What We’re Not

We are not a traditional publisher in the manner of a print magazine or journal. Our goal is to create a place for writers to share their work without the noise and distraction of a social networking site or the work and isolation of trying to maintain their own blog or website.

We do not publish “whatever.” We do impose our own tastes and editorial preferences; however, we do try to recognize serious work that may not exactly fit with our preconceptions; we do try to encourage writers that are just beginning to master their craft. If you have submitted work and it has not been published, please don’t be discouraged. Keep working and keep sending us your work. We are always interested.

Note: We do understand that writers revise and rethink their work. If you wish to make changes to work we’ve published or wish to remove your work from GSR, please contact us with you request. See also: FAQ

April 2009: Where we are. Where we were. How far we’ve come…

Thanks to you we’ve come a long way in the last 12 months. In April 2008 approximately 20* people a day were visiting GSR and staying long enough to read one poem, one essay or one short story.

By April 2009 that number had become 58 people a day – staying long enough to read 3 or 4 pages. That’s about 200 pages a month. Equivalent to a small print anthology.

By April 2009 most of our visitors come here directly, through links from email, or sharing sites like StumbleUpon or by entering shortpoem.org or Getting Something Read in a search engine. That means they come here intentionally or because of a recommendation made by someone else. Maybe you.

About half of you reading this are new to GSR, half of you have been here before. We think that’s a pretty good balance. Thank you for visiting. Thank you for returning. Thank you for telling your friends about us.

Given the vastness of the internet and the long odds against the average web surfer staying more than 30 seconds at a small site that publishes mostly poetry, we’re pretty pleased with these results.

We hope that we can continue to grow. We hope we can evolve in ways that will keep your interest. We hope you’ll keep writing and sending us your work. We hope you’ll keep returning, reading and sharing what you like with others.

*How do we know? We aggregate the statistical data from paid and free sties. We compare that to the data we collect. We eliminate the numbers that don’t apply to us. We eliminate visits and time spent on the site by GSR staff. We eliminate searches for individual names. Then we add up the numbers we have left and try to work out what they tell us.