Keep moving forward
The pdf edition of Issue 8 is pretty much done. I got the entire thing reformatted to 8.5″ x 11″. But I realized that I hadn’t properly sized the cover to 8.5 x 11, so I couldn’t do the merging of the various pieces (I was at work). I’ll do the sizing over the weekend (it doesn’t take long) and merge the pieces when I get back to my day job on Monday.
WE NEED SUBMISSIONS! For some reason (probably the Flash Fiction contest), submissions this month are the lowest they’ve been since around Issue 2. While it’s quite possible there are some gems in there (we only just started reading), we’d really like to have a larger pool to draw from. Please get your Alternate History submissions in by Tuesday the 30th!
Speaking of Issue 9 (Alt. Hist), we got back the answers for our interview this morning. It turned out great! Interviews can be a bit dicey - you never know exactly what to expect. Everyone reacts differently to answering questions. But in this case, the interviewee liked the questions (he even commented to that effect), and gave some very insightful (and entertaining!) responses. Couple that interview with the article we’ve got, and the nonfiction portion of Issue 9 looks terrific.
Also, speaking of the Flash Fiction Contest, there’s only 4 days left to vote on your favorite! There have been over 100 votes cast so far, but I think we can do better! C’mon, free flash fiction stories to read! Tell your friends!
To our utter delight, as of right now we’ve surpassed last month’s numbers by just over 47%. With 4 days left, passing 50% seems inevitable. Incredible, and WAY more of a surge than we expected (over the previous few months we’d been seeing 10-25% growth). We actually anticipate a drop-off next month since we won’t have the Flash Fiction contest, but that’s okay; so long as there’s not a drop-off from May’s turnout.
Lastly, I wanted to mention: We’re trying to put together a Super-Issue for Issue 12 to close out our first year with a bang. The theme genre is LGBTQ, and we’re already speaking to potential contributors; we want a wide variety of perspectives to go into this one. We’ll still be accepting submissions for the issue, in September: we’re planning on the issue being the largest one yet, probably around twice the size of our regular issues! We hope our readers will help spread the word on this one especially, as it’s very important to us and we have high hopes the issue will impress and amaze.
Originally published at Crossed Genres. You can comment here or there.