Turns out, submissions come thick and fast and when you request them. Who knew?

This has turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. We have been getting such a large variety of incredibly well written short stories, which – as you know – is what every editor wishes, but it has meant that if we aren’t reading every day we are quick to fall behind. Maybe those large and established magazines (don’t worry, we’ll take ’em) had actually put some thought into submission timetables.

Well, we live and learn.

Except when we don’t (if a mistake is worth making, it is worth repeating, just to be sure).

So we will continue to accept rolling submissions, and I will just have to damn well sit down and read some excellent fiction (if you listen carefully, small violins are hitting a crescendo in an excessively tiny symphony).

Moving on, in exciting news, sales (plural) of Etherea Magazine were made! That includes sales to people who aren’t even related to the editorial staff (which, as every self published author will tell you, is a win). I mean, let’s be honest here, most are likely to come from friends and relatives of contributing writers, but there were several which I am certain were interested third parties! (I swear!)

Either way, thank you all who have purchased an issue! We really appreciate it!

As for the future of the magazine, things are looking rosy. We have an amazing interview with a supremely talented author coming up in Issue 2. As I am sure you noticed in the interview with Sam Hawke, you (i.e. me) feel a little like you aren’t holding up your end of the deal when you ask a one sentence question, and receive a considered, well structured paragraph in return. I would like to say this will change in the future (it won’t), but I defend myself in the fact that you aren’t here to read my questions.

You may have also noticed that we have shared one of our published stories. How We Survive is a truly wonderful tale, and I found the ending very refreshing.

Is sharing the story a ploy to get more traffic to the website? Obviously, yes.

We have also published our first Book Review, Crematoria Online, a LitRPG (explained in the review) by Brisbane based author Matthew J Barbeler. I hope people enjoyed reading it, as there will be more to come (if you find my writing style tedious, well, unlucky).

Generally we have been trying to add content to the website, so people have a reason to visit other than the magazine.

As an aside, I’ll give you a peek behind the curtain (this may well help others in a similar position). I have obviously been trying to build awareness of the publication through multiple means. This involves being active on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and anywhere else that will take us. Am I good at it? Nope.

I had a stab at Twitter Ads, turns out if you leave the bidding on “Auto” for link clicks, you could end up paying $15 for a click! That is three times the cost of the Magazine!

I have worked out that you can get a follower for roughly $2-3 in ads, which is a terrible rate of return. So, until we really take off (it’s going to happen, right?… Right?!), advertising via paid means will have to die a lonely death.

Other than that, most of our traffic is still coming via submission sites (Submission Grinder, Duotrope, et al.). This does mean that the submissions page is still the most popular, logically. I actually really appreciate the fact that we get traffic at all, previous to publishing the site it was all too easy to imagine Etherea Magazine, adrift on a raft in the vast sea that is the internet (the only attention being paid by bots spamming the comments, in terms of imagery – let us call them sharks).

Anyway, enough blather from me. Was this post just me procrastinating? You damn well bet it was. But I hope you enjoyed it.

Cheers

AW

Categories: Uncategorized