I partnered up with my long distance friend and writer to create an online quarterly literary journal. He is an editor taking classes in arts and humanities in South Africa while I've gotten better at editing and writing myself. Formatting is difficult but who doesn't need help with that these days? I created a business email account where submissions and queries can be sent and I have a deep and detailed vision of what kind of poetry and prose I am looking for. As dear writer friends and faceless supporters, give me feedback on what you think about the page. Tell me what you think it needs, what it doesn't need and what I need to know about getting involved in editing. Much thanks in advance! http://labyrinthin.weebly.com EDIT: I have taken your responses in consideration. I'm quite new at the entire concept of editing but I thank you for your feedback. I will change plenty of the site's content. EDIT: http://labyrinthinepassages.weebly.com
First impression: white text on a largely white background isn't particularly friendly to the eyes, and why are these pictures here? What do they have to do with anything? Scrolling down - what kind of comment would I want to make here? On what? The 'about' tab tells me more about you than about the magazine, and doesn't really tell me what kind of fiction you actually want submitted. To be fair, I have this complaint about a lot of magazines. I'm also confused as to why it states it's run solely by you when in this post you mention a partner? Submission tab - first, 'guidlines' in the header. Second, I still don't know what kinds of stories and poems you're interested in receiving. Under 'about' you mention faith and the general feeling of the site makes me think you might want religious-themed fic, but I'm really not sure. If you have a deep and detailed vision, I'm missing it completely. The lack of pay and comments about seeking rejected, odd, outcast pieces "shunned by big business" make it seem like some sort of vanity publishing racket, frankly. It doesn't seem like you're looking for good fic; it seems like you're looking for desperate people. I understand that you probably can't afford to pay contributors, but I'd like to see that acknowledged somewhere, as well as what kinds of rights you'll be claiming to accepted work (a copy of the contract is always a plus) and what kind of response times to expect / how long to wait before a writer could query. Overall, I'd be looking for increased readability, a better understanding of what you're looking for, and a home page that has, honestly, anything to contribute.
There are so many magazines out there, many of them paying their authors, that I'm not sure how you're going to attract good fiction. I know you're legitimate but if I'd found the site without knowing who ran it, there are big red flags: - I wouldn't submit to a Yahoo account: seems very amateur. - I wouldn't submit to a magazine hosted on Weebly: ditto. - I have no idea what kind of work you're looking for. - Vanity publishers and scam artists are the ones who invite rejected work. - Too much about you in the About page, and not about the magazine. - This: "He values the understanding that most authors do not have the ability to express things precisely as how they feel so he takes that in consideration when he reads your work." also makes it sound like you're looking for substandard work that other magazines would reject for poor quality. Some people are going to be upset at your use of "literary gypsies" as well!
I agree with all of what you said but what makes weebly and yahoo accounts amateur? I know weebly is free but I'm quite poor to be honest. Is there any other sites that you think can work? I'm willing to put plenty of time in editing but money wise, not so much.
The fact that they're free makes them look amateur, unfortunately. Serious businesses have custom domains and associated email addresses.
Brutally honest: Your domain name is misspelled. The name of your site is "Labyrinthine", but your url is http://labyrinthin.weebly.com/ This makes it sound like some sort of a complicated dieting site. As mentioned above, the white on white, all pastel format is really hard to read. Also, this could be just me, but the picture drew my eye, so I scanned down, found the placeholder pictures at the bottom, and could not for the life of me find the "Home / Submissions / About / Contact" tab things. Now, I'm willing to accept that might be only me, so take it with a grain of salt. I'm not as turned off by "the rejected, the peculiar, the odd and outcasted pieces that tend to get shunned by the big businesses. We look for literary gypsies that seek a home..." as previous commenters, but you need to make sure that you open big big big with something like that. If your first edition is full of things that look like they were rejected with good reason, you're never going to get a second click. One thing that did turn me off was: I'm not terribly familiar with your work, but I am aware that you're a respected member of the community here. That having been said, nothing puts me off quicker than authors who talk about how they've been writing since childhood. Most everyone wrote when they were kids; unless you were published young, I'd leave it at something like "writing has been a lifelong passion". The next part, highlighted in a color that may or may not be red (colorblind), has a grammatical error. "...since then has attended..." would read better, but again, I'm not terribly interested in what classes you've taken or who taught them; tell me about the results. The submissions page was okay, but this really does sound like you're going to publish anything that gets sent to you, no matter how poorly worded or mawkishly turned out. Finally: I agree 100% with @Tenderiser on this. If you're just doing a blog, a Weebly (or Wordpress, or whatever) domain name is fine, as is a Yahoo account, but if you want to attract any sort of serious interest, you need to get your own domain name. I'm not trying to plug my blog, but when I started it, I decided to shell out for my own domain name, and the service that I use includes an email address (or five maybe? Don't remember) that also link to that name. Look into blogging services, I'm pretty sure that the one that I use is about a hundred fifty dollars a year. I've submitted, and had published, a few of my stories on the now-defunct MicroHorror.com, which was a non-paying market, but still had its own URL and email address (publishersname@microhorror.com). I don't think I'd have been nearly as likely to submit to microhorror@blogspot.com. Anyway, I hope I haven't been overly critical because I do wish you well and hope that you'll take this as advice on how to create something that will become a success.
What are you goals for this journal? Knowing where you want to end up may help us making intelligent suggestions about the best way to get there.
