First

Before moving on to the topic of getting read, I have a few things to say. Sorry about any delays in replies recently. I have been away travelling. Also Bryn has decided to withdraw from Eastlit, so that he can go on an extended period of travel. He wishes all of you who had contact with him well. We at Eastlit wish Bryn all the best and thank him for his efforts. He will remain a lifelong honoury editor. Because of this, I will be making some changes to Eastlit by creating a larger team to read the submissions. If any of you are interested in this contact admin. There will also be some other changes, but more on these later.

Getting Read

Some writers ask me how they get more people to read their pieces. Well the first thing is that Eastlit has grown in readership every month. April was up 30% on March and May 30% on April. This should help in getting read more. Each month usually starts with the current issue being the best read thing by far. However, as the month moves on older issues start to receive reads. If your work is in older issues, it is still getting read although at a lower rate than when first published. As the months go by we are also going to use reminders of older pieces. We already did one of these with the post on poetry last month. We also integrate launches and news items with a variety of social media actions both official and unofficial to attract readers. In the near future we intend to intensify this and also aim to start press releases in the regions we cover. All of this should result in your work getting read more often.

Now that is what Eastlit does. However, it is also possible for contributors to help each other get more reads. If you have a piece published and share it on say your Facebook, then you attract some of your friends to read your piece. Some of these may even read others writers’ pieces especially if you suggest this or like another piece. It is possible to increase the reads by community action like this. Oh and please note that it does not make us at Eastlit any money! That has never been our aim as mentioned in previous posts and on our supporting local writers page.

If you support us and our aims it also helps if you give us a like or share on the Eastlit home page, submissions page or supporting local writers one linked to above. This also helps to get more readers who will look at your work.

June Issue

If you haven’t seen the June issue yet, just click on the picture to the left to go there. Clicking will take you to the unique cover based on a picture by leading Thai artist Vasan Sitthiket. The drawing is an illustration of the short story The Mansion by Andrew J. West.

Other pieces include Two Poems by rising Chinese poet and writer Xenia Taiga, Three Poems by Károly Sándor Pallai who usually writes in French but whom we are pleased to welcome to Eastlit and there also three more poems by Zara Adcock our youngest contributor. Completing the poetry in the June issue are contributions by Tendai R. Mwanaka and Michele Alice. A.T. Payne’s sees her first publication in Eastlit with the story Waiting for Jasmine and Chained by Nick M. Aarons also with his first piece in Eastlit completes the fiction line up. Both non-fiction pieces are also by writers new to Eastlit with Carol Colborn’s piece plus photographs on Reliving World War II in the Philippines and Lucy Howson’s Vietnam based Saturday Night Sat on the Street in District 1. Steve Rosse finishes the June issue up with the second in the series How not to Write.

Finally

Thanks to everyone who has sent in work or read an issue of Eastlit. Also thanks to all of you who have made suggestions. You know who you are. All the current round of changes should be complete within the next 6 months.

That is about all for now except for personal thanks from me to Bryn for everything. Hey Bryn, enjoy the world. You will always remain a good friend. And thanks for the nice words re Eastlit.

Cheers.

Graham.