I love those "friends only" announcements in other journals, which often come with cool graphics. I'm afraid an "all public" announcement lacks the same ring to it.
Lately I see that poetry magazines are getting picky again about the "don't publish on your website before you submit to us" rules. I never submit things I post here, unless the magazine says "previously published okay". I thought about making "Gurdonpoems" a "friends only" journal to solve that problem, and also to permit posting of things like a very personal recent poem I might not otherwise post, but I am still undecided on this.
I love Len Fulton's "The International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Print". He gathers submission information on thousands of tiny presses and little litmags. Yet as I comb through his encyclopedic treatment, I note that I know of many publications he does not list--and I am anything but knowledgable in this field.
Recently, I saw a poem by someone who writes poetry as down-to-earth, simple, and
obvious as mine (although her was not "bad", as mine is). I then googled her work,
and found tons of cool little litmags on-line in which she's published. Voila! Instant markets for submission.
I saw that the editor of one of the on-line litmags about to publish my work functions in his day job as CIO of a really hip international charity. Why do I feel sometimes like Homer Simpson in a world of James Bonds?
Although I now have 3 songs in soundclick.com sub-charts, they are all sinking fast.
But I am launched on a new quest--to make "Robot Breakfast" and "Scientient (outsider mix)" into soundclick hits. I'm going to pull the stops out this time--clever introductory text, cool pictures, cross-marketing, even a modest advertisement. I have only reached number 18 in the noise charts, number 22 in the experimental charts and number 30 in the mellow charts (which combination, by the way, strikes me as a wonderful personal metaphor). I feel that I must have that top 10 hit in me somewhere.
I'm so much happier on a good night's sleep.