Isabel: Goodbye, and thank you
Hi all! I’ve spent the past 9 months working alongside the lovely Vinessa and Taya as Banksia Journal’s Social Media Manager. Together, we have created many exciting pieces of content to bring more readers and authors to Banksia Journal. It has been such an amazing opportunity to work within the Australian writer’s scene, however I have taken up the role of Social Media Manager at my workplace and therefore will no longer be working with Banksia Journal. I am eternally grateful to Brittany and Lauren for welcoming me into this space that allowed me to explore not just content creation, but also proofreading and copyediting. Thank you so much to all of our readers, and I cannot wait to continue to see Banksia Journal blossom!
Brittany: Who reads literary journals? A preliminary look
What is a literary journal?
A literary journal, or literary magazine, periodically publishes short creative works in print and/or online.
What do I mean by:
Periodically
A literary journal will consistently release new short creative works on a set schedule across an extended period of time.
For example:
- AntipodeanSF publishes a new digital edition once a month (psst read issue 301, published in November, 2023)
- Westerly publishes a new print edition twice a year
Short
Works of less than 10,000 words are typically considered short, though different publications accept different word counts.
For example:
- AntipodeanSF accepts stories between 500 and 1,000 words
- Aurealis accepts stories between 2,000 and 8,000 words
Creative works
Fiction, memoir, poetry, and personal essays are types of creative works, though again, different publications accept different types of creative works.
For example:
- Aurealis accepts “[a]ll types of science fiction, fantasy and horror that are of a “speculative” nature”. It does not publish poetry, or serialised works.
- Meanjin accepts a wide range of works, including essays, fiction, memoir, and poetry
But, whichever types of creative works are published, a literary journal’s focus will be on craft, and creativity.
This differs from, for example:
- Academic journals, which focus on academic rigour, and contribution to a field of knowledge
- Newspapers, which focus on key facts relating to current events
Australia’s literary magazines … are a meeting place in print or pixels of imaginative explorations of our lives and our languages. They provide an opportunity for experiment that the economics of book publishing might not allow. They can stir your conscience while you stir your tea.
Dennis Haskell, quoted by Robyn Annear in The Monthly
Literary journals really are the breeding grounds and the petri dish of new talent.
Kent MacCarter, quoted by Catriona Menzies-Pike and Samuel Ryan in Literary journals in Australia
Australian literary journals
An incomplete list:
But what about readers? The fact is, there aren’t a lot of them. My hunch is that the absence of printed magazines—or literary magazines, full stop—would discommode contributors, and potential contributors, far more than it would readers.
Robyn Annear, The Monthly
Jacinda Woodhead of Overland stated that in a recent survey, 80 per cent of readers identified as writers.
Imogen Smith, Materiality and Media: Australian Literary Journals in the Post-Digital Publishing Ecology
Who reads Banksia Journal?
Based on data from Google Analytics, and Google Search Console, it seems Banksia Journal’s readers are predominantly Australians with iPhones.
This admittedly does not tell us much.
Data from Google Analytics
11 February – 11 May, 2025
Banksia Journal’s web traffic: Top 5 countries and operating systems
Who reads Banksia Journal?
It seems likely Banksia Journal’s visitors are indeed predominantly writers.
(Though, this is less certain than that they are Australians with iPhones.)
Data from Google Analytics
10 February – 10 May, 2025
Banksia Journal’s web traffic: Top 5 sources
Source
The source of our web traffic is the website visited directly before Banksia Journal.
For example, if you are scrolling Facebook, see a link to Banksia Journal, and click that link, Facebook is the source.
Direct
If web traffic is direct, Google has no information on the site visited before Banksia Journal; https://banksiajournal.com may have been typed directly into an address bar.
Facebook
Facebook redirects links through several different sources, including l.facebook.com, and m.facebook.com; I have given an aggregate number.
Google
Google Analytics says 2o visitors found Banksia Journal via Google between 10 February and 10 May.
Meanwhile, Google Search Console says Banksia Journal received 94 clicks in the three months leading up to 11 May.
It appears not all clicks are counted as web traffic. I have not yet investigated why.
