This week, Writer’s Journey Wednesday features the exciting publication, Christian Fiction Online Magazine (CFOM). You’ll find it full of helpful articles written by authors, agents, and editors. Michelle Sutton - author, book reviewer, and CFOM editor shares how the magazine got started and how she became involved.Christian Fiction Online Magazine was first created in Bonnie Calhoun's mind. She’s the Founder and Director of the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance that branched off to include the online magazine as an extension of the blog tours. The hope was to provide another service to readers, authors, and publishers.
I literally received an e-mail back in Feb or March of 2008 from Bonnie asking if I'd like to be a magazine editor. Of course, I totally thought she was kidding. But she was serious. I prayed about it and once the ideas started to simmer and then bubble over in my mind I knew it was God's will for me to work with Bonnie on the magazine.
In addition to the prayer I submitted to God, I also asked Him to hook me up with willing authors who were talented and interested in contributing to a monthly magazine. He showed me a lot of ways within which he could use my natural creativity. Then it just took off. Response was overwhelmingly positive and I’m not hurting for columnists or articles at all.
We’re always looking for new ideas, and advertising is affordable. We offer it at a range of prices. Since Bonnie and I both spend about 40 hours per week working on the magazine, plus have hired three staff to work for us, we need the money to pay them and ourselves for our efforts. Even pastors get paid, correct? While this is a ministry, we still have bills to pay including the web server and postage, etc.
One final note . . . I love this "ministry" and plan to continue until the Lord takes the desire away from me. It's a great outlet for my creativity and a positive way to spread the word about Christian fiction. I will be at the conference in Denver and giving out new business cards to anyone who wants to spread the word about CFOM.
Check out the latest issue of Christian Fiction Online Magazine.
