A Look at Lucy’s Life

Posted by Lindsay in Editors.

As we debut our third issue, it’s hard to believe that about six months ago, Lucy was just an idea tossed out into cyberspace. It all started with a February email from our editor-in-chief. She was disappointed with the offerings of the newsstand at the train station (and with good reason). To me, it seems like many women’s magazines are focused on the unattainable. From the PhotoShop magic of their covers through their pages of fashion you can’t afford, many women’s magazines expect you to want to be someone else. I may not be able to afford $600 shoes, but I like who I am and who my friends are, and I think we deserve more than half-assed tips on taboo sex. So I clicked reply and we went from there.

Since that email, Lucy has grown faster than I could have imagined. We have readers! We have writers! We have meetings! It’s all so exciting—and a little surreal—to me. The editors are on either side of the Atlantic Ocean and writers are spread out all over the US and parts of Europe. We don’t have a big magazine budget, but we’re making due. Distance does prove a challenge to us sometimes; many of our meetings are actually email conversations or discussions over Skype. Kate, Sara and I try to work on Lucy as much as possible, and you can expect to see a lot of changes in the coming months. We are going to focus on promoting ourselves through advertising and also providing relevant advertising (not just basic Google ads) on our site, making a presence on social networking sites, expanding our blogging efforts and spiffing up our look.  We’ll probably work on a few other things that pop in to our minds, so check back or sign up for our mailing list.  There could be some things you want to see between now and our October issue.

One area that will definitely see some work is our layout.  We are going to concentrate on making the site look more like the magazine we see in our minds. Lucy’s explosion on to the scene lead us to a simple look that highlights on the writing, and that won’t change; the look will just be more polished around the edges. We have big ideas and we hope that you will bear with us as we grow. Your friend Lucy is coming into her own, and she wants to share her stories, her experiences and her thoughts with you. And if you’re interested in making it a conversation, consider writing for us. Please keep your eye out for a reader’s survey as well, and in the meantime, feel free to contact us with anything you would really like to see here.

Thanks for reading, and remember: Everyone needs Lucy in her life.

Editors | Comment (1)

Dear Readers:

Posted by Kate A. in Editors.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t know when to stop. I’m in dissertation territory of my master’s degree now, and about two months ago, faced with the prospect of having some free time when the semester was over, I decided, ‘Hey, starting a magazine sounds like a good plan!’

Well, it was. But MAN, no one ever tells you how hard it is to start a magazine. I imagine that’s because not many people are certifiably out of their minds. But seriously. I knew this would be a challenge, I just had no idea of the scope of it. New things that need attention pop up literally every five minutes. I’m an organized person, but I’m finding that even my usually very tidy brain can’t keep up.

This has been an exercise in patience with myself. I have to keep reminding myself that things don’t have to be perfect to work. Not at first, anyway. And I’ve got some seriously awesome people working on Lucy with me. If it wasn’t for Sara, this magazine wouldn’t even have a name, let alone content. And Lindsay has been my second set of eyes on the design front. All the other writers, contributors and editors have really stepped up and done a lot of work for free, just because they wanted to. This is nothing short of amazing to me. I never imagined so many people would be interested in starting a little magazine.

I figure a letter from the editor is supposed to be some sort of insight into life or writing or something like that, but that’s not what you’re going to get here. Maybe next month. At this point, I’m furiously pounding this out right before emailing everyone to say we’ve officially gone live. I’ve spent the past 48 hours doing bug fixes, editing photos, and inputting various codes and snippets of text to get this thing ready for the public. I want this to look good. Not just for me, but for the people who gave up their time to write and edit.

When I started thinking about this project, I figured it would be a great way for me to stay in touch with my friends back home, and it has been. I live in Scotland now because it’s where I love to be, but I’m awful at keeping up on emails and correspondence in general. Lucy has made me pay attention to my inbox like never before. I’ve had Skype conferences and Google chat conversations that have been almost ongoing. And it’s fantastic.

Moving to another country so soon after leaving college was what I wanted, but it was a big strain on my personal relationships. Being so far away from people can be extremely alienating, regardless of the technology that connects us all. With Lucy, I found something that excited the people I wanted to stay in touch with most. My hope is that it will excite readers just as much. There aren’t enough honest voices in women’s publications, and there’s no excuse for us to be stuck with magazines that are a bit of fluff when we have the internet to do and say whatever we want for free.

I hope you’ll enjoy Lucy as much as I’ve enjoyed creating it with all of these excellent people, and I hope you’ll tell us what you like about it and what we can add or make better.

Thanks for reading,

Kate

Editors | Comment (0)