Digital or Print- Which is Better? Navigating the Precarious Path to Publication.

To my great disappointment, a now shuttered online literary magazine, The Potato Soup Journal, has dismantled their website. This means my short story “The Perfect Picture,” one of my favorites, has disappeared. No longer available online, it can no longer be read.

Would it have been better to have published it in a print magazine? At least then I’d have a physical copy.

The solution, I tell myself, is to republish it in a magazine that accepts reprints. Dozens exist. (Here is a link of one list to get you started on finding them.) But once again I am debating, is it better to be in print or published digitally. Ideally it is great to have both. Then people can read you online and have in their hands a magazine. Or, alternatively, be published digitally and then publish a book or be included in an anthology.

But getting published isn’t easy and it takes plenty of patience.

Online vs. Paper

 I love beautiful books, their weight and the feel of good paper.  I also love beautiful websites that make the most of technology by using sound, illustration, and movement to enhance their presentation.

What I personally don’t relate to well are online magazines that post in pdf format ie the ones that want to pretend you are laboriously turning each page and must scroll through to find a particular poem or story. If I’m reading a digital publication why not make use of digital technology? Some of these types of presentations invite you to print out a physical copy, not a good idea in my universe. So, I tend to avoid these publications.

We are often asked to evaluate the ease with which we navigate a website. I let my mind and fingers judge.

A number of publications such as Conjunctions, Split Lip and 9^th Letter use a hybrid approach by publishing both digital editions and print editions. If a publication has the budget, that’s a great way to go.

For digital publications, I prefer submitting to the websites that to me make logical sense. These are the websites I like to visit to read what’s getting published.

What do you think?

Writers, I’m curious. If you have an opinion on this topic or digital vs. print, I’d like to know.

WRITING PROMPT

And now for a writing prompt. In high school I was in an original operetta written by our music teacher Jack Ramey. The title was “Seymour Seabrine and The Seven Deadly Sins”. Seven Aunts: Greed, Envy, Sloth, Wrath, Pride, Lust, Gluttony. raised poor Seymour and tried to entice him with their misdeeds.

I got to play one of the sisters. Very skinny with long hair down to my waist, I played Gluttony.  Imagining myself a tapeworm, my appetite was insatiable. I never got enough to eat, which provided plenty of opportunity for interesting improvisation.

Because I helped with the costumes, I did some research on all the sins. And it gave me many great story ideas. So here is a prompt, inspired from my high school theatrical adventures.

Choose one of those seven sins, and write a family scene showing how it impacts one of the characters. For example, how does the sin of envy affect a younger sister, when her older sibling goes out on a first date or how does greed play into how much Mom tips the pizza delivery guy.

Take your scenes into the workplace or on vacation. Experiment with how human flaws create conflict.

Is a resolution possible? What did you learn? Human vices make for great storytelling. Whether you write about real life or fantasy, this prompt will be continued. In the meantime, if you haven’t already done so, follow me for FREE on WordPress, Medium or Substack and get an email each time I publish a new post. Or visit my website at Nadjamaril.com. Thank you for reading.