So you want to start your own magazine?

I had been kicking around the idea of starting up my own online literary journal. One of the graduates of the masters program that I'm in had started one up and it's become very successful garnering some nominations for the Pushcart as well as other awards including Best of the Web.

I sat talked to him about some of the advice and some of the things he considered when starting and here's what Niel had to say.

1. Decide your online format early. Are you going to use a CMS (Joomla, Ruby on Rails, etc) or will you be handcoding your pages (HTML and CSS)? Either way, find ways to allow for the design to be flexible. In hindsight, using a CMS might have been substantially easier to maintain -- after it's set up, you just add content (little to no coding need be done). Hand coding though lets me adapt pages to specific needs while still building off of templates I've designed earlier. I use CSS to allow me the ability to change and update the look and feel without hurting the content too much.

2. Decide how often you'll publish. I would recommend a quarterly or bi-annual publishing schedule -- the bi-monthly rate I publish at is somewhat insane for a small crew

3. Submission reading process. Plan in advance what your process will consist of - one reader or multiple readers, simultaneous ok or not, package online submissions manager or regular email, attachments or not, etc.

4. Build a really awesome first issue. Most people do this by soliciting work (usually needing to pay them) from well-known writers. Alternatively, you can simply put up a nice looking placeholder page and advertise early through the UPenn CFP mailing list, your own networks of friends, and various online poetry discussion boards and web pages (all for free). I went the second route and it worked for me.

5. Have business cards made with the name of the journal, website address, and email address. I recommend overnightprints.com -- you can upload your own images or pdf and/or custom design your card online. Prices are reasonable. Cards are really nice looking. It makes a big difference to be able to hand out sharp professional looking cards to people you meet at readings, conferences, universities, and other places.

6. Promoting your journal. Mention it as part of your own bio when you send out work. Give out the business cards to poets you meet. Include the web address in the signature line of your emails.

7. Get listed on NewPages, Duotrope, and other publishing websites.

8. Get an ISSN -- After you've published a first issue, it should be easy to apply for an ISSN (it's free and makes you a bit more official). Here's the link. http://www.loc.gov/issn/

9. After you've been around for a year, you might start looking at being listed in CLMP. It's $75 to join (if I recall correctly). There's some other benefits. So far I haven't joined, but I've been thinking about it. Expect that your submissions will increase (perhaps dramatically) when you do. Boxcar has been doing well just on word of mouth and my own efforts, but at some point I'll make the jump as well.

10. Don't settle -- ever. Sometimes you won't feel like there's enough good work coming in or that it's good, but not right for the journal. Sometimes friends send you work that isn't up to par and you have to say no to them. Sometimes well-known poets and writers you respect send you less than publishable work. As tempting as it may be to publish someone whose name or publication record might up the cachet of the journal, at the end of the day it's always the work that determines the worth of the journal and who will submit. If you are unflinching and publish only what you can be absolutely proud of, then good work will come your way. People respect a journal with backbone.

The best advice someone gave me when I was starting out was: "It's your journal, you have the right to be biased! Just publish what you like."

Finally, decide what your journal can offer that isn't being offered already. Is there a focus or perhaps a regular feature which will make your journal unique? For Boxcar, it's our focus on reviewing and interviewing first book poets. For others, there might be a formal focus or a particular style of interview or other feature which makes visiting and revisiting the journal interesting. While not absolutely necessary, it can help differentiate your publication from all the others out there.

I find this all to be sound advice. And I'm going to try to follow through and start up on it. I'm tossing around some ideas and I'll update this blog about it as necessary. I've found some people who are interested and maybe just maybe this can be a project that won't crash and burn like many of my other ones have.

If you'd like to check out Niel's Poetry Magazine, here's the link: http://www.boxcarpoetry.com/
There are some great reads, reviews as well as photos there.