Newsletter/Magazine Proposal

Newsletters are what writers have used to keep readers engaged and reminded of their books so that they can look forward to the next one. It establishes a relationship between the writer and the reader and makes a reader more inclined to support a writer’s journey. The content of a newsletter can range from updates on a work-in-progress to life anecdotes: the goal is to continue to engage with readers, who have enjoyed one or several of the author’s previous works, so that they don’t lose interest during the often slow process of writing a finished book. If done right, this can lead to the foundation of a community behind an author.

Magazines and newspapers have existed as ways of distributing short stories and chronicles ever since the printing press was invented. While these articles today are more journalistic and cover nonfiction topics, in the past they got their penny through the rapid publishing of fiction. The publishing industry got its start from these newspapers, and retrospectively, they were indeed a useful way for authors to get their work out and write more. 

Combining these two results in the ADR Magazine/Zine standard: a periodically uploaded collaborative work that features short content contributed by every author involved. Typically, the short content would be a short or serialized story that each author wrote either separately or under a shared theme. Other times, they could be anecdotal or informative articles. The big seller of these magazines is not entirely the content, but rather the names involved in its production: people should want to sign up for these magazines for the purposes of supporting their favorite writers while in the middle of producing their next novel. Learning about other authors and enjoying their work is an added benefit to following a collaborative magazine.

To help authors choose what kind of magazine to write or whether to do a solo magazine, below are a few examples of what an ADR Magazine could entail.

ADR Magazine Standard

Periodically uploaded collaborative work that features several short or serial stories of several different writers who collaborated to make the magazine.

Interactive

Writers can use a mixture of polls and fill-in ballots to determine the next component of a story. It is up to the writer on how this component actually affects the story as a whole, but the readers should feel involved in this process.

These story components can range from but are not limited to new characters, character actions, setting, shift in tone, and backstory. It should be similar to a D&D Dungeon Master managing a campaign, but on a much smaller scale.

Collaborative Critique

In addition to a collection of short or serial stories, writers may leave comments and notes over each others’ writing to get the same feeling of reading a book review or reading Wattpad comments, but by other writers. Writers can come together to make a meta experience of writing through use of their writer notes.

Notes can be informative, such as detailing what literary devices were used where and why they worked or not; they can also be endearing, such as calling out a writer’s favorite tricks and gushing over each other’s writing choices. They should be used to establish a writer’s online persona and build a better connection with readers.

Trade-Off

Writers have allotted time slots to write on the same story and must either write in sprints or within a certain period before the next writer takes over. Basic planning and character designation may be used, but the allure of this magazine is seeing how several writers work together to make one story with little preparation.

This is akin to publishing periodic writing exercises. The goal is not to make the most interesting story or the most put together story, but to show a side of writing that readers may not be accustomed to and thus intrigued by.

Life Reporting

These kinds of magazines are closest to the newsletter and may better succeed as solo works. In it, writers talk about their life, updates on their work-in-progress, and writing goals for the time being. This humanizes the writer in the eyes of the reader and sets expectations for them in terms of book content. 

Everything that is shared is up to the writer’s discretion and comfort. Writers may treat these magazines as an open journal, or an official life report for their loyal readers.

Study

Writers can give each other themes and subjects to write a study on, ranging from popular characters from each other’s works to entire worlds or organizations. These studies don’t need to follow any official course. They just need to address and dissect the subject and record their thoughts in an easy-to-read writing.

To make it a more cohesive reading experience, it is recommended that writers choose one work or one subject to theme their thoughts on per upload.

Once enough content is generated, writers can opt to make magazines a standalone novel on ADR by sending the accumulative manuscripts to the Editor’s Guild for polishing, or edit the manuscripts themselves and upload the finished product. 

It is recommended that the work be uploaded under an account that all writers have access to, or an agency/management of sorts just to split revenue with full transparency. Of course, if the writers involved have such a relationship that one can be trusted or the group can better benefit from uploading the magazine collection on one writer’s account (such as being more popular or having more proactive followers), this recommendation is but a recommendation.

Integrating into the Writer Interface

On the writer interface home page, there should be a scrollable feature dedicated to the writing community on ADR. This feature should showcase collaboration offers by writers or managers who wish to create a magazine, but don’t have any collaborators in mind.

The poster of this offer can limit views to between mutuals or a select group of writers.