Submissions are OPEN for our next team! Apply here!
Mermaids Monthly is looking for a new Publishing Team for 2022!
- We want the new team to be BIPOC led
- We will help transition, raise funds for the next year, and train the new team
- No previous experience is required to apply.
Applications are OPEN until July 15th. We will notify next round teams that we would like to interview them further in the beginning of August. Our goal is to choose the new team by the end of August.
We’re taking applications via Moksha. Click here to apply!
Please submit a document that tells us:
1) Who are you?
2) Why do you want to take over Mermaids Monthly?
3) What are your hopes and plans for the future of Mermaids Monthly?
4) Do you already have a team or are you an individual who would like to be matched with others to form a team?
Below is a list of questions we will need to find out the answers for by the end of our interview process in case you want to think about them now. You are welcome to answer as many of them as you like in your application document, but it’s also fine if you don’t know answers to some (or many) of these questions up front, or if you wish to submit a more general introduction as your first application. We don’t mind how you choose to format your application, and we don’t have any length or style requirements. You’ll be considered by Julia Rios and Meg Frank, in case you want to address us directly, and both of us use they/them pronouns.
If you have any questions before you send your application to us through Moksha in June or July, you can always send us a query at mermaidsmonthly@gmail.com
- Who are you, and why do you want to take over Mermaids Monthly?
- Is at least one member of your team based in the US and able to legally own a business there?
- Is your team majority BIPOC, and do you have a BIPOC editor?
- Do you have any previous experience in publishing? If yes, what? It is OKAY if you don’t — you can apply with no experience.
- How long do you want to do this for and how would you like it to end? Will you pass it to another team (and if so how?) or will it be over?
- What is your vision for the direction this magazine will take? How will it change or grow with your team at the helm?
- How much content do you want each month? What kind (stories, poems, art, etc.)? How much money are you aiming to raise specifically for content? We raised $16,500 for purchasing the rights to publish stories, poetry, art, comics, etc., but we ended up buying more and taking it out of our pockets/doing more fundraising.
- What is your staffing plan? How do you want your team to work? How many people? What will you pay them? We currently have a staff of 4 people and we paid our Assistant Editor and Logistics Wizard $1500 each for the calendar year of 2021. We initially raised funds to pay ourselves as well, but we have not actually ended up doing that.
- What is your production and design plan? Is this a solo effort? Will you have an art director? Will you hire people on a case by case basis? Who will produce and design and distribute issues? How will you distribute them? Meg currently does all our design, though we may pay a couple of people to take some design tasks over for some issues. We have a website and distribute our issues in PDF, EPUB and Mobi via Mailchimp mailing list and Patreon. We can hand all of this over to the next team, but we would love to know if you have other plans or thoughts.
- Who will pay contributors and keep track of finances? Currently Meg and Julia both have access to the Mermaids Monthly bank account, and mostly Julia pays contributors, though either of us can. We keep track of things in spreadsheets.
- Will you want Physical rewards and if yes how will you distribute them? We have Lis, our Logistics Wizard, who did an amazing job sending out our physical backer rewards.
- How will you and your team communicate? We currently mostly communicate internally via Slack, and Meg and Julia also have regularly scheduled voice/video chat meetings to make sure we are on the same page.
- Where will the physical address for your business be? We are currently based in the State of New York and have a business P.O. Box and also use a physical address in New York when that is required.
- Do you have a tax plan? We paid an accountant to file business taxes and create a Schedule K form for us. Will you also want that? Does this cost need to be rolled into the fundraising?
- Are there other obstacles you anticipate and need assistance with?
- Do you have any questions or concerns to share with us?
- If you are selected, will you be ready to shadow us from September to December of 2021 and take official ownership on January 1st, 2022?
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