Dyepot, Teapot

Today’s forecast high: 103 degrees F. I do not have air conditioning. Scary.

The summer issue of Yog’s Notebook is now on sale on our website. We’re even offering a package deal on issues 1 & 2: buy both and save $2.

We’re also having a coloring contest. Print it, do something to make it pretty, and send it back. Let me know if you have suggestions on prizes or know a publisher who might like to donate something.

And… I made another video. WordPress doesn’t let me embed these so you have to click the link: Yog’s Notebook promo

I’ve been trying to think of ways I can keep people coming back to the Yog’s Notebook site between new issues, and also do more to build a reader community. This week we launch a weekly blog for reviews, links, and other fun content. The first feature is a post from Lucas about Kurt Vonnegut and Cat’s Cradle.

After I talked about the importance of writing roles while you’re still a 1-2 person shop, I made a list based on the work we’ve done on Yog’s Notebook so far. It looked something like this:

• Editor
  • acquisitions editor
  • copy editor
  • proofreader
  • developmental editor
  • layout designer
  • web designer
• Publisher
  • bookkeeper
  • business manager (HR, financial planning?)
  • sales
  • customer service
  • marketing
• Content
  • writer
  • graphical designer/illustrator
  • contributing editor

When I came back to it a week or so later, I felt like it still didn’t really do enough to describe the work, in a way that would be helpful in assigning portions to someone else. So then I listed every activity I could think of that we’ve done so far. Combined with the labels above, I have this:

• Editor
  • lead editor: send publication to printer
  • acquisitions editor: read submissions, select submissions for each issue, sign contract for writer’s copy (and ours), respond to submission queries, send rejections for work not selected
  • copy editor: check content for spelling, grammar, and conformance to style guidelines
  • proofreader: verify that all content is represented on the page as intended
  • developmental editor: discuss story changes with writers
  • layout designer: lay out the publication, create cover design
  • web designer: create website, set up domain name and web hosting
• Publisher
  • bookkeeper: record expenses, record sales
  • business manager: write/create a contract, send contracts for selected work, pay writers, file contracts somewhere retrievable, file receipts, buy office supplies (envelopes, labels, etc), get quotes from printers, create financial analyses
  • sales: send announcements of new issue, set up PayPal for purchasing copies, contact stores about stocking our publication
  • fulfillment: package purchased copies for mailing, mail copies of zine to purchasers, email PDFs to purchasers
  • customer service
  • marketing: print promotional materials (stickers), plan release party
• Content
  • writer
  • graphical designer/illustrator: create graphics for web, publication, merchandise
  • contributing editor: write editorial content

I’m sure this is incomplete, and that there are other (better?) ways to organize the tasks and roles, but it’s a start, and it was interesting for me to see how many different kinds of things were involved in getting that first issue out. If anyone who has submitted work to us (or any other small publication) is reading this, I hope it helps explain why it can take a little while to hear back; we have so many other jobs to do at the same time.

I think the next step would be to look at what roles could be handed off to other people (or outsourced to another company) but right now we don’t have the resources. Still, I’m glad to have some idea of where I would start.

Yesterday’s release party for Yog’s Notebook went well. We sold a few copies, hung out and drank and talked with friends, and everyone seemed to have a good time. I completely failed to take pictures, but I think Lucas will have a few to post soon.

Monday is my self-imposed “get back to work” day, so even though I did work on the zine last week, tomorrow I need to call a few places about maybe getting it into local stores, send out the comps and review copies, and figure out what else I can do to continue promoting it.

I was talking to a couple of people last night about viral marketing, and how it’s really funny watching big corporations try to get in on the action, because they think there’s something special, almost magic, going on. It’s just word of mouth. Two rules: do something interesting, and tell everyone you know. And if you don’t know anyone who’s into the something you’re trying to promote–maybe you picked the wrong area to work in. I’m not saying you always have to be part of the market you’re selling to, but it certainly helps, and it seems impossible without at least some kind of personal contact with said Market. How else do you know if you’re getting it right?

My brain’s been a jumble the last few days, still churning over Accelerando and other assorted readings. I’m in the middle of Perdido Street Station, but it’s hard to read large chunks at once, because the setting is so extreme.

There’s a bit of a backlash against the idea of information overload right now. Last year, the news was “all these things trying to get your attention all at once are rotting your brain!”. This year it’s a combination of “no, just go with the flow” and “who cares what everyone’s eating for lunch anyhow? I don’t have to read this stuff.” Eh. I bet everyone’s been in a situation when their problem was too little available information, not too much. (Watching the news on 9/11/01? Waiting for that hot guy/girl to respond to your email?)

The problem isn’t that there’s so much information on our screens and in our inboxes and feed aggregators and so on, it’s that we don’t know how to find the information we want right now, and how to get rid of the stuff we don’t want to deal with now (or ever). Better filters will help. Learning to skim for content and not read every word will help. I know a bunch of people who’ve been clamoring for a smart news agent for years, one that will make sure the stuff we want to see is front and center. It’s do-able, too, but the readily available tools still barely even acknowledge the problem. It’s like the people creating them don’t believe we want to track this much information at any one time. Well yes, we do. I do.

I have more things on my “write about this list” but this post is getting long enough. I’ll do the rest this afternoon, or tomorrow. Whenever.

After two months of hard work and steep learning curves, Yog’s Notebook issue 1 is now for sale.

If you’re in Portland, we’re going to have a little release party this Saturday at Lucky Lab on SE Hawthorne, from 5pm till whenever. Email me or leave a comment if you’ll be there and would like us to hold a copy for you. And spread the word!

Thanks to my very nifty friend Katie, Yog’s Notebook now has a logo. She did an amazing job of taking my instructions (”yeah, sort of a globby thing with tentacles… maybe an eye or two in there… oh, that squid picture is pretty cool!”) and creating exactly what I wanted.

So as soon as I had her drawing scanned in, I created an account on CafePress and added a few t-shirts. You can see (and order) them at http://cafepress.com/yogsnotebook/.

Because I’m a dork and wanted to play with my new printer, I made stickers.

I only printed a single sheet of these, but I’ll make more if anyone has a use for them.

I set up an announcement list on Google Groups for anyone who wants reminders on submission deadlines, or to hear when the first issue is out: http://groups.google.com/group/yogsnotebook.

We’ve started to receive the first story submissions. I emailed everyone I could think of who might be interested in sending something, or know people who would, and posted it a few places online, so now I’m obsessively checking Google Analytics to see how many hits the submission page is getting.

Lucas has a bit about it on his blog, too.

And today I discovered that Yog is also the nickname of James D. Macdonald, writer of many fine books and originator of Yog’s Law, which states: Money flows toward the writer. Maybe he can be our unofficial patron saint. I’d love to have this succeed enough that we can pay pro rates.