Fictionist Magazine
It started with a tumblr post.
After I saw that there was interest in this idea, I started contacting other bloggers who were interested. The team went from two to 10 in about a week.
Once I finalized my move to New London and arrived safely at the beginning of March, I started talking more about the idea. Google documents were filled with ideas. Plans were made. Names were brainstormed.
Rather than wait forever for the idea to fizzle, I bought a domain. I created a WordPress site. I set up an HTTPS:// domain so that we could accept donations. I created work email addresses so that we could contact authors, agents and publishers.
Fictionist Magazine was born.
A few days in, I had secured an interview with V.E. Schwab, an author with multiple NYT Bestselling books (and over 43,000 Twitter followers). The New York Times had just interviewed her, and now Fictionist could.
One week in, I applied for a media badge to attend BookCon, a book convention held in NYC. They granted my request soon after, even though the site was only a week old. I credit this to the early work I did building the site on WordPress, securing the domain, obtaining an HTTPS certificate, and jumping head-first into publishing stories, Q&As, and reviews.
Two weeks in, a literary agent sent me physical advanced reader copies and offered to schedule interviews with their authors. Further evidence that this thing I had created was real.
Fictionist may be in its infancy, but it’s real now. Real enough to warrant media passes to BookCon. Real enough for a major author to schedule a Skype interview with us. Real enough that we’re receiving ARCs from literary agents.
It’s real, and I made it real, and I’m proud of that whether we remain a small magazine or attract tens of thousands.
An Update:
As of July 2019, I have stopped spending any significant amount of time on Fictionist. I do occasionally post a Q&A or a review, but it is not a priority for me. This is due to the fact that in May 2019 I was promoted to Communications Manager at Temple Emanu-El and I no longer had the free time or energy to run a small business.
I still love Fictionist and am glad I was able to champion it for so long. We were up to 10,000+ views per month as a new publication, almost all of which were from organic Google traffic due to good SEO practices, and I’m so proud of how many ARCs, interviews, giveaways, news pieces, and more we were able to put out in a short time with such limited resources.
Recent stories & reviews:
The below stories were all written by me, to provide a glance at my writing style for Fictionist.
‘The Ten Thousand Doors of January’ Writes A Door Into My Soul | A Spoiler-Free Review
Q&A with Caitlin Starling, author of ‘The Luminous Dead’
Penguin Launches Kokila: A New Imprint for Diverse Books
Upcoming ‘West-African Fantasy’ One of YA’s Biggest Publishing Deals (Ever)
‘Handbook for Mortals’ Buys Itself Onto NYT Bestseller List