Crafting a Literary Journal for Research and (non-) Profit

Despite the meteoric rise in the readership of speculative fiction (or ‘spec fic’, encompassing fantasy, science fiction and beyond) within Australia in the last few years, there’s a distinct shortage of places to read professional and original short spec fic works with an Australian voice. (Although there are a few: check out these other homes for amazing Aussie spec fic!)

This research targets an Australian audience who might wish to start their own spec fic journal. However, there is quite literally no scholarly research on the topic of actually starting a literary journal at all. Many people who’ve started their own journals have blogs and articles touching on the basics, but to delve deeper, I had to reach out to journal founders with questions about their journals’ own beginnings. I also collated and analysed publicly available data like author payment rates and methods of reader engagement from the websites of other online spec fic journals. The creation of Banksia Journal itself also serves as a form of creative-practice research: basically, we learned by doing it ourselves!

Advice from Lit Journal Pros

I mentioned the articles by people who run their own journals above, and here I’ve synthesised their collective advice into a handy list:

• Your journal’s purpose must be unique and clear across your website and everywhere else you represent yourself
• Submissions can be managed with spreadsheets and email, or you can pay for Submittable and/or other submission-tracking software
• Extra hands will likely be essential, but all you eager volunteers, don’t expect to be paid!
• Publishing in print is the shared dream, but publishing online saves a lot of money
• Paying for stories is standard, but not expected, and often pays very little depending on the journal founders’ available funds
• Building and maintaining a readership takes time and dedication.

All of this is good advice and should be taken as standard practice. But you’re here for the nitty-gritty, step-by-step guide, so let’s get into it.

Funding

Before you start building websites and putting the call out for submissions, you’ve got to ensure your project is even going to get off the ground. If you want your journal to ‘look legit’ and stand out as a beacon of professional online publishing, you’re going to need to shell out a bit of cash.

Total startup costs

For us, total startup costs were around AUD $500. Website essentials like domains and site hosting (~$100) combined with setting aside a certain amount for author payments for the year (if you are able to afford them, that is—for us, we could manage $0.01 (1 cent) per word for a total of $30 per 3,000 total words, so $400 total for the year) are integral to starting a strong, professional online journal.

Who’s paying?

Expect to pay out of pocket, because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll find someone else who will. The words I saw most often regarding this issue were “passion project”, and it’s true—your setup costs won’t be nearly enough to warrant an arts grant, and (unless you’re a marketing genius) you’ll probably be too new on the scene to have folk online pitch in.

Save money!

Most importantly, if you’re starting your journal alone with minimal web development skills, get acquainted with whatever website building tool you want to use so you don’t have to pay someone else to do it for you! You’ll need the money later when startup costs become maintenance and growth costs.

Website Development

Online or print?

In this internet age of decentralised media, publishing your journal online is the smarter (and less expensive) choice. Debates may still rage amongst literary purists about the validity of ebooks compared to their ink-and-paper counterparts, but unlike full-length novels, we’re already primed to take in short bursts of entertainment digitally. Similarly, it allows for experimentation of the reading experience, is better for accessibility and is, quite simply, more convenient.

Web design

My interviewees were almost unanimous—when asked what was most worth the expense in starting their journal, they agreed that it was a good website. Appearance tells a story, and for a professional-looking website, you need to develop a theme that’s clear, simple and yet still tells the story of your journal. There is plenty of advice on exactly how to do this all over the internet.

Social media

You have to be careful to keep your brand consistent across social media. We’ve found that drawing up templates on Canva to use across our social media accounts allows the process to be streamlined and coherent, no matter where we’re representing ourselves.

Volunteers

This is where the novelty of my research really stood out, because I discovered that a project like this—even with all the easy-to-use development tools—could not have been possible without my incredibly talented project partner, Brittany. Such a diverse range of skills is needed for a project of this sort, spanning as it does areas of design, marketing, editing and so much more. Starting a journal on your own is going to be hard. Starting a journal with people who complement the skills you already offer will still be hard, but it will go a lot smoother and be a lot more fun.

Once your journal gets properly underway, all but the most determined founders will need a bit of help to sort out submissions, edit stories and run the site. The exact number fluctuates wildly, depending on the journal’s schedule, reach and various needs. Even though you may not have to worry about it for a while, it’s worth considering where you might find some helpful volunteers. Banksia Journal plans to reach out to university students (like me!) who are building up their publishing work experience. Or you might find like-minded short story lovers on Facebook or other interest-based group pages around the internet. The options are limitless—just make sure they know you can’t pay. (Unless you can somehow, in which case, amazing!)

