Join our community driven webmagazine (comic authors, novellists and others) (Calliope)

[liamhernandezlucas]

Hi there! I'm Mister Spaceman, editor of Calliope Magazine.

Calliope Magazine is a community project aimed at helping small creators grow as well as providing entertainment.
We make reviews, organise collabs and contests, and we hope to do much, much more.
We hope to grow this project enough for it to provide true quality of life for authors disfavoured by the algorithm.

Website: https://calliopeprojectwebsite.wordpress.com/
Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/Calliope-Magazine/info

To prevent this from just being a block of text, here's some more info in image format:

Our goal is to be positive. We do not want you to come work with us if it is for the purpose of bashing others. If you want to help people who are underappreciated, or help people get better, you are welcome to apply!

In order to apply, send a link to your profile on tapas or webtoon or tapas forums or other relevant social media. Make sure to tell us more about yourself and/or why you're applying!

You can send to calliopemagazinebox@gmail.com (don't forget the 'BOX') or on this recruitment thread.

We'll have a look at what you make and how you interact with people. If you are not selected, please do not take it personally. We have to go by limited information and gut instincts, and we'll try and recruit in waves if possible.

Website: https://calliopeprojectwebsite.wordpress.com/
Public Discord: discord.gg/pgN35jG
Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/Calliope-Magazine/info
Webtoon: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/calliope-magazine/list?title_no=407534

Feel free to ask questions!

(Bumping this thread is much appreciated!)

[Wocalich]

I like recommending stories I like, and even made a thread for it. Is that sth I can do if I join you?

[liamhernandezlucas]

Yes, it is! We're looking for all kinds of ways to raise awareness of good stories or give authors opportunities to prove their strengths, and making something like a recommendation segment definitely fits that goal.

[Wocalich]

Okay, I can do it then. Here's a link to my profile:

Wocalich

[CommanderMarty]

I would be open to the Creator Central part, I got some people I could potentially give an interview for it too.

Commander Marty

Here's my profile. @liamhernandezlucas

[alexlcuri07]

I wouldn't want to commit to something I couldn't reasonably do, so I hope its okay if I have a few questions:

1. What is a typical member usually responsible for? Is it like a magazine journalist who's responsible for one or two articles? Or is it more like a content creator who comes up with the ideas and someone else carries them out? A mix of both?

2. I noticed that RainbowPop will focus on LGBTQ and GL BL genres but will it have LGBTQ creator highlights since not everyone who makes BL/GL/LGBTQ stories is a member of the LGBTQ community?

3. Is there a space being created for POC/BAME highlights? Because that would be something I would be greatly interested in.

4. What's the preferred method of communication amongst team members?

I'm so sorry if that's too many questions. 🤭

[liamhernandezlucas]

Questions are fine! You're helping anyone who had the same questions.

1) A typical member's responsibilities are largely based on how much work they want to take up. Coming up with new ideas and suggestions is greatly appreciated, but we are also open to people who just drop by with a review once every two weeks, provided they do try and take notice of what the group is doing so we don't get two people doing the exact same work twice.

Long story short, we value members who try to be aware of what the group is doing, and keeps promises, regardless of how deeply involved they are.

2) Rainbow Pop is mostly intended to help sort out the lgbt/gl/bl tags. There's a huge chunk of tapas dedicated to those stories, and it seems more efficient to split into a different section so the stories that don't have that tag aren't lost in the mix, and Rainbow Pop can focus on finding the really good lgbt/bl/gl stories in the mass.

All authors are welcome in either project, as long as they're nice. Non-lgbt authors can work on Rainbow Pop and vice versa, it's the subject matter that counts.

3) Calliope is meant to be open to the whole world so we don't look at who's behind the pen as long as they're nice people and they can communicate in English. If the English is flawed but servicable, we can help correct mistakes. We have no particular plans for focusing on author ethnicity. (What's BAME? I haven't heard of that yet)

4) We communicate through a Discord, but have not used voice chat. It is an option, but we haven't found it necessary yet.

Edit: Fixed some layout issues

[CosmicLeon]

I have a few questions I would like to ask before applying.
1. do the creators keep their copy rights
2. as far as video content, it there a team who works on collaborating with artist/creators to create that content for the website mag. or do the creators create content for the site/mag.

[liamhernandezlucas]

1) Creators keep the rights to everything they create.
If they make assets for the magazine, they do automatically give permission to the group to use those assets in the magazine and its surrounding materials (like the website). If something is uncredited or credited wrong, you also have the right to point this out so we can change it to be credited correctly.

Creators also choose if they want their work added to 'the line-up'. The line-up is the collection of stories that will be reported on in the staus or updates section, and which other authors can freely reference in cover arts and such.

To give an example, Steel's story Book of Creatures is in the line-up, so we report on the schedule of the story. Because of this, Heilyx had permission to use Steel's character called Luna in the latest cover art. Luna remains the IP of Steel, and Heilyx does not own Luna, but she does own the image itself and is free to post it as long as Steel does not object. The magazine works entirely on this principle.

