by Daniel A. Kaufman
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The Electric Agora launched in 2015 and by that year’s end had been read by 6,270 people, some 33,721 times. This struck me as quite a lot, given that we never advertised or marketed the site in any way, other than sustaining Twitter and Facebook accounts, where we we promote our latest articles, and a handful of small ads on Leiter Reports here and there.
This year, The Electric Agora has been read by over 95,000 readers, some 257,000-plus times! Obviously, this is really quite a lot. Indeed, it strikes me as rather astonishing.
I do this because I enjoy it, and as I transition into retirement and leave academic work largely behind (I’m still accepting the occasional invited conference paper or book chapter), will become my primary, full-time endeavor, something I am looking forward to!
I want to thank all of EA’s contributors for making this digital magazine the thing it is. More than anything, it is their very different areas of interest and expertise, not to mention their distinctive voices and styles, that have made EA the success it is.
I also want to thank our regular readers and commenters. Ultimately, the point of writing is to be read and stimulated and discussed, and I could not ask for a better audience.
Moving forward, as already mentioned, EA will be adding a fiction “wing” to its already existing offerings. The idea initially came when I realized that I had written an entire novel and a novella, but that I could publish neither through traditional publishing outlets, due to their subject matter and the current zeitgeist. Rather than let them die on my computer, I thought I might self-publish instead. EA’s current readership, after all, is larger in size than that of many established novelists, publishing on major trade presses. But then I thought, why not open up this part of the magazine to submissions just like all the others? So that is exactly what we are going to do. We also may have a new contributor coming on board, whose specialty is German poetry, so stay tuned!
The next few years promise to be exciting ones for The Electric Agora, and I look forward to spending them with all of you!!! Much love to you all, and Happy New Year!
Comments
10 responses to “The Electric Agora at 6 (Going on 7) and Our Best Year Yet!”
May this new year be a good one for the Electric Agora and all of its readers and contributors!
Bravo, and good luck with your endeavor in the coming year.
“- at 6 (Going on 7)”
Time flies when having fun! (And it always has been that, if nothing else.)
Looking forward to another year, some good thoughts, and some good stories. Thanks Dan.
Hi Dan
I read with interest your plans for your personal future and this site. It remains to be seen how the move to publishing fiction will change things here. I will resist the temptation to dig out old (rejected) manuscripts. Editors were more independent and worthy of respect in my youth. My paltry attempts at fiction were derivative and no good, believe me. As a young man I was inspired by the work of Simon Raven (amongst others).
Even Simon Raven fell on hard times. Like many of us today, he had a major zeitgeist problem!
Good wishes for the new year.
The fiction will be in its own “wing” of the site, so it shouldn’t have much effect on the rest.
Good wishes to you too, and thank you for all the work you’ve done for EA. You are a crucial part of the success of this venture, and I am grateful for you.
Though I intended ‘contributors’ to mean *everyone* involved in publishing EA, I want to give special thanks to Mariah Gregg-Fling, whose art design of the site has made us the best looking ‘zine on the internet and deserves a good deal of credit for EA’s growth, since she’s come on board.
Congratulations and thank you Professor Kaufman. I’ve been listening for around two years as well as going through the back videos from the Massimo days. It is a pleasure to have such a podcast around where both philosophical and cultural topics can be talked about with equal clarity and candor, and can be enjoyed by both professionals and laymen such as myself. Wishing you good things personally and professionally in the New Year.
Really appreciate what you’ve done here at EA, Dan! It’s one of the few places on the internet where one can both see and engage in legitimate debate.
I really appreciate EA and what it provides. Good content in varying forms, good conversation but also within limits. The comment section isn’t a disaster like virtually all other places. There’s debate and variety but with more quality control than some other places, let’s say. Again, I really appreciate it as a resource. To EA!