Where Have All the Little Lit Mags Gone?

After returning from a multi-year hiatus from the small press publishing community, I’ve noticed things have changed. Most of the literary magazines I was familiar with are gone now, replaced with a smaller circle of print publications and a much larger network of online only entities.

I remember when I first launched Poetry in Motion magazine. I had a fairly sizeable database of writers acquired from an anthology project. It was a natural to offer them the new quarterly--and it went over big!

At the same time, I was acquainted with a writer who had the desire to publish a magazine too (they had a theme and a great name, but no more than a dozen potential subscribers). I offered to run a notice in our first issue about the new journal. What happened next was startling—instant subscriber base for that publication. They were off and running and went on to become a real player in the small press community. The return to Poetry in Motion was negligible with respect to subscribership—but the good will was priceless. The true benefit was to our writers across the country who now had an additional creative outlet for their writing.

Soon, I was exchanging ads with a dozen or more established publications in the same manner. The benefit to all was clearly noticed in increased submissions as well as subscribers. I don’t see that happening today and I sorely miss it. Perhaps I have not yet come across those magazines who would be interested. If you’re out there, get in touch with me at WinkWriters dot com.