[Poll] IB in 2015

[lilacfield]

Happy 2015, all

Comments

[dmjewelle]

1. I find that whatever theme is given I'll still end up only writing weeks before it's due to publish, so the time frame does not matter to me.

2. Perhaps it could be mixed up - theme for one, elements for another. Maybe more variations like picture prompts or quotes?

[helike]

Not really a writer, but I can add my two cents.

1. You cut the number of issues once in the past, but it didn't really improve anything in the end from what I can to see. The thing is people will always write when they can and procrastinating is in the human nature or something like that. No matter how time you'll give them, people will always start to write the last moment possible. So, no, I wouldn't go down with the number of issues per year.

2. Personally I'd suggest a mixed approach. Go once for the theme and then go for including a certain element in the next issue.

[deep_time]

If the goal is to get more story submissions, there are two trends working against you: fewer and fewer English-speaking people use LJ, and more and more amateur (non-professional) writers are publishing ebooks via Amazon instead of submitting work to non-paying markets. There's a nostalgic coterie of writers that still submit to non-paying zines out there, building publishing CVs the old fashioned way, but it's small enough demographic that amateur markets dry up and fold all the time. Literally every place I've ever been published, with the exception of here, has shut down within a few months or a couple years after the first issue

[issen4]

I agree with deep_time in that the themes are, for some reason, not really working for me. Short as some of them are, they still feel kind of restrictive or (on the other end of the scale) much too general. I was wondering if something longer, but vaguer, more open to different interpretations, would work.