Welcome to the new online home of Blank Spaces Magazine!
Four months in isolation CAN breed opportunity
After thinking about a new website for three years, it was finally time.
We bought our domain name way back at the beginning of 2017; but, because we were already running a free website, all we did was point our .ca to what we already had, which served its purpose just fine. We reached nearly two hundred thousand readers and potential contributors in that time (195,902 according to our website stats), and considering we’re a grassroots, volunteer-run organization that started this project with zero capital, that’s a stat we’re pretty proud of.
Now we’re entering our fifth year and some decisions had to be made. Where do we want this little magazine to go? Launching our fifth year subscription campaign was a result of some of this soul-searching.
We want to grow.
We want to reach more readers and contributors.
We want to expand our distribution.
We want to make even more of a difference.
One step towards making this happen is building a new website that is more user-friendly with a fully integrated shopping cart. Our research shows that the success of many indie businesses is a direct result of their website. For the last four years we’ve gotten by on our charm, our vision, and the skin of our teeth. Now is the time to grow up, to pay for a clean platform that lets us present our vision succinctly, and to put our very best foot forward.
What has changed?
Essentially, we’re presenting you a cleaner canvas that contains more information in a more orderly fashion. We did our best to migrate all relevant content from our free platform to the new one PLUS a few extra bonuses.
We now have a page for each and every contributor, where you can read bios and learn about contributions. (If you’re one of these contributors and ever wish to have your information updated - new bio or photo - just reach out.)
We’re very excited about our Canada Calls section. It is an events calendar where YOU can advertise any creative event you have coming up - from book launches to art shows. This will be FREE until August 15, 2020, so be sure to take advantage while you can.
Customers can now set up an account to make future checkouts easier. You will be able to access information on all your orders through this option.
Shipping fees are now all calculated based on weight. Physical products will be charged shipping fees (starting at $1.97) and these will be added during the checkout process. International shipping fees are now calculated automatically - also based on weight.
The price of print pre-orders has been reduced to accommodate the shipping fee. So while we can no longer advertise them as having free shipping, you will be getting them for the same price as on our old site.
Our submission fees have increased by $1 to help counter some of the new cost of our upgraded website. Thank you for your understanding.
What is still to come?
We are exploring the possibility of hosting some online creative workshops in the future. We’d love to know your thoughts around this, whether you’d consider participating, or even if you’d consider partnering with us to create your own workshop.
Though we’ve checked and checked and re-checked, you may find issues or broken links as you navigate this new space. Please let us know so we can fix it right away. Our desire is to give every visitor a smooth experience and we can only do that if we all work together to make this space the best that it can be.
Our old website will still be accessible - though we will no longer be updating it - any links you’ve posted in the past will continue to work. We will be removing the shopping cart feature and directing all sales over here.
Thank you for being here, and we hope you’ll continue to visit!