2) The magazine itself is creator driven. If you join the project, you are free to choose what parts you want to work on yourself. We do not assign you anything, and you are not expected to prioritise cranking out content over your own work/education/life or even your story. We do however expect members to check up on what we're doing. If you aren't very active, we also expect you to just pitch in or say hi from time to time to let us know you're still there, and whenever you decide to do something for the project, you keep your promises

Calliope Rec (The video content) has not yet been launched and does not yet have an established structure. Right now, we're mostly looking for people interested in the concept, and we'll look over the collection of ideas to establish a structure.

Every important decision or uploaded content in name of the magazine goes through me and the founders to check and make sure we stay focused on our goals and nobody adds something inappropriate.

[liamhernandezlucas]

If there's more questions, ask away.

[CommanderMarty]

Bumping this real quick.

[MattRAuthor]

I'd be interested in helping out with Rainbow Pop, I write queer books and I'm studying editing, so I can do both editing and the jobs of a member. I was just wondering what would be required of me as a member?

Matt

[liamhernandezlucas]

Members don't really have much required of them. You're mostly expected to be aware of what the magazine is doing and pick and choose what content you'd like to create, provided you have the time for it. Of course, we also expect people to commit if they say they'll do something. But it is not required to be constantly producing.
Everything is organised through Discord text chats. Voice chat is an option when appopriate, but hasn't been necessary yet.

All members are expected to be kind and well meaning, able to communicate in decent English, and receptive to feedback.

As for the editor for Rainbow Pop, there's a couple more responsibilities. As editor, your job is to:
-Help establish a release schedule for Rainbow Pop
-Organise with members of Rainbow Pop what content is created
-Make sure content adheres to the rules and our goals
-Wrap it all into one neat magazine issue
-Send it to the founders to check for issues before uploading, and changing something when necessary

If Rainbow Pop is launched before there's enough members to keep a steady stream of content, it will be released as a subsection of the normal magazine. All projects are released under the Calliope Magazine title.

Creator Central follows the same structure.

If there's anything else, ask away!

[CosmicLeon]

Sounds good! I would link to participate!
my portfolio website it here: https://www.cjspiethillustrations.com/
My Instagram is here: https://www.instagram.com/cj_spieth_illustrations/
this one is for my comic: https://www.instagram.com/eidolonguildofthorns/

and here is my comic

Eidolon Guild of Thorns | Tapas

[liamhernandezlucas]

We're still deliberating the responses we got, it will be a bit slow, as there's a lot of details to discuss.
However, two people have joined the crew.
There's still plenty of room for more if anyone else is interested!

[liamhernandezlucas]

Two more people have received their formal invitations.
We still have plenty of room for more, so feel free to apply!
The more the merrier.

[Shongzacado]

I think this sounds like a unique project, and I would love to participate. I am new to the creation side of things, but I read what can only be described as an excessive number of webcomics. As such, I think it would be quite fun to write reviews for some of them. That being said, I do have a couple of questions.

1. What is the frequency you're looking for?
2. Do you have an ideal length for submissions?
3. What all is subject to review (do you want mostly more obscure stuff and do they have to originate from Tapas/Webtoon)?
4. Would you like this to be a regular thing, or could I send in reviews occasionally?

Either way, this seems like a great idea and I can't wait to read this magazine.

[liamhernandezlucas]

Glad you're showing interest!

1) The more content you contribute, the better, but there's no required frequency per se. As long as you give us signs of life, we don't mind if it takes a while between contributions.

2) Depends on the content. Reviews typically max at two pages, but it's also rare to need more to say everything.

3) We're currently looking at Tapas/Webtoon mostly, but webcomics/webnovels from other places are eligible for review.

We also have a waitlist of people who want their story reviewed. With those, we see if we think it's worth reviewing. If it's good enough, we tell people what we think is appealing about it. If we don't think it's good enough, instead of publicly blasting it, we try to send some helpful feedback to the creator.

4) Occasionally works. We just want members to regularly let us know they're alive, and try and be aware of what the group's doing.

You can already read the magazine, though it is the slightly understaffed version:

Calliope Magazine | Tapas

[Shongzacado]

Thanks for the clarification! This all sounds very reasonable, I would love to participate. My upload schedule might be a little wobbly from time to time due to college, but I think I could manage to be at least semi-regular. One last question, you say you have a list of pending reviews, how are those divvied out?

[liamhernandezlucas]

We have a dedicated forum thread to gather reviewable stories, which we then add to a list. They aren't reviewed in order of submission, since our members get to pick from the list freely.

Here's the thread:

Hi there! Wasn't sure if I should put this under Intro/feedback/shoutout or Misc. Me and three other authors are working on a magazine called Calliope. Next week is the Monthly special featuring collab art and such. We would like to do a bit where we do reviews of other people's works. So, do you want us to take a look at and review your work? A couple of things of note: - Depending on the amount of reactions, we might not be able to review all stories, so we might have to pick and choose. - …

Can you give us a link to your tapas profile?