Marginal Boundaries: новости около брой първи

Приятели 🙂

По-долу ви представям пълния текст на първия бюлетин на електронното списание Marginal Boundaries, за което ви писахме преди месец.

Няма да преразказвам съдържанието, само ще ви предложа един елегантен начин да финансирате Човешката библиотека:

Ако си поръчате първи брой от Marginal Boundaries, ползвайки този линк, 50 процента от приходите (5 долара, в обичайния случай) отиват директно за нас.

Оглеждайте се за подобни линкове в личните сайтове на авторите и художниците, които са представени в броя (знаете ли, че освен мен участват още седмина българи? 🙂 ). Схемата е същата и при тях – купувайки си списанието през техния линк, вие на практика директно им повишавате хонорара.

Тим Андерсън, главният редактор на MB, искрено ме зарадва със стремежа си към честност и прозрачност в разпределението на приходите. Друго си е да видиш, че идио… ъъъ, идеалистите ги има навсякъде по света. 😀 Така че – смело напред… към подготовката на брой втори!

Въпроси?

К)

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Picture a world where the imagination of every person, no matter their age or location on the planet, could change the face of how we live as human beings. A place where every imagined world could become reality, tangible slices of the universe that we could interact with. We are tapping into only a billionth of a fraction of that capability, yet it is enough to leave you breathless from the encounter. This is Marginal Boundaries.

This newsletter has a lot of information about some of the changes we are making at Marginal Boundaries as we continue pushing our way toward the future. Many of you have read things from the website, but some of you might not be aware of just how much things have changed, so we wanted to let you in on the secret as well.

First and foremost we would like to announce the unveiling of our Affiliate Program for contributors. In short, every author, artist, editor or anyone else who has contributed to any issue of Marginal Boundaries can join our Affiliate Package, which allows contributors to sell our zine directly from their own blog/website/online sandbox. Each sale generated by an affiliate earns them 50% of the sale price of an issue. That means if an issue is $10, and someone refers a sale through their blog or website, they get to keep 50% of the profits of that sale.

We understand that our flat-rate payment of $10 per story is a token payment. With that in mind we are also increasing our rate of up-front pay to $20 per story (unfortunately we can’t yet raise the rates for artists. We are hoping to get there with Issue 3). It’s still a token payment, but it’s what we can afford while we build up a fan base of subscribers. And while we’d love to pay more up-front for each story, we are currently limited by the simple fact that we started small and were completely funded out of my pocket. As we earn more subscribers that up-front fee will continue to increase until we are able to pay semi-pro and then eventually pro rates, but in the meantime we wanted to prove to our readers and our contributors that Marginal Boundaries is a publication that is all about you, the people behind the magazine. We are not in this for the profit, nor have we ever been. Our passion remains the publication of superior-quality speculative fiction, and we want to ensure that our contributors are paid as fairly as they can be within our budget. This Affiliate Program allows us to share everything with the people who make it a reality in the first place. Sure, other publications might pay you a higher up-front per-word or flat-rate fee, but how many of them actually share their profits with you, the people who make their issues reality? This is our way of showing we are in this for you, not for the cash. After all, all of us have day jobs, and we run the zine in our spare time, not as a profitable venture (although we need it to be self-sufficient!).

With the Affiliate Program the payment you earn is limited only by your fan base. Everyone has a few friends and family members who would rather support them directly rather than some nameless entity, and this allows those people to do so. By placing an affiliate link on your site your friends and family members can purchase copies knowing that you are actually sharing 50% of the profit that each sale generates. For some who only have a few friends and family members that amount could be small. 10 sales when an issue is at $10 is $50 paid straight to the author. But if you are an individual who has a loyal following of 50 people who will always purchase your work, then you could make $250 for your story/piece of art above and beyond what we are paying. The potential is limited only by your pool of friends and loyal followers/fans.

And best of all is the fact that this Affiliate Program is only available to contributors of Marginal Boundaries. No one else.  It applies to anyone who has ever worked on the magazine who wants to participate.

But above and beyond the Affiliate Program, we are also celebrating our 1 month anniversary with a promotional period during which readers can purchase a copy of Issue One for a limited-time price of $7.00. This promotional period will begin at 8 a.m. GMT Monday May 3rd, 2010 and run until 8 a.m. GMT Monday May 10th, 2010. If you haven’t purchased your copy already, now is the perfect time to grab a copy of Issue One and get in on the excitement that has been heating up the brainwaves of readers around the globe for the past month. For more information you can head over to our Basement, where we stock all the past and present issues.

And there’s more! May 3rd, 2010 also marks the launch of our brand new forums where fans, writers and artists alike can come together in a community setting and share ideas, discuss their latest concepts, talk about writing, painting, drawing, fiction, movies, games, real world issues or whatever else tickles their fancy. And along with the forums we are now selling advertising space in our PDF and on our website.

All in all, it’s been a great start to what will be a fantastic adventure for all of us. It has been an absolute thrill so far and we look forward to continuing the same levels of quality and passion which were lovingly placed into the first issue and using that as a bench mark for every issue to come.

Don’t forget we are open for submissions until further notice while we build a backlog for Issues 3 and 4 and beyond, and we still have a couple of slots for Issue 2 as well (due out in late June or July), so if you have a story that you’ve had sitting around for awhile looking for a home, or if you know someone who has a story on their hands that they wouldn’t mind getting published, feel free to send them our way. In the meantime, enjoy the promotional period for Issue One and best of luck in your writing!