Peacock Journal Launch
 

Hey, folks,

It's launch day for Peacock Journal! At the site, you'll now find Poetry by Maryann Corbett, Fiction by Susan Tepper, Translations by Mary Jane White, and an editorial by, well, me! Please join us as we go live: http://peacockjournal.com/

Best,

Bill

Congrats, Bill. The journal is beautiful.

Congrats, Bill and all, on a great launch, and best of luck.

Best wishes for a great success.

What are the ideas going ahead? Do you intend to stick to the one poet-one fiction - one translation format per issue, or was that just a starter? Almost daily brief issues like Autumn Sky, or four large issues as year, or something else? Themes? And so forth. You state: “Most web journals don’t take advantage of the web.” He was right: they still think in terms of issues and volumes, they don’t incorporate all technology offers. We are determined to be completely different. But I can't find how or where. "We haven't figured that out yet" is a perfectly acceptable answer. But I am curious.

Bill,

Congrats, it looks great. Like Michael, I read your editorial and wondered how the journal will work.

Best of luck with it.

Matt

Though Bill doesn't seem to be online right now, I can report that there's new poetry and fiction up today, and that when I link to the journal on Facebook, the slogan "Beauty First" appears with the title. And that matches what Bill said when he first called for work; they want what's beautiful.

Guess I was in the wilds of Patagonia when that call came about. The journal is indeed beautiful. Kudos, Bill!

Congratulations, Bill! It's an impressive feat and it looks great.

Hi Bill I am unable to open the link, I keep getting an error message.

Dave East

I can't open it either, Bill, and I could previously.

I can't open it either, Bill.

Jayne

"Error establishing a database connection"

It works for me.

Yes, it's back up.

I was able to open it about ten minutes ago. Then I left and tried to return (several times), but it wouldn't open. Is it possible that it's set to allow only one access per individual per day? Or maybe there are just too many "hits" for the current server or settings?

Claudia, I'm guessing Bill's under the bonnet so to speak, fiddling and fixing. It's a new site, there are bound to be glitches and extra bits that need adding and then fine-tuning. Matt.

Ain't that the truth! We are victims of our own success, getting hundreds and hundreds of hits a day. So I've spent the day optimizing databases, increasing memory, doing analytics and rectifications based on the results, deleting revision orphans, etc.

Still, actual use reports are the most valuable, especially when they come with error messages and time stamps, so thanks to all who have posted. I said our new flying machine was rickety... but now it's a little more stable, thanks to you folks. Onwards and upwards!

And Claudia, no worries: the site can take hundreds of simultaneous users, and they can come back as often as they like. The goal is to have people coming back every day...

I'm off to work on the archive pages... ;)

Best,

Bill

Beautiful images and poems, Bill. Maryann's "Against Clickbait" particularly caught my attention and admiration.

Susan

I agree with Susan. "Against Clickbait" is superb. Or rather, as I should have said:

"You'll gasp when you see what this poem can do!"

"Her reaction to the topic was priceless!"

Thanks, Susan and Gregory! Bill, all praise for your perseverance--roll on!

We had an hour long network wide outage today. Nothing to do with the journal this time, thank goodness. But if you tried to get in during that time, our apologies. We're back up now, with new work. Please join us peacockjournal.com.

We haven't figured that out yet... ;)

One thing we want to do is feature quite a bit of art. There are some very nice journals out there (escapeintolife is one) which pair up writers and artists. We're not there yet, but it's starting to look like a goal. Another nice thing they do is to ask everyone for an artistic statement... I rather like that idea. Again, we're not there yet.

Video poetry and audio work are also big targets. With video, people are doing some stunning things. And with audio? Remember soundzine? That was cool.

We also want to integrate web and print. We have a publishing house on board for that. We're already tracking which work gets how many readings. Of course, those with the most would be good candidates for the eventual print anthology. And an experienced editor gave us a good idea: a 'sponsor this work' link. Say you, as a reader, just loved an author's story. You could click the link, and donate to the anthology fund in favor of that story. Maybe a dollar, maybe more, up to you. Once it got to a certain threshold, the story would go in, and that would reduce the publisher's risk.

Don't know if that will work, but maybe. If it does, we might be able to use the same metaphor to actually pay authors after the fact. Wouldn't that be cool? It would certainly buck the trend of journals charging reading fees, and paying submittable, and...

So, no, we have no idea where we're going, or how to get there. We just have some thoughts, and we'd welcome more, no matter how unusual. Where we are right now? We've just stood up, and we haven't fallen back over. There's a hill over there in the distance, and we're heading for it. Who knows what we'll find?

Best,

Bill