Legal

I couldn’t find information on the legalities of starting and running a journal, so I asked my sources and did some research of my own. Most of them concurred that they figured it out as they went along, modelling things like their licensing agreements and privacy policies on those of other, more established journals. Banksia Journal has done the same, drafting an author agreement outlining the rights we have to publish the story (like when, where and for how long), which was checked by the project’s supervisor, a professional publisher. Brush up on your country’s laws around publishing other people’s intellectual property, and when handling the private information of your authors and site visitors, ensure they know you’re complying with the policies of the General Data Protection Regulation—the EU-based, generally accepted standard for privacy surrounding personal information traded online—or your country’s equivalent.

Submissions

Finding authors

This can be done in many ways, such as:

• Listing the journal on national, state and local writing associations
• Promoting the journal through organisations like universities and local writing centres
• Contacting other spec fic fiction journal editors
• Submitting news pieces to trade magazines
• Approaching known writers
• Networking at writing and publishing events, and
• Promoting online through social media and sites like Submittable and Writers Data Base that list and track submission opportunities for writers.

Managing submissions (and time!)

Managing submissions can be done freely through email and spreadsheets (the preferred method of most of my sources), but publishing notable Jane Friedman outlines the way Submittable can be used for a more convenient, if more expensive, option. Perhaps more importantly, my sources indicate that you should prepare yourself for the time it takes to manage submissions, especially if (like Banksia Journal) you are publishing a high-demand genre in an under-represented market. More information will become clear as to exactly how much time to set aside once Banksia Journal is more established.

Schedule

These are areas where I couldn’t determine a standard practice from the data, due to the information I had varying wildly from journal to journal. There are as many publishing schedules as there are means of publishing, and you’ve got to know yourself and your own schedule to know how you can split up your time so you can publish monthly, weekly or even daily!

I hope this guide has consolidate all the information scattered around the internet, but I’m sure (busy postgrad student that I am) I didn’t get all of it. If you see any errors or want to add a tip of your own, please feel free to comment below! Research into literary journals is a forgotten corner of wider publishing studies, and every little bit helps to expand our knowledge base.

References

Australian entities and the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. (n.d.) Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-guidance-for-organisations-and-government-agencies/more-guidance/australian-entities-and-the-european-union-general-data-protection-regulation

Barrett, K. (14 July, 2022). 6 things I’ve learned publishing a literary magazine for 10 years. Lit Mag News. https://www.everywritersresource.com/the-pitfalls-of-stating-a-literary-magazine

Curcic, D. (October 2, 2022). Fantasy book sales statistics. Words Rated. https://wordsrated.com/fantasy-book-sales-statistics

Friedman, J. (July 18, 2023). The business model of literary journals (or lack thereof). https://janefriedman.com/the-business-model-of-literary-journals/

Iwunze-Ibiam, C. (2020, June 2). Starting Your Own Online Literary Magazine: A Guide To Launching A Lit Mag. Creative Writing News. https://www.creativewritingnews.com/how-to-start-a-literary-magazine/

Kelly, S. (2017). Personal branding for entrepreneurial journalists and creative professionals. Taylor & Francis Group.

Listi, B. (2023, May 31). How to start a literary magazine. Literary Hub. https://lithub.com/how-to-start-a-literary-magazine/

Patal, R. (2021, October 11). How to submit to literary journals. Writers.com. https://writers.com/how-to-submit-to-literary-journals

Sabaa, Y.A. (2022, November 21). How to run a literary magazine. The McGill Daily. https://www.mcgilldaily.com/2022/11/how-to-run-a-literary-magazine/

Scott, K. (2009). Understanding the new rules: Building an audience in the digital age. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. https://catalogue.curtin.edu.au/view/delivery/61CUR_INST/12181859930001951

Submittable.(n.d.). https://www.submittable.com/

Sundress Publications. (2020, May 26). Sundress roundtable: So you want to start a literary journal, part 1. The Sundress Blog. https://sundressblog.com/2020/05/26/roundtable-on-publishing-part-1/

The Writers Data Base. (n.d). https://www.writersdb.com/

Tricarico, D. (n.d.). So you want to start your own on-line literary journal. . . Scribophile. https://www.scribophile.com/academy/so-you-want-to-start-your-own-on-line-journal