London, UK 25/08/2008 :
For a new and unknown writer to find a willing publisher is really quite as difficult as the task before the proverbial camel beholding a needle. First, the book publishing industry has become so organized that publishers only deal with literary agents. Paradoxically no agent wants to sign on an unpublished writer, and this vicious circle is the limiting chain which democraticpublishing.com, also known as The Democratic Publishing Project has vowed to break.
Most of the established writers have gained initial popularity by getting short stories and articles published in magazines and in anthologies. But according to a report in The Guardian “When writers come to sell their wares they discover that there is a very small market for short-story collections, few publishers take them on and nowadays there is virtually no outlet for individual stories, aside from a few no-payment "little magazines". Far more people write short stories than read them, and there is really nothing to be done about this.”
“I was surprised at the number of brick walls which I personally ran into while trying to find a publisher for my collection of short stories even though I have been published by some respectable magazines including university presses”, said Rotimi Ogunjobi , founder of democraticpublishing.com .
“It has taken us four years of fine tuning to bring The Democratic Publishing Project to be what it is today. What we have done is to create regional web sites where writers can submit their work for peer and readers review and voting. The most popular submissions are then periodically collected together and published in anthologies. The response has been astounding; The Democratic Publishing Project has given a lot of new writers a platform to announce themselves and also enabled established writers to expand their readership beyond their imagination. We publish short stories, essays, poetry, book reviews and announcement, submitted to any of the sites completely free of charge”
Started in 2004 with The Redbridge Review, democraticpublishing.com presently has three other websites including The Florida Literary and Arts Journal and The Lagos Literary and Arts Journal. “We aim to add at least three new online journals for writers every year and to completely cover the entire world in ten years”, Rotimi Ogunjobi promised .
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If you’d like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Rotimi Ogunjobi, please email mail@websesame.com or skype londonbard. Or phone Ola : 234-8085007469
