Hi all! I am just letting you know if you missed it on social media a few days ago that we ended up removing the initial fee for submitting to our poetry print call when we opened issue no. 5 dubbed “Whisker Factory” so it’ll be structured like past years so first time to submit is FREE if you haven’t submitted to us before because fees bum me out too so trying to minimize them or hopefully eliminate them one day. We are beginning to fill slots for each section so the earlier you submit the better — our goal is to get all materials in within the next 2-4 months or as soon as possible this year.
We’re going for a lighthearted fun theme overall, though not to say you couldn’t submit darker or heavier cat-inspired poem elements by any means. Again, you do not need to own a cat to partake in the submission call but your poem(s) for the “Whisker Factory” issue should have evident MEOW-packed notes — read our guidelines carefully. Also, do note the nickname for issue no.5 may change…not sure yet but it will still be cat-themed obviously.
Last year we didn’t receive any short stories that fit our theme call nor met the requirements for that section and we are re-examining our short story section structure at Dipity so you will not see that category open as of now (we may be replacing it with a new visual section for print themed issues and continue an online series of shorts/flash fiction).
However, our Serendipity Poem Contest for print is also open right now and that is our concluding poem for the themed issue which is always located towards the very end.
Dipity Press
We are currently testing possibly offering square pancake thin print versions of chapbooks through various printers because they showcase the full front cover artwork a bit better and those will be priced higher than saddle-stitched U.S and G.B. Bookshop bound ones which typically range from ~$8-11 currently. If there is no interest in this format, we probably won’t move forward with the square versions and just stick with saddle-stitched ones. More chapbooks in the future will have a smidge more illustrative work or comics, cartoons, etc, or digital art in the interiors.
And we probably will be adjusting our guidelines in the future someday to allow a poet’s own photographs to be added to chapbooks TBA — for now I’m choosing the artwork. Our goal is to get chapbook no. 2 out around August but we must branch out chapbook releases a bit.
Additionally, I’m working on adding just-for-fun merch to our Gift Shoppe section which would have some of the art from the Dipity Press chapbook series such as 3x3 stickers, posters, etc. Optional to answer this poll.
Mobile App Status
I’m still reaching out to different magazine mobile reader app libraries to see whether we can facilitate a subscription system through them since most read the issues digitally. Some awesome no-cost-to-us or free ones sadly have new publisher onboarding freezes right now too so it may be a while before we go mobile. Others are a whopping $200-300 a month or $500+ a year which is not in my ballpark.
We did reach a milestone of 100,107 online reader views last night collectively since February 2024 when I re-uploaded these digitally. Again we are in a space that doesn’t return anything back for readership metrics to put towards future publications and we pay a monthly fee to offer it for free right now plus I embedded them in our site so we’re looking to partner with another mobile app alongside of this which may change the number of issues available to read online for free at a given time down the road. I’ll be trying to add Dipity Lit Mag to more online reader systems.
I still see occasional print orders so we’ll continue both print and online versions. Just a reminder that contributors and those featured receive a deep discount purchase share link to an economy light printed version, but the issues will be available to read for free online for as long as possible (future availability will depend upon the mobile app subscription transitional goal).
Podcast Episodes
We slowed down on spoken word subs and our podcast show episodes of Hummingbird Blink: Nectar Poetry on Spotify + Apple this year to focus on chapbooks but will pick that back up as soon as we can to make episode releases more consistent. We’re in the process of developing our Symphonic Challenge announcement episode for this year though. And we may open up the next round of it sometime this month or year soon (we’ll be changing it to feature one artist at a time).
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