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From the Office of the Editor: How Not to Run Your Literary Magazine


AKA An Introduction to My New Series on Writing

Recently, I decided to apply for the position of Prose Editor with a brand new Literary and Art Magazine. It seemed like a perfect opportunity; while I love writing for the DragonFruit blog, I've been wanting to do more work with pieces of fiction. Prose is my first love - my literary love - and any chance to sink myself into a good bit of writing is a good one in my book. Naturally, I sent in my application, linked it to my portfolio, and continued the time honored tradition of waiting for a response.

Within 20 hours, my inbox had pinged.

Thank you for applying to xxxx. We'd be delighted to have you on staff!

I've only ever received a response that quickly once before: when I'd applied to my Editorial Internship with snarky jokes and a dating profile in place of my cover letter (but that's a story for another time!). It seems extraneous to explain just how excited I was to see this, but a quick happy dance was had before I switched my focus and got to work. I'd been sent a sample submission to go over with directions to "Accept/Reject" it, and detail my choice in a paragraph. It was a simple assignment; the sort you might get in school. Let me just say, I was not prepared for what they'd sent me.

Horrible. The story was just horrible.

My first instinct, of course, was that they'd sent me an incredibly problematic piece so that they could more easily keep track of what, how, and why I'd choose to change. It was riddled with mistakes in grammar and formatting, crimes in the form of adjective abuse, and changing voice. The direction of the story took a twist at the end, and not one that served the purpose of surprise. I forced myself to read through it a few times over before actually putting the red pen to it and tearing it apart. Without any guidelines, my editorial style is a balance of copy editing and annotations. Especially in the case of a fiction submission, I try to leave the content as intact as is humanly possible. Where sentences are unnecessary and problematic I leave notes marking my questions in motivation/purpose; where I see a mistake being made consistently I explain what grammatical structure is more appropriate and why. Unless told otherwise, my overall goal is to not only offer correction, but to try to communicate failures in accessibility to the author. Once I'd finished marking up the actual story, I put together my notice of rejection and included tips for a second draft.

Read, revised, sent. Then, there's nothing for weeks.

After emailing again to make sure the revision had made it to them, I received a snippy reply that they'd already accepted their quota for Prose Editors. I emailed again, citing my confusion over why the position had been revoked, only to be told in a particularly nasty manner that I hadn't passed the second stage of the application. Stage? They had multiple writing samples from me already and had never described any process involving stages. "We'd be delighted to have you on staff!" What on earth was going on?

When it hit me, it hit hard. Navigating to their site's masthead, everything seemed to come together.

High school girls. They're nearly all high school girls.

I had to laugh, because the emails I'd been reading had sounded exactly like one of Tina Fey's Mean Girls trying to come off as experienced. I'd even made a comment in my rejection notice that the story had read like a high school essay (not the most flattering comment when submitting to a publication, but true). Realizing then that the author of the piece was most likely one of the girls listed, a thought occurred to me: Quite possibly, this person has never had something professionally edited or critiqued.

This, friends and readers, is how not to run your literary magazine. Don't misunderstand: there is absolutely nothing wrong with being inexperienced. However, when your inexperience comes hand in hand with a refusal to learn about the standards of your industry, you run the risk of not only driving talented potentials away, but also of damaging your professional reputation. This is especially true of the publishing industry.

With that, I'm happy to kick off the first article of my new series, From the Office of the Editor! I'll be giving advice on writing for all different audiences and on a number of platforms based on my experience as a writer, editor, and copy master.

So, to the anthology that decided to revoke their offer after reading my revision, here are some tips on how not to royally mess up in developing your literary magazine.

Chapter 1: Email Etiquette for Quasi-Professional Organizations.

1. Avoid phrasing such as "We'd be delighted to have you on our staff," unless you are making an offer. This is known as "placement promising" (or "bid promising" in certain contexts) and is considered one of the least professional actions that an organization can take during any recruitment process.

2. State the terms of your process before listing your expectations for your applicants. A competent writer is aware that just because they know something doesn't mean they've communicated it to their audience. A good writer avoids this pitfall altogether.

3. Avoid phrasing such as "as you assumed" (to those of you wondering: yes, they actually stuck this on the end of a sentence - how audacious). As an organization, it should be up to you to apologize for whatever misunderstanding was had, offer explanation, and try to resolve the situation as neutrally as possible. This maintains a professional image in the even that your email communication is made public. Otherwise, your correspondence is likely to come off as petty and dissuade anyone with professional experience from associating with your organization.

4. Do not repeat your hopes for clarification. It is unnecessary and comes off as catty. If you are actually interested in running a literary and art periodical, maintaining a good PR presence is absolutely vital to making sure your organization is successful. Short and sweet is the standard for a reason.

5. Have a designated email coordinator. I've run a number of initiatives, done work for non-profits, and now have corporate experience. What they all have in common is that a singular entity is responsible for fielding all email correspondence. That's not to say that another person can't help (in fact, I highly recommend that whoever does email reports to a higher level of management and let's them handle more delicate communication), but this isn't something all members of the team should have access to. Higher level management should monitor these communications, and make sure that they're being handled appropriately. (Note: I've worked with two people who handled email in the way that the emails I received were written. The first was re-trained with her particular needs in mind, as a non-native speaker of English, and then did wonderfully. The second was fired immediately.)

Chapter 2: Performative Adulthood

1. Have a professional portfolio, even if it's a small one. Adding your tumblr handles to your personal description is about as far from professional as it gets, even if you choose to continue using that account to promote yourself. Creating even a simple web page that's sole purpose is to archive your work will make a world of difference in building a network of professionals and bringing more attention to you as an individual.

(For this organization in particular: clearly, someone on your team knew enough to make a free site for the anthology. Talk to this person. Find out how to do it for yourself. Use wix, like I am, if you have to. Should you use your tumblr account for anything related to your professional presence, do not use it for reblogging unless it is from each other/the anthology: most employers will throw out an app with tumblr as a "portfolio," and the rare ones that won't will expect it to be specific to your work. A professional portfolio will also be helpful if you decide to apply to university in a creative field as well - tumblr is not a good tool for the real world.)

2. Learn to accept criticism. As a new organization in a sea of other creative ventures, there's going to be a lot that needs work in your first few years. If you've never worked in a professional environment, than anyone who has is automatically more experienced and more knowledgeable than you are. The key here is not to be hurt over that. I've no doubt that you're ambitious. I've no doubt that you've been told your work is wonderful. I also have no doubt that if you're prideful because of this, you will crash and burn before you even taste the success you could've had. Publishing is a field in which critique differentiates the great from the struggling, and if you are comfortable enough to be dealing it you should be comfortable taking it. Anyone editing your work, offering advice on your platform, or trying to be involved with your mission is looking to help better you. Resenting them for that is a surefire way guarantee the failure of your organization.

3. Develop materials before launching your site. If you're looking to start a literary or art magazine, it's probably safe to say that you're a content creator. Without a "first volume," drawing a community of artists to submit materials is going to be very similar to shouting into a crowded room: at first, you're likely to be ignored. Once submissions do start coming in (which will be entirely dependent on how well your team manages to campaign for materials) they're going to be unfiltered. If there is no precedent or standard for submissions, only the inexperienced and underexposed will participate. Building examples of the type of work that you'd like to see showcased is both helpful to narrow your window for applicants, but also helps those interested in designing their work to your preferences. You can always remove this as you develop your brand, but it can be invaluable when starting out.

Be sure to check in soon for more From the Office of the Editor! Comment with what Editorial Notes you'd like to see next, or whatever Questions for the Editor you may have!

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