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One of the things that makes me a kind of terrible publisher (and editor) is that I love to give stuff away. In most cases, this doesn’t matter because the editing and production of the work in question is a more or less sunk cost.
In other cases, it DOES matter. We’re giving away volume 85 of NDQ. The hope is to attract subscribers, contributors, and supporters (even if they just buy a paper copy of NDQ 85 having found the download engaging enough to read). My hope is that we can develop enough of a subscriber base over the next two or three years to allow us to release every volume of NDQ as a free download. Here’s I’m following the idea of unlocking the commons that folks like Jason Kottke and Tim Carmody have bandied about lately. In a nutshell, the idea is to encourage folks to subscribe not to get access to content, but to support making content available for more and more people. I want to work with our new publishers at University of Nebraska Press to set some realistic subscriber targets for making at least one issue a year available as a free download. Since many of our potential subscribers are also contributors, I feel like there is a real benefit to expanding the access to the Quarterly and developing a sense of community among readers, contributors, and subscribers.
So here’s my official blurb on making volume 85 available for free download. Check it out, if you want. I think it’s pretty great, but, as I said, I’m kind of a terrible publisher (and editor).
Little magazines like North Dakota Quarterly are so resilient and enduring because people contribute to them, people subscribe to them, and people read them.
To celebrate all the people who have helped to make North Dakota Quarterly possible, we’re very happy to release the entire volume 85 as a free download. Go here to download it. (If you’re not sure you can handle the commitment of a free download, you can sample some of the great content in this volume here.)
We also have reopened poetry and non-fiction submission until the end of the May with another reading period scheduled for September 1 – November 30. Send us your poetry and non-fiction! Fiction will remain open throughout the year as always. Go here to submit.
As NDQ moves forward, we’d love to be able to share the contents of each issue for free, but to make this happen, we need have a healthy base of subscribers. So, if you can and you like what we do, please subscribe. Also, while you’re at it buy a copy of NDQ 85!
