Many of my compatriots in the world of SF&F online publishing told me good things about WordPress. WordPress is free. It’s WYSIWYG (pronounced wiss—ee—wig), which stands for “what you see is what you get”: just upload things without coding them into HTML! You can get comments on stories. There are all sorts of free online forums to help set a blog up in WP.
There’s just one little catch. For a magazine, it’s a cast iron b*tch to set up on your own, and top-rate help is not cheap.
A disclaimer and admission: I’m not exactly the most web-savvy human being on the planet. In fact, I’ve always depended on the kindness of volunteers who knew what the heck an FTP was. I’ve often commented that I had about as much business running an online magazine as a toddler had in a gun shop. I’m an editor, not a webmaster or an IT professional. I love stories. Software, not so much.
But here we are. Brave New World and all that: it was time to step up to the plate and bring Abyss & Apex into the 21st Century. Thank God for my now dog-eared copy of WordPress for Dummies (I certainly qualify!), and thank heavens for our new webmaster, Brian Thies, whose patience and hard work helped bring you your magazine in this new and more modern format.
You’ll see all of our usual categories: Short Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry, Submissions, About Us, Support Us…and we are debuting our Small Press Book Review page. For now our Archives link back to our old URL, but soon they will move here, too.
*sniff* So there you have it. Abyss & Apex is all grown up and wrapped in a glamorous new package. We’re throwing a lot of confetti here at A&A. Try not to let it get into your hard drive.
Wendy S. Delmater, Editor
Abyss & Apex
