End-Of-Year Summary From The After Dinner Conversation Editor - Kolby Granville
A Year of Awards And Crazy Growth!
Hello,
You may be more familiar with emails from Tina, the amazing editor that puts together our weekly Substack. (She’s the lady with the dog in her photo) I’m Kolby, the founder/editor of After Dinner Conversation publications. I started and run the monthly magazine that publishes the stories that later end up in Substack.
I thought I would do an end-of-year summary of how things are going with After Dinner Conversation.
Long story short, after five years of running the magazine as my primary job and living as a broke-ass digital nomad, economics and a sick mother drove me home and into the workforce grind. This has meant less time and more need for others to set up. And they did!
Our story editor R.K.H. Ndong now works with the selected authors to make edits, and does magazine assembly. Tina Forsee took over the Substack. Stephen Repsys and Kate Bocassi now to do all the copy edit work, which, honestly, I was never very good at doing. Shawn Winchester does the cover art and Noelle Canty does most of our social media. Not to mention 100+ volunteer submission readers! This is a huge enterprise, and it really is a team effort!
So, what the heck do I do? I still make the final decisions on the stories our volunteer readers select to publish, write the story discussion questions, and do the pickup/random work like…
…applying for nonprofit grants and chatting with donors. This was a big year for us, as we received our first arts grant and two larger donations. I also focused on putting out our nine themed books which are in (at least) seven countries and fifty different classrooms. (Thanks in part to those donations!)
I also filed our “After Dinner Conversation” trademark application, and worked with Philosophy Now to syndicate our stories in their national magazine. I’ve done a bunch of podcast interviews trying to explain what the magazine is all about too! It’s weird, when you are the only one of your kind, a lot of your time is spent just explaining what you are doing that is so unique! (Example #1, Example #2, Example #3)
That’s not to say everything has worked out. We made a few attempts at using college interns, and those have mostly been a partial to complete failure. We have also stopped producing our podcasts. While they were successful, we are just super short staffed, and they weren’t successful enough to warrant the time they took. Old ones are still up though, just search “After Dinner Conversation” in your podcast app. We also had plans to do a discussion question card game which I just haven’t had time to make happen yet…
Oh, and we continue to get snubbed by the major literary magazine awards like Pushcart Prize, American Short Stories, O. Henry Award, etc. But, what the heck do they know, right?!?! Right??!?! (He says, as he looks into the void and a single tear falls down his cheek…)
The point is, we keep our heads down, we do the daily work, and we continue to put out the best magazine month-after-month because of the dedication of hundreds of volunteers, and our readers. Thank you, and here’s to 2025!
If you want to know how you can support our mission, please consider subscribing to our paid monthly magazine, or signing up for our paid Substack. And, of course, feel free to email me any time at editor@afterdinnerconversation.com I’m always happy to work with people willing to help take us in new and exciting directions that support our mission!
Kolby Granville, Editor
For those interested in such things, here are our 2024 statistics.
All The Stats!
2024 Awards/Recognition
Rated #1 "Best Fiction Literary Magazine 2024" by Chill Subs
Rated #1 "Most Popular Fiction Literary Magazine 2024" by Chill Subs
Rated #6 “Most Popular Literary Magazine 2024” by Chills Subs
Rated #1 "The Very Best Literary Magazine" by Ranker
Rated #47 “Fish List - Finest Indie Story Houses” by Fish List
Submission Statistics
1,350 Open Submissions
67 Original Stories Accepted/Published
4.9% Acceptance Rate
All Stories Came From Open Submissions, None Were Solicited Submissions
Volunteer Submission Readers
+85% Increase
Paid Subscribers
+22.4% Increase
Revenue Growth
+43% Increase (Sales Only)
+74% Increase (Sales, Donations, & Nonprofit Grants)
Demographics
Published Authors (Accepted Only)
Heterosexual - 78%
LGBTQ - 22%
White - 83%
People Of Color - 17%
First Time Authors - 27%
All Submissions (Accepted & Rejected)
Heterosexual - 79%
LGBTQ - 21%
White - 67%
People Of Color - 33%
First Time Authors - 20%
Social Media
Substack - 92,000 Subscribers (+528%)
Twitter/X - 36,600 Followers (+57%)
Instagram - 16,600 Followers (+426%)
Bluesky - 10,000 Followers (NA)
Facebook - 1,000 Followers
Youtube - 351 Subscribers
Website Stats
71,500 Visitors (+58%)
61,000 Unique Visitors (+64%)
116,000 Page Views (+44%)
Publications
One other fun thing to mention, we are ranked #61 in Substack in the Fiction category.
Reality a good yeaar. Congrats