Magazine Proposal
Samizdat.ie is a collaborative, non-profit magazine which provides an outlet for anyone who wants to put their pictures and/or writing before the public in printed form.

Submissions
The first step in preparing an issue of the magazine is to invite submissions, both written and photographic. These may be in any genre, fact or fiction. There is a limit to the amount of space any one contributor can be given in the magazine but in the case of longer works extracts will be considered. The only criteria for selection is the quality of the writing and its ability to communicate from the printed page without the mediation of introductions or explanations.

Work is to be submitted via the magazine’s website which is the main point of contact for potential contributors. The work is vetted by an editorial committee and invitations to attend the Submission Workshop are issued to all those whose work is considered to have potential for publication. Anyone who submits their work agrees to allow Samizdat.ie to circulate copies to the other people who will be in their work group at the workshops and ultimately publish it in the magazine. They of course retain copyright and should take the necessary steps to protect same. As works are circulated without names, copyright will be indicated by a submission number and the corresponding copyright holder’s details will be held on file by the editorial board.

Submission Workshop
Depending on the venue and the number of potential contributors attending, the workshop is divided into groups so that each piece can be given adequate consideration in the time available - this is done on the basis of the type of work being considered. Copies of the pieces being considered by each group are circulated to all the people in that group in advance and they are expected to have read them and to have given them some consideration. They are circulated without names so that readers are responding just to what the see on the page rather than any knowledge they may have of the author/photographer. As this is a collaborative effort anyone who is clearly not giving fair consideration to pieces other than their own will not be invited back.

A member of the editorial board will act as a moderator in each group and keep the whole process moving along. The writer of each piece will not be identified and must not give any introduction or explanation of their work until the other members of the group have commented on their reaction to it. Comments must be limited to a technical and themeatic consideration of the piece and their reaction to it and not stray into an analysis of the contributor.

Having heard the comments of the group the author may choose identify themselves and explain what they intended,. using them as a kind of focus group for bouncing ideas off, to ascertain why the piece might not have had the desired effect, and explore what might work. Contributors should not feel they have to be defensive as everyone is in the same position. It is important to bring an open mind to these sessions.

At the end of this workshop those attending are asked to go away and reconsider their pieces on the basis of the feedback they have received and are asked to indicate their interest in submitting the (slightly or completely) revised work to the Publication Workshop. They must then submit the new version before the deadline in order to be considered for publication.

Publication Workshop
As far as possible the work groups here are the same as the Submission Workshop. The format is the same except at the end the contributors are asked to confidentially indicate an order of preference for the pieces they have dealt with that day excluding their own. This information informs the editorial committee’s decision as to what will be published although the editor may select or reject a piece regardless of how it fared in the preferences. The purpose of asking people to express preferences to have feedback from a sample group of readers on how good the piece is.

Publication
At the end of this process the magazine is produced. It consists of the texts and illustrations that have been selected. The design is simple and the magazine is not divided into sections on the basis of genre to avoid ghettoising any type of contrubution. The order is determined either themeatically or alphabetically by title.

The cost of printing of the magazine and other expenses are paid for out of the contribution each writer must give for attending the workshops. These monies are collected at the start of each workshop and those who do not contribute will not be allowed to attend. The print quality and the size of the print run will be determined by the amount of money available. A copy will be distributed free of charge to all the contributors and also to all the major publishers and literary outlets. The remainder will be sold.

In all this the emphasis is on reaching the audience through the printed medium. When publishing companies take on a contributor it is on the basis of their current marketing strategy. What Samizdat.ie attempts to do is cut out the middle man and encourage good writing, photography and illustration on the basis of audience reaction.