Website I need your opinions about a literary journal I launched

I meant it'd be nice to have some examples like that on your website to show people the kind of things you're looking to publish.

By 'stories that meet your bill' I mean stories that you look at and think 'yes, I want to publish stuff like this in my journal'. 'Meets the bill' is a phrase that means 'does the job', 'is what I'm looking for' etc.

 

That sounds shady. If you want to be sure you retain ownership of your pieces, you need a contract. I certainly wouldn't sell to a magazine that didn't apprise me of the rights they were after and have an easily-readable contract for me to sign.

 

Are you sure that they had absolutely none--no readme, no terms of service, no legalese whatsoever, of any kind, on the entire site?

But in any case, the fact that they're OK with making themselves vulnerable to a lawsuit doesn't mean that it's wise for you to make yourself vulnerable to a lawsuit.

 

Don't you think it would be odd to showcase my own work? Would other journals do that? I have no problem with it as long as it fits well with the rest of the journal.

 

I think he meant just writing in general that is an example of what you're looking to publish. I don't think it necessarily has to be yours or even should be.

 

Like Spencer said, ideally it'd be other people's work. (I think the confusion here is from my saying 'stuff you've published' - I meant 'you' as in the journal rather than 'you' as in you personally.)

I wouldn't personally find it odd if your own work was included in a set of links that showed examples of the kind of stories you were looking for, though I'd probably find it odd if it was entirely your own stuff.

 

Thank you for that I'll definitely add some.

 

Well the website is up and running. I advertised on Instagram but the submission didn't fit the journal so I'm going to email the writer soon.

Can I advertise the journal here? What are the rules to advertising literary journals on writing forums?

 

Is there a pretty decent sized market for faith-based short fiction?

 

I'm just going to quote and echo this. Your finished product looks good, and the images are gorgeous, but are they either royalty free or all paid up? I only ask because you mentioned money being an issue. When I was starting my blog, I looked into the image thing, and decided that, for the time being, I was better off without images I didn't create. The one exception (IIRC) is an image I got from, and (I hope properly) attributed to Wikimedia Commons.

If you know you're all in the clear, good job, but if you're not sure, be careful. There are services that photographers and image creators use to track down their stuff, and you could end up with a stiff bill even if you are a non-profit.

 

That's what I want to know. I visited other Catholic journals and faith based journals and found plenty of writers who were published there.

 

I grabbed the title page images from google images. They have no link, name or logo attached to it. Also, there are no royalties being made here.

The image with the bottles and cricket is my own artwork that I created.

 

Ohhh. No. Absolutely no. That's a copyright violation, and a lack of royalties will not protect you. There are plenty of respectable free image sites. Go find your images there.

 

What @ChickenFreak said, you can get yourself sued and end up having to pay, even if you aren't making a dime. When I was doing my research, I found this blog post:

Bloggers Beware: You CAN Get Sued For Using Pics on Your Blog - My Story

I can't vouch for the accuracy of what the blogger says, but much better safe than sorry, especially if you're on a tight budget.

 

I will put the site under maintenance. Do you have a link for these free images?

 

Pixabay's pretty good, as is Wikimedia. Both of them are good sources of public domain work, though obviously you should check the licence before you use the images. Some will need author attribution.

 

The problem with paying for a domain over time is that the site will never be completely reliable. If I could only pay once then I would buy a domain. With the email address, I personally don't see the problem with having a yahoo.com at the end. I've submitted to journals that are gmail, yahoo and .net.

 

I understand that, definitely.

I just don't want to pay for something I may not have much luck with. I don't even think I'll have the money to do that either but if I see that I get at least some kind of business in the future I'll know whether or not a custom domain would be worth it. Don't you think that's a wise decision?

I mean, I threw away $50 for entering a contest I didn't win but I'm not keen on experiencing that kind of disappointment again.

 

Yeah, not entirely sure I follow this. Weebly got their domain from the same place you'd be getting yours from. They're no more reliable than one you own.

At the end of the day, it's a perception thing. Some people, like you, aren't bothered about somewhere they submit running off free stuff. Some people, like most other people in the thread, would be less likely to submit there.

And as I said in an earlier post, this matters far less when you're established. For the most part, what people will want is to see you are a real journal with real subscribers and real submitters. If you can show that, a lot more people will overlook that your e-mail is labyrinthine@yahoo.com or whatever. Before you've got those, it's more important to look professional in every other aspect.

 

If you're gonna use images, make sure you optimize them for web.

 

There has been very little said thus far that I would argue with, my only concern is that you list a 2,000-word maximum on prose submissions. I highly recommend doubling that to 4,000 considering that a lot of literary short fiction ranges in the 3,000 to 4,000 word length.