dipity - FEB. Community News & Updates

announcements for the end of the month and what's ahead for the future

Hi guys! Here are some quick updates for the end of the month, also if you can answer the polls in this one to help us decide on a few more things:

PODCAST EPISODE RELEASE

Firstly, we have finally launched season three of Hummingbird Blink: Nectar Poetry S3 EP 1, or rather episode no. 131 Butterflies & Goosebumps featuring poet Prince Views is up, give it a listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, If you prefer to see the visual clip pairings similar to the site then watch it out on Spotify. For those who don’t submit video reads of themselves and just audio, I’ll do visual pairings for the episodes. All Dipity Literary Magazine podcasts are 100% free to listen to. We have yet to get an acceptance for the newer sister podcast which I no longer host and more due to submissions not following the structure guidelines so listen to 131 as an example and read the guidelines carefully. We do permit previously published work read-only on the podcast/bonus shares sections and you can even share a poem from a book of yours as well.

If you’re not comfortable recording yourself reading on video showing your face, then audio only is fine and there’s a fee option for a member of team dipity to read on your behalf with additional commentary only if accepted (though we prefer to hear others’ voices). We are not putting music on future episodes (except for the Symphonic challenge) so they get distributed to other podcast libraries such as Apple.

Nowhere - NoxTros

MAGAZINE ISSUE PRICING

Secondly, if you missed it on the Instagram group chat I had to recently transfer issues 1-4 to a separate new account for all things dipity, therefore we, unfortunately, lost our deep online bookstore discount prices some were actually $6 and under $20-$30. A reminder, we were not permitted to put issue 4 on economy paper for distribution due to their printer not being able to successfully do so consistently which was odd to me, hence the insane listing prices in online bookstores for standard paper accompanied with their distribution cost. I am still until said otherwise able to generate private heavily discounted links for only contributors on the light-washed economy paper to share with friends and fam to purchase the issues (more than one) at a much more budget-friendly price (which sadly excludes shipping of course).

I also transitioned them to use all the same paper types going forward since that would be an inconsistency between issues. Softcover and hardcover dust jacket are available for each issue. It’ll take a while before we see any massive discounts again. Ideally, I would love issues to be way under $30-35 each in print or even $25, so we’ll be trimming the sizes of issues going forward [standardizing a page cap if possible]. I’ll see what we can do further. Some issues may be seen as unavailable for a while in print right now and that means they’re not restocked or relisted quite yet or available again so always check back within a few weeks. Each issue now has a publication year page inside and their page numbers were realigned on 1 and 2 to match 3 and 4. Eventually, once enough demand is seen for an issue a significant chopper discount is applied is what I’ve seen. The original issue 1 will be discontinued in print since it doesn’t make sense to have multiple versions of issues anymore, it’s still available elsewhere for a while until out of stock in various online bookstores.

We distribute them to online bookstores because there’s been actually a few cases I’ve run into where poets were located in a country not supported for shipping or were unable to have it delivered which resulted in me helping them get copies on Amazon instead. I am contemplating whether or not to do text-based versions of dipity through another print provider TBD otherwise we’ll just condense the print issues.

DIGITAL ISSUES ARE AVAILABLE

Due to the crazy high double-dutch distribution fees that they tack on to the issues in online bookstores when we don’t leave them on their server bumming me out, I have decided to also try relaunching a digital-based magazine account like we originally did briefly with the original no. 1 pink flower issue to offer most back issues available for free online at the moment or a few examples for submitters. You can find these digital versions on our website under READ > READ NOW. You won’t be able to view these flipbooks on your mobile device just a computer. You’re totally welcome to share those digital issues out on some social media platforms too, especially past contributors!

I have not yet updated or made the digital files available to purchase again in our site shoppe but if others would like to have digital files for all to be available again to be purchased too let me know. All purchases go towards operational expenses such as our site bills, Submittable, etc. I do incur fees for the digital flip book library too. In any case, a goal of mine is to make the issues and structure of them more cost-friendly for the public so they’re not all at varying high prices because it just sucks if they’re so freaking high like that. We have seen more print purchases than digital file purchases overall. I would prefer not to discontinue having the issues out in online bookstores such as Amazon and sitting on one server is not ideal.

Riz La Vie - Little Planets (Łaszewo Remix)

In regards to chapbook submissions, we’ve seen a lot of really awesome submissions thus far. Again, we are not using the same print provider for our bite-sized chapbook submissions so the costs will be much more reasonable. We may even try using them for our magazine issues too perhaps a text-only based B&W version as well TBD, will know more once we facilitate the chapbook set up further. Something I also dislike is that we’re not always able to put text on the spine for print issues depending upon page count with our current PoD, so that is why it’s left off on them.

LAYNE - Money Money Money

We are definitely looking for more spoken word and chapbook submissions. Also, we’re quite a bit shorthanded right now (quite literally I’m unable to type with my left still) so will be slower to get to acceptances. We’ll respond also slower due to volunteer staff's limited availability due to life events, and we may extend a few deadlines. If you’re interested in volunteering with us in your downtime totally apply again or reach out there are about 2 potential poetry reader openings.

On average if you’re curious for print we’ve gotten just ~$3-5 if we’re lucky sometimes a bit more back from most softcover print issues, often just $2-$3 each from our private discounted contributor issues like no. 4 because ideally I would’ve loved to give free copies but can’t afford to myself and I’ve put all of my own book sales also towards dipity expenses as much as possible. PoD providers do take most of the profit margin, unfortunately like ours once distributed 90-95% is taken away, so we may do digital versions alongside print too to balance everything out a bit.

SUBSTACK CHANGES

Quite a few literary magazines and journals are leveraging Substack to raise funds to help with operational cost coverages and to even try to save up to pay writers. We will never have a paywall on podcasts, nor on spotlight Q&A interviews or general community updates, but with our bonus shares from me tips, desk diary, resources, etc, and other topics we’ll be trying this out again and see what happens if anyone is interested in pledging support. If others like the digital library alongside print too, then I will do my best to continue it. We will absolutely consider restructuring the formatting and sizes of magazine issues going forwards again so will let you guys know, but for right now the priority is the launch of Dipity Press alongside of spoken word submissions.

Also, we’ll be trying a substack category for poets to submit book reviews and a category for even spotlighting musicians who have supported dipity too, but that may be on hold for a bit until selected chapbooks are announced and set up. I’m pausing manuscript review inquiries sent to me via e-mail at the moment, but remember you can inquire on the contact page at the bottom of the staff section later in the future. I hope the digital flipbooks help.

Thank you so much for your support. Have awesome days ahead!