| Seven Ways to Show Your Support |
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| Written by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez | |
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There's a dirty little secret that few people like to talk about openly, but here it is: 99.5% of literary journals, print or online, don't make much money. No, really, it's true. For those who know this to be true and are ready, willing and able to help out right now, click here: Everyone else, please keep reading for six other ways to help out.
The publishers and editors behind the many and varied labors of love most people take for granted put in ridiculous hours of often thankless time and effort purely out of sheer passion and the stubborn belief that there's no such thing as too many good poems, short stories or creative non-fiction. Making money is only important insofar as how it affects getting the next issue out or making sure the server space is paid for. As such, 99.5% of the writers who contribute their hard work to these publications rarely get paid for their efforts, either. Which honestly, is an even bigger shame, because it's one thing to do something for free for yourself, but to ask that of others...well, it seems to only be acceptable in relation to creative endeavors, doesn't it? Here at Spindle, as much as we'd like to pay all of our contributors, few online publications have successfully found a way to monetize their content, and the next online literary journal that does so will quite likely be the first. What we are going to attempt to do, however, is develop a modest revenue stream that will allow us to aggressively promote the site so that their work is not just sitting here in cyberspace wating for Google to crawl through and pull it up in random searches for "new york city", "stickball" and "Bloomberg for President". To get the word out far and wide that Spindle offers some of the best poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction of any publication, in print or online; and as importantly, any writer who is published here is worth checking out further. That means things like developing innovative marketing campaigns, sponsoring live events, producing limited edition chapbooks, etc.. Spindle readers can demonstrate their support in a number of ways, and not all of them involve money!
1) Make a donation to the site. Feel free to specify a contributor and we'll pass along 50% of the donation to them. Donate $100 or more and we'll list you as a Patron on a dedicated page here on the site and send you something cool as a token of our apprecation. (Anonymous donations are acceptable, too, Mr. Bloomberg!) 2) Shop at our CafePress eStore for t-shirts, hoodies, journals and other Spindle-branded randomonia. NOTE: The mark-up on each item is modest as we're much more interested in getting the Spindle name out there.
3) Sign up for a free site registration and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 4) Join our official Facebook group and/or install our Spindle Facebook App. 5) Check out some of our advertisers and be sure to let them know where you saw them. 6) Tell your friends about a favorite poem, story or article using the social bookmarking links found on every content page. 7) Leave comments on a favorite poem, story or article. (site registration required) In whichever way(s) you're able to show your support, rest assured that it will be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading! Guy LeCharles Gonzalez Spread the word             |
