I Need You.

Yes, you. And you. And you over there in the corner. I need all of you.

Something new is brewing behind The Paperbook Blog. It started as an idea and it has slowly gathered momentum until it is filling my every waking thought. Which is definitely intruding on my ability to get anything else done, but never mind. University assignments can wait…

Friends, fellow thinkers, artists, poets, designers and creators, I am starting the Paperbook MAGAZINE! (Don’t worry, it has a better name than ‘Paperbook Magazine’, but it is under wraps for now…)

What the hell? Whyyyyy???????

I can hear your brains screeching from across the globe. Let me do my best to explain:

What it’s all about:

Basically, I want to create a free online literary magazine. Why? I’ll get to that in a minute. The magazine would include: Creative Non-Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Stories, Book Review’s, Poetry, Art, Author Bio’s, Photography, and whatever else appears from the madness. It would be available from my blog in the form of a free downloadable PDF. It would be published monthly, or perhaps fortnightly if I can rustle up enough interest. It would include work from my creative friends out here in the real world, as well as fabulous content from you, my fellow bloggers.

Now, for god’s sake, why?:

There are many reasons why I want to do this, which I will attempt to explain below.

• The Paperbook Blog is a blog celebrating the beauty and joy that comes from reading a paperbook. A collection of writing that you can hold, touch, smell and taste, if that’s your thing. As much as I adore my blog and the forum that we have here as bloggers, I want to create something which you can hold and keep, something which won’t eventually disappear into the realms of Google search, never to be seen again.
• I love to make things with my hands, I like to design and draw and create. While this is again a great forum for that, it doesn’t have quite the flexibility to really produce something unique. I know I could update my blog to WordPress.org to get more flexibility, but guys, that costs moolah and I am poor!
• Every day I follow new blogs. There is so much greatness out there that I just can’t help myself. The only problem with this is that I follow so many of you that often I miss your incredible and inspired posts, which makes me sad. This way, people who follow you could download a hard copy of your best work. The beauty of this is that even if they didn’t want to read it immediately, they could save it to their computer to visit later. They could print it off and take it with them, enjoy it in the sunshine over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.
• This magazine would hopefully work as a fantastic way to increase traffic to your blog, as each persons unique followers could read new content and find other great blogs this way. It would work with, rather than against, each contributors blogs.

What it’s all about for you:

Here is a basic idea of what I’m looking for here.

• Original content, which has not been published on your blog or elsewhere on the internet.
• Any style of poetry or prose, providing it is no longer than 800 words at the absolute most.
• Any style of photography, including iPhone, Instagram, Hipstamatic photos etc.
• Book reviews and author bio’s, again no longer than 800 words.
• Original art, as long as you can take a great photograph of it.
• Anything else that you enjoy creating, as long as you think it fits the concept.
• Obviously nothing racist, sexist or otherwise offensive (curse words are fine, providing they aren’t too over the top!)
• Nothing too political. I have nothing against politics or political views but it just isn’t the direction I see for this magazine.

And your work:

• You will obviously retain all rights over your own work, the magazine will carry its own copyright to further protect you.
• Your name, your blog and any other social media platforms you like will be attached to your work.
• You will be listed as a contributor and will have a short bio in the front of the magazine (providing you want one).
• You will be free to publish a link to the magazine on your blog. Each publication will also carry a link to your blog.

This is going to be a free magazine so obviously there is no cash reward in it for you, however hopefully it will become a great platform for promoting your work. It will be available to people outside the blogging community so you will be reaching people who may never stumble upon your blog themselves.

Also, seriously, it’s going to be A LOT of fun.

What you need to do:

If this sounds like something you may be interested in, please email me a little bio and a sample of your work to jayde.ashe@hotmail.com. Feel free to comment below as well, as I already have a few emails coming in, so it might take me a while to get to yours.

Keep watching this space for more updates, as well as my regular book review blog posts.

Feel free to re-blog this if you think your followers might be interested, the more people we get together the more diverse the magazine will become, and the more followers you will attract to your blog!

Happy hump day everyone.

Go get yourself a drink. You deserve it.