I did some maintenance on the site and posted an updated version. Still, it won't be ready until a few more months or so, I would think everything may be fine except the weebly ad. Sigh*...
Initial reactions: I liked being greeted by the blue color, and the diffused dye or whatever-it-is pattern is nice. The white for the typography, however, blends in with the blue on my computer and I can hardly read it. I won't be the only one with this problem. The photo with the table, bottles, and cricket is pleasant, but I found myself wondering why it's there. It seems like a second splash image, like the blue background. It's way too big to be sitting there just looking pretty. Will you be putting some clickable links on it? I was wondering why there are no images of labyrinths. The title seems to cry out for one. The four photos under the brown image--- will they be clickable links for different kinds of poetry and literature? It wasn't clear to me which would be which. I assume that when the links go live a user can mouse over each photo and the title will pop up? Oh, and understand I'm not trying to be a party pooper here, but . . . "labyrinthine" suggests confusing, incomprehensible, difficult, etc. Get additional feedback on that, but you may want to reword your catch phrase to exploit the labyrinth idea another way.
I think you're looking at the old one. I updated the site with similar features only it's much less sloppy, believe me.
So I am, so I am. Much better for readability and purpose. Could you put the "Write about" mottos at the top of the photos each time, so people with laptops and tablets don't have to scroll down to read them?
My initial impression is that there's not really much there. An image slideshow and some empty pages. Looking at this, I don't really feel like you're a finished thing I can submit to, should I want to. On top of that, you're not giving me many reasons to want to - why should I submit to you? I mean, I'm a writer. I don't need much persuading here, I just need to feel like what I do matches what you want, but I don't know what you want. What kind of writing style are you after? What word count? What authors do people who like your journal also like? I'd avoid 'run solely by...' - that makes it sound like a hobby. Not terrible, a lot of these journals are basically hobbies, but it's yet another reason why you're no different from the rest. Agreed on Weebly and Yahoo looking amateur. Go buy www.labyrinthinepassages.com and G-Suite, or whatever GMail for Business is calling itself these days and wire them up. It'll cost you about £40 for the year. If you can't use custom domains in Weebly, use Wordpress instead. Also important: none of this will matter if I can see a few examples of stories/poems you've published, a few quotes from readers about how awesome you are, and a website that looks like it's actually trying to sell something. So whatever you're planning on doing with it, the first thing I'd do would probably be to go find people whose writing style you like and say 'hey, you're awesome, can I publish one of your stories in my new thing?' You need to prove you're real. That'll be a lot easier once you've got some writing to talk about.
The new site is much clearer and better. The slideshow on the homepage should have pictures that're the same dimensions, and there are some grammatical issues on the submissions page (capitalization mostly). Also, have you made sure you have the right to use all of the images? You need wc requirements listed - are you interested in flash pieces of only 100-500w, or more in the range of 2000-5000, or what? How long should the short bio be? Do you want a cover letter? I would also echo other folks' comments about the domain and the yahoo address - it doesn't look professional, but I don't personally know anything about the cost of setting up your own domain so I'll leave that to more knowledgeable types.
My domain was really cheap. About £20-30, I think. Although I didn't buy any email addresses because I'm not advertising my email address.
I agree that without your own domain and an email address on that domain, you are signaling that this is an amateur effort. But it IS an amateur effort, right? You're new at this. You have no money. It's essentially an experiment, right? Amateur efforts aren't evil. But if it's an amateur effort, I think that you need to acknowledge that. For example, the 1-3 month delay for responses to submissions would be appropriate for a big professional magazine that could pay or could at least offer a writer some recognition. You can't offer that, so I think that the delay is not a good idea. I would suggest that you find a way to make this more open, more friendly, more accepting of its amateur status. All people get is the fun of a cooperative venture with someone else, so I would recommend increasing the sense of fun and the sense of cooperation/collaboration. Edited to add: In fact, I would suggest changing the fundamental nature of this--what about a literary blog that invites occasional guest bloggers and has several posts a month?
The journal is all about faith so I left the writing style up to writers. I did mention emotional yet powerful, sentimental and steadfast. And what are you asking for? Links to my publications?
I agree this is an amateur journal because I'm stepping my foot in the editing pool. I would love to read, edit and publish faithful works on the journal. I'm going to change the wait period and add requirements but what I wanted to do was start a literary journal. I already have a blog space so that wouldn't be anything exciting or new.
WHY do you want to start a literary journal? Who do you want to read it? How will you distribute it to them?
The picture sizes are automatically put into a certain size. And thank you for the suggestion, I agree that it needs requirements.
I want to explore their work and edit pieces to form a collection that can melt with each other. What I should have done was ask for social media links in the submission so I can post their work on Facebook etc. and tag them in it. I'll get on that too.
You did mention that. I read it. And I still had the reaction of '...wut?' because it doesn't really tell me anything. A couple of examples would be nice. Ideally things you've already published, but before you've got any of those, some examples of stories that meet your bill and why they meet them. As a potential submitter I'm kinda flying blind at the moment.
Hm. Keep in mind that there are copyright issues. A request for social media links does not constitute a contract. I think that you're going to need a contract.
https://theopiatemagazine.com/2017/01/01/seldom-he-was-a-sinner-by-alex-r-encomienda/ https://theopiatemagazine.com/2016/12/31/magdalene-by-alex-r-encomienda/ Excuse my ignorance of the term but what do you mean by 'meet your bill'?
Well there were magazines that accepted me and asked for my social media link when there was no contract whatsoever.