It may be best to treat all these numbers with a grain of salt.
The Submission Grinder
The Submission Grinder is a database of literary journals; writers can use it to find places to submit their work. Similar databases include Duotrope, and Chill Subs.
Data from Google Search Console
3 months leading up to 11 May, 2025
Google’s top 5 pages in Banksia Journal
| Page | No. clicks |
|---|---|
| Home | 44 |
| Submissions | 19 |
| About Us | 10 |
| For the Sake of the Octopus Cousins | 5 |
| Mock Turtle Soup | 3 |
| Page | No. impressions |
|---|---|
| Submissions | 640 |
| Do you want to feast on fantasy foods? | 542 |
| About Us | 450 |
| Mock Turtle Soup | 231 |
| Home | 159 |
Impressions
When you search for something on Google, a list of links will come up. When Banksia Journal appears in this list, Google counts is as an impression.
Clicks
If Banksia Journal appears in Google’s list of links, and you then click the link and visit this website, Google counts that as a click.
These numbers don’t add up
As I said above, not all clicks counted by Google Search Console are counted as web traffic by Google Analytics. I have not yet investigated why.
It may be best to treat all these numbers with a grain of salt.
Data from Google Search Console
3 months leading up to 11 May, 2025
What Google searches does Banksia Journal show up in?
| Query | No. impressions |
|---|---|
| fantasy foods | 180 |
| spec writing perth | 99 |
| australian literary magazines | 89 |
| fantasy and science fiction submissions | 78 |
| science fiction magazine submissions | 64 |
| scifi short story submissions | 62 |
| fantasy short story magazine submissions | 46 |
| science fiction submissions | 37 |
| fantasy & science fiction submissions | 36 |
| banksia new years eve | 32 |
Who else?
Google’s data suggests many of Banksia Journal’s visitors are interested in submitting work.
But, if we take Google Analytics’ numbers, more people are finding us directly or via Facebook than via Google.
I have not looked thoroughly into our Facebook audience (though at a glance, there are several writers previously published here in our recent activity).
And, I know nothing about the people finding Banksia Journal directly.
Who are you?
There is also a lot of information about our readers Google doesn’t tell me, such as:
- Age
- Gender
- Education
- Employment
- Broader reading habits
- Whether readers self-identify as writers
I believe I would have to conduct a survey of our readers to learn this information.
If you are interested in participating in this sort of survey, or would just like to tell me a little about yourself, please reach out:
Who reads other literary journals?
Of course, Banksia Journal is only one very small literary journal; we haven’t had long to build up our readership.
So, these numbers are not necessarily representative of literary journal readers more broadly.
(Though, I suspect the bit about Australians with iPhones is pretty broad.)
Literary journals in Australia: Report prepared for the Australia Council of the Arts
Gender
This report found, where data was available, literary journal audiences were dominated by women
Age
Number of readers
The patchiness of this data points strongly to the conclusion that literary organisations require support and guidance in collecting data about their audience.
Catriona Menzies-Pike and Samuel Ryan, Literary journals in Australia
…we observe that it will be difficult to make persuasive arguments about the overall growth of the sector when data collection is so inconsistent.
Catriona Menzies-Pike and Samuel Ryan, Literary journals in Australia
Who reads other literary journals?
If I want to learn more, I think the best course of action would be to reach out to other literary journal editors, and ask to collaborate on a survey of readers.
Are you a literary journal editor? Do you know who your readers are? Are you interested in surveying them? Again, please reach out:
Brittany Lee is the co-founder, and editor of Banksia Journal. She is a writer from Perth, Western Australia, with a BA in Linguistics, and Postgrad Diploma in Journalism. Her work has appeared in AntipodeanSF, Dusty Attic Publishing, and Perth’s Raine Square Story Dispenser. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, knitting, and taking photos of flowers (such as banksias).
You can find her online at brittanyerinlee.com.
Isabel is a Professional Writing and Publishing student and Social Media Manager at Banksia Journal. She is eager to begin her career in the publishing industry and work on personal writing projects once she graduates. She loves to read which is evident by her never-ending TBR pile, and the best part of her day is cuddling with her cats.