[Actionchix] Creating woman-friendly Linux on-line mag

[turtle]

Someone on one of the other lists mentioned doing layout as difficult.  I've
done page layout for many projects, including several for a local sf/fantasy
convention (posters, program book, cookbook, chapbook, etc.).  But it was
required by the convention that I use MSPublisher for those.  (I've
downloaded Scribus but haven't installed it yet due to me still having
issues learning how to do basic things in slackware.)  So I'm willing to
help with layout stuff if there are people willing to put up with a n00b to
the software, but not the work.

I'm also not 100% comfortable with wikis or IRC, so I'll have a bunch of
stupid questions related to that as well.  I hope that's ok.  I am, however,
very comfortable with what goes in to making a publication (both for print
and online) and would really love to get in on the editing/layout aspects.

There are several online magazines that mail out pdf issues to their
subscribers.  Generally I've found the most successful fiction magazines
that do this have a few things that they post to their website which are
free for anyone to read, a few teasers, and then the more in-depth
articles/stories and a lot of other cool content is offered to subscribers
for a fee.  Generally with the online magazines I'm familiar with, the fee
should be small, so as to encourage people to go "Hey, why not? It's not
expensive."

I think the linuxchix brand for the magazine would be ideal because it's
already a recognized brand in the Internet community and it already has the
woman-friendly feel, not to mention, linuxchix already makes it clear they
do not support misandry, which is often something that scares men away from
women-oriented publications.  Since everyone already knows linuxchix is
friendly and not exclusively run by rabid man-haters, we wouldn't have to
dispel that myth like we would with a new title that was trying to be clear
it was woman-friendly but not anti-male.

Also, I know a few artists/photographers who do sf/fantasy/horror art.  I
don't know how much that would fit in to linuxchix, but if we decide on a
theme for our first issue, I could put out the word to see if anyone would
be willing to donate artwork in exchange for recognition and a link to their
website.  Sometimes artwork is able to create a mood that primes the minds
of readers to further draw them in to the text they're reading, making it
more meaningful and memorable as a result.

~Daria