Issue 5 Retrospective

Issue 5 is arriving inside your inbox as you read this. We truly hope that you enjoy it.

Today we have 1,100 words of journal thoughts and details you won’t find anywhere else.

Audio Collaboration

For the first time, select Radon stories appeared in audio form alongside our issue release. This wonderful happenstance was more serendipitous than anything. While we have a great working relationship with Space Cowboy Books out in California, we do not currently have anything in writing for a collaboration each issue, and currently are not expecting another co-launch for issue 6. As Radon does not acquire audio rights, author Jenna Hanchey of her own volition submitted her story to Space Cowboy. When accepted, we used our existing contacts in Space Cowboy to speak regarding a potential co-release of both the text and audio version of the story. 

Our production schedules both aligned with our intended September 15th launch and the rest is heard history. As their podcast is named “Simultaneous Times” and they needed a second story, we let Space Cowboy choose from our accepted stories and the excellent story from Abigail Guererro was selected. The Radon editors wanted to do their best to avoid being the sole nominators for which stories were selected for audio, as we did not feel comfortable making the sole judgement calls of which stories were going to receive the additional treatment and pay. We do our best to avoid potential ethical pitfalls. Call us a parent of sorts, as we love all our written stories equally.

Fiction Selection

Fiction proved itself particularly difficult to acquire this issue. It would be a cop-out to suggest that the stories we received simply did not match what we wanted for issue 5. For a moment in late August, we thought we might have only two or three stories to publish. After nearly four months of reading, this dire situation requires more intensive self-reflection as it is likely an editorial direction problem.

As a counterpoint, our poetry selection is humming along nicely with each issue. Aimer typically takes the lead here and the journal has a strong and unique poetry style we aim for and believe we reach.

This past issue we did have two founding members take a temporary step back for work and life reasons. As primarily fiction writers and readers, perhaps the loss of their voices caused our editor discussions to be less focused.

We may have wanted stories to be too perfect in the early days of reading for issue 5. Perhaps we temporarily forgot we are a developmental editing journal that prides itself on working with authors to get their pieces in perfect shape. Many of us either moved or started new jobs at literary agencies and publishers, and perhaps didn’t feel we had to time to devote to in-depth edits. We have since had meetings with one another to touch on this and are on track to getting back to our more optimistic approach.

With so many editors now, perhaps it is incorrect to continue working off consensus decisions. We may have to learn to accept stories with one detractor, with the caveat we will work with the author in edits to fix any potential lingering issues.

Reprints also remain a tough fiction item for our journal. Authors with reprints are rightfully weary of changing their story when another version already exists. But it is in our journal’s nature to offer many edits, both developmental and surface-level, which conflicts with the nature of reprints. It makes reaching a decision on them particularly tricky and too easy to reach a deadlock.

Art

Art remains a difficult item to acquire as well. Once or twice a year we will get a quality art submission in our Submittable. But otherwise we only receive odd-ball art submissions that do not appear serious. For all but one issue we have had to find on our own art pieces. We are tired of receiving photographs of Barbies in a yard with their heads chopped off. We are tired of people sending us random zigzag shapes and calling it a profound digital painting.

Funding

Thankfully we began the journal and carefully tuned our frequency, quantity, and pay rate to be able to afford it all on our own. But it’s easy to burn out and lose money. We’ve all seen it a million times in the lit mag industry, and now we know it firsthand. Don’t worry though: We don’t plan on going anywhere and are in for the long-haul. But to say it is without challenges will always be a lie.

All of us work during the day at publishing jobs which pay little. Unless you’re in upper management, publishing industry labor gets paid nearly slave wages. For entry-level positions in DC, Baltimore, and New York, they are exactly that. Aimer has sold his car to make sure there are no money problems living in the expensive East Coast, and Aimer & Renee putting off their honeymoon to future years. Looking at you Penguin & Hachette, offering only $38k/year to work in damn downtown Manhattan.

We do not expect any changes to our pay in the foreseeable future. Our next funding goal is in the low two hundreds via Patreon, to fully cover our current pay rate and server costs. Should we reach the next funding goal, we would either move to quarterly releases, or increase the fiction word count to 5,000. Judging by the slow patron growth of our journal, it may be possible to reach one of these goals in two to three years. We are considering bringing in a UK-based anarchist marketing collective to help us futureproof our journal and reach more of an audience but will give you more information as it develops.

Next Issue

Issue 6 this January will also be our two-year anniversary. We’ll be having an emotive editor’s note in the issue to look back on this radical enterprise. We made a conscious decision when we started our journal not to have editor’s notes. There’s something to be said about most editors putting their name first in a magazine or book, with their thoughts the first thing they expect someone to read. We wanted the focus to be on the authors and them alone. None of us are Neil Clarke. There’s not an entire industry clamoring for what we have to say yet.

Infograph

Our submissions this round were the highest they’ve ever been, at 1,205. The community truly responded to us in droves during August when we put out calls for submissions. We are proudly open to subs all year long, but it seems that writers respond to concrete deadlines.

Looking at the percentages (see attached image) of accepted work, we’d still love to see more primarily anarchist or transhumanist work, even if it the work shares other genres with alongside.

We'll be back soon later this year with another detailed post to let you know how issue 6 is progressing and if any changes are occurring!