In 2022, we published nine authors and a total of 40,947 words of stimulating speculative science fiction.
Welcome to Proton Reader Two
A foreword by Sami Lawson
Let Our Grief Be Fruitful, At Least in This Way
A short story by Jordan Hirsch
A Cat's Duty
A short story by Spencer Koelle
The Protector of the Forest
A short story by Katie Conrad
Baby Boy
A short story by Adam Fout
The More Loving One
A short story by Scott Edelman
Welcome to Proton Reader
A foreword by Sami Lawson
Suck It Up
Flash fiction by Claire McNerney
A Mari Ad Astra
A short story by dave ring
Of Infinite Ends
A short story by Emily M. Dietrich
The End of Forever
A novelette by Amanda Cecelia Lang
So much work goes into starting a magazine! This year, Sami handled the bulk of the editorial work and I handled the bulk of the publishing and administrative work. We’ve found a good rhythm that works for us (because we’re constantly tweaking it) and are starting to plan out our next issues.
You should know that there were several months after publishing our first issue that Sami was running Proton Reader by herself. I had started a new job at the end of 2021 that ended up taking way more out of me than we had hoped, and she supported me prioritizing my mental health. We also bought a new house and moved, and all the while she was working through our submission queue and working with writers. I couldn’t ask for a more thoughtful, careful, and creative editor to do this with.
—Jesse
This year, total expenses were $2,565.66, broken down as follows:
- $1,835.66 went to authors
- $390 went to Moksha
- $240 went to information technology
- $100 went to artwork licensing
Our largest non-content expense was Moksha. We decided to switch to Moksha about a month after opening submissions at the end of 2021 when our Google Workspace automations started to get overwhelming. On top of that, our work and family responsibilities were growing exponentially, too, and we needed something that would handle the amount of submissions were were receiving. We honestly did not expect so much attention for our first issue!
We were more than satisfied with Moksha and, if you have the budget, highly recommend it if you’re looking for a reliable, robust software tool to manage your submission queue. Ultimately, Sami and I decided that we’d rather spend that money on content, so I’m going to spend some time this year rewriting my submission automations to get us to a point where a huge backlog is more manageable for us.
We hope you’ve enjoyed the stories we’ve published so far, and can’t wait to get started on our next issue. Until then, enjoy our latest issue, Proton Reader Two.