Start-ups

The feeding frenzy has begun and I haven't even gotten used to the idea that I'm going to be a publisher.

I sent out the information about the new ezine, Living Voices, yesterday and specifically noted that I would not be accepted submissions until August 1st and people are sending them already. I didn't even look at the submissions. I don't have time right now. But I am finding out about starting a new venture.

I want the magazine to be more than just an ezine. I want it to be a print magazine with real paper and real print, so I have to contact publishers and see about prices and put together a budget so I can pay writers and find out how much I really have to have for expenses and enough to keep me in food and necessities. Then I have to put all this together into a report so I can begin sending out grant proposals. I am also finding out about how to get advertising for the magazine and I came up with the idea of having a major corporation sponsor each issue, which will be quarterly to begin with. I'll post content on the web as well, but I really want a print magazine. I have approached Southwest Airlines. I have to start somewhere.

I will check out other airlines, too, because I think it's a good match with a magazine that talks about people in different regions and parts of the world (I hope). Tie in the regions and people with ways to get there and I just might be able to pull it all together. I also have to work out an advertising budget. That should be fun. I've been involved on the fringes of advertising all my life and handled placement of ads when I put together the security industry newsletter I edited and wrote for three years, but this is very different.

I also contacted the owners/editors of Glimmer Train magazine to see if they would be willing to discuss how they got started. I also contacted James Redfield, who wrote The Celestine Prophecy and is currently finishing a movie based on the book, to do an interview for the debut issue. I have a little different idea, something more interesting to writers: dealing with self publishing and the hype that followed the book. I am also going after J. K. Rowling and Sir Arthur C. Clarke about interviews for future issues, or the debut issue if James Redfield says no. Getting big name authors for interviews will have to be an ongoing process, but it's one I can handle. I did it for The Rose & Thorn over the past year and was pretty successful. I'm just going after bigger fish and working it into a business plan.

Yikes! I just realized I used the words "business plan" in a sentence referring to me. That's frightening. I don't remember ever wishing to become a productive adult. I just wanted to be a hedonistic dilletantte of a writer, not a publisher, but that is where I'm headed.

I am gaining some sort of name recognition since authors are approaching me to review their books. They can't possibly have read my review or they wouldn't ask. LOL I guess it pays to write and get it out there.

But back to the business plan. My goal is to start a publishing company and publish my own magazine and books based on the magazine. Living Voices is about the small stories, the people that make up history but that history never notices. I envision anthologies of regional stories and stories covering certain periods of history. I'll start with America, but I want to expand to encompass the people all over the world. Think about the people that make up nations, the faces behind the country's facade, people who do not necessarily agree with national and international views of them and their countries or their politics. The big names will always make the news, but what about the average person in the street? Those are the stories that are worth preserving, the truth of the day to day existence in and around historical markers. Anyway, that's my goal and my vision.

The next few months should prove interesting as I find out how to put this all together and whether or not I can put it all together. I'll keep you posted. You might actually be interested in how it all works and if not . . . ?

Time for me to shut up and get busy. I have an essay due for Parabola magazine tomorrow and I need to get cracking. I do have my own fish to fry. I guess sex and a personal life aren't going to be an option for me for a long time. Oh, well, I won't miss what I haven't had.

That is all. Disperse.