Issue 9 - Gold Dust magazine

Zines of the Times [cont’d]
honest, I'm constantly still reading
up aspects of publishing.
Preparing the website took up
many hours - this was my hardest
task, as I have no html knowledge
at all, and at first I had to rely on
friends and family helping me to
sort this out. Obtaining the ISSN
was very easy to do - I remember
thinking that it would be impossible
to get one. Trying to find help at
the beginning was hard, but thankfully
I have some good friends.
GIV: The process is no different
from any other form of publication.
One accepts submissions, sorts
through them, selects the best
available material and then the fun
begins. I didn't really have to study
anything to do this. It was more or
less making a personal commitment
to do it on a schedule and try
to be of the best quality possible.
GD: To set up the magazine, I first
needed to organise a website. I
had to learn FrontPage very quickly
(luckily, my website design skills
have moved on from those early
days and the site is now created in
Dreamweaver). Once the website
was in place with submission
details clearly laid out, I set about
advertising for submissions on all
the various writing websites. I
focused mainly on the UK sites,
such as UK Authors and ABC
Tales, simply because I was familiar
with the quality of writing produced
there.
The submissions came flowing
in, and as I was working completely
alone at this point, it was
sometimes quite hard to keep up
with them. But by holing up in my
study for a few weeks, I managed
to put together a first issue, which
ranged from prose and poetry to
interviews and articles, all with a
literary-based theme.
I ordered a copy from Lulu
almost before I'd sent it to print!
With its high-gloss full-colour cover
and quirky right-aligned formatting,
it didn't disappoint on the aesthetic
factor – but there was room for
improvement. Some of the contributors
complained that the courier
new (typewriter-effect) font I'd chosen
looked unpolished and that
there was too much white space
around the text. By this stage, I
had so many submissions I was
already preparing issues two and
three; but I agreed with their comments,
so I re-issued all three editions
to incorporate the changes.
As time went by, I became
more familiar with the small press
magazine market and realised
Gold Dust needed an even more
professional look to remain competitive.
I decided to begin using a
professional DTP (desk top publishing)
program to create the
magazine and settled on
QuarkXpress, the industry standard.
As with website design, I had
to learn the application from
scratch, but it is reasonably userfriendly
and the results were well
worth the initial effort expended,
as, from a layout perspective, the
magazine is now on a par with
mainstream publications.
In terms of publicising Gold
Dust, I initially advertised on the
same writers’ sites where I placed
the calls for submissions, but as
there are now five of us working on
the magazine, we have a dedicated
Marketing Co-ordinator who
sends out a regular newsletter to
our extensive mailing list of readers,
as well as placing adverts for
each issue as it appears.
How much help did you need
then and how much help do you
have now?
SUW: In the beginning it was just
me fulfilling a personal need to get
stuff out there. Then I found a particular
group of artists and writers
who really understood what I wanted
to do with the zine, how I wanted
to portray it and the direction it
had naturally started to take. So I
invited these people to become
part of a team, people I could ask
for opinions, ideas for themes etc.
And then, when the print version
came into being, Spyros Heniadis
became the print editor and he
puts all that together and I just give
the nod.
TT: I have more help now than I did
back then, so in a way you could
say I'm very lucky. Unfortunately, I
did lose two people who helped
out at the beginning – the work on
the magazine turned out to be too
much for them. Even though their
time was brief they will never be
forgotten.
GIV: Composing and publishing is
mostly a sole proprietorship. I have
a few people that will help me sort
through submissions. Other people
don't have the same level of
commitment to this as I do. They
have real jobs and lives and it's my
vision, not theirs.
GD: For the first three issues, I
was a one-woman band, which
was incredibly hard work, as I am
a bit of a perfectionist and would
carefully proof each copy for errors
as well as sorting all the submissions,
organising the layout,
updating the website, etc.
Then something rather large
happened in my life - I had a baby
girl, Skyla, who suddenly took up
quite a lot of my time. I hastily put
the magazine on hold, thinking I
56 www.golddustmagazine.co.uk - Issue 9 - Winter 2007