A quick magazine update,…

A quick magazine update, for those curious -- Jaggery closed to submissions at the end of July, and our editors are busily making their final selections in all departments. They're drafting their rejection and acceptance letters, arguing amongst themselves for their favorites and my impression is that most departments are delighted with the quality (and quantity) of submissions they received.

Although for next time -- we seriously could use more reviews submissions. I'm a bit surprised that we didn't get more subs in reviews, given that in some ways, that's the easiest way to get something published. Read a book, watch a film, write about it, send it in. Still, we received more than enough good work (whew), so that's fine.

I am optimistic that we can hold to my original schedule -- finalizing selections by the end of this week (8/16), drafting the site design and tweaking it, copyediting and proofreading, and publishing September 1. But I'm reserving the right to push it to 10/1 if necessary -- experience has shown me that sometimes bizarre technical difficulties emerge at the last minute. But hopefully not! Once the issue goes up, I'll be asking the community to help us publicize the magazine -- spreading the word is essential to our success. And of course, asking you to read it. :-) Hopefully, you'll like what you read.

We have our budget for the second issue, so we'll announce the open call for that shortly. Beyond that, we'll be holding a Kickstarter to raise funds for the magazine to continue; once the first issue is live, people will be able to see what it is they're supporting, and make an informed decision about whether they like it enough to want to support it and have it continue.

So one thing you could think about is what might make for good Kickstarter rewards. What literary thing could we (reasonably) get / do for you, that would make you feel happy about supporting Jaggery? Your name listed on a special donor page on our site is an obvious one, for example. Minal Hajratwala has pledged a writing coaching session, and I can offer a short story critique or two, or perhaps a little package of my signed books. What else? Feel free to post suggestions here; I'll be brainstorming that for the next month or so, and will likely post again.

I'm getting excited. Well, excited and scared. Fingers crossed, we're two weeks 'til launch! :-)

1 thought on “A quick magazine update,…”

  1. You could offer:

    – short writing course/one-on-one writer workshop
    – a handmade book/journal (you used to make this for WisCon I think)
    – signed/numbered copies of unpublished poems
    – knitted/crochet book cover/protector

    You might also want to think about a promotional item like a shopping bag, lanyard, t-shirt, bumper sticker, button, etc, with the name of the magazine and URL so that the donor is also helping get the word out.

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