the best of our abilities. Thank you and Godspeed. | |
