Today was an odd day. We got a lot done, but it kind of didn’t feel like it, because we weren’t scrambling to work on the current issue as much as possible. Still, we did make good progress on other things.

The majority of my CG time today was spent working on a new design for the inside of the print and PDF editions. I’ve always been unhappy with how rigid and slightly boring they are (and I’ve never really liked the borders on every page). Earlier in the day I surfed around looking at some other mags (in various fields), and found some that had aspects that I liked, so I bookmarked them. Then this evening, I spent a few intensive hours building a new document that merged some of my favorite aspects of the examples I found. It’s not OMG In Your Face – that wouldn’t really be appropriate for CG anyway – but it is more interesting, still simple but (I think) easier on the eyes, and just makes more sense. Kay likes it, so I think we’ll probably tweak it a bit more and then roll it out for the first time in the big Issue 12. (Another thing about the new layout is, while there are a couple things that will be a bit more time-consuming, there are other things that have been drastically simplified. Overall, it shouldn’t take longer to put together than the previous layout, and might even be a bit faster.)

We read some more issue 12 submissions today and are still caught up. I also got to read through some of the nonfiction content we’ve already received – I loved it, it was entertaining and even a bit raucous, yet at the same time insightful. Probably one of my favorite things we’ve published yet (or are about to), purely for the fun of it.

Today I also faxed out the paperwork that I was supposed to include with the CG copies to be auctioned, and sent several emails and messages regarding advertising, interviews (of us, not in the magazine) and slush reading.

Speaking of… I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before, but beginning with Issue 13, Crossed Genres will be bringing aboard slush readers to help us get through our submissions. We’ve made arrangements with a few people we’ve known for some time and trust, and who we know are sharp, observant and have good judgment. (There’ll be some info about them on the site soon, under the “About” section.)

It was a hard choice to make, bringing on slush readers, mostly because reading stories is probably our favorite part of running CG. But the magazine has grown so much so quickly, we need more time for other aspects of it – slush reading is one of the few areas we can actually have someone else do. Kay and I will still be the final decision-makers. The slush readers are only going to be helping us narrow everything down. (And we still reserve the right to read anything and everything! If we see something that looks interesting to us we’re going to read it instead of passing it on.)

I realized today that I’m actually pretty anxious for the proof of Issue 11 to get here. The cover is particularly dark, both stylistically and in subject matter (logical, given the Horror genre) and I can’t wait to see it on the cover. I converted it to greyscale to go in the Kindle edition, and I have to say it translated to greyscale better than any previous cover we’ve had, hands down. I know that the covers of the print editions always end up just a bit darker than they appear on my computer screen, so I think the issue 11 cover is going to be really stunning.

Tomorrow: more work on the new layout, a couple of fiddly things for Issue 11, and dealing with contracts/payments.