Skip to main content
SoftsasiAI for Engineers
Sign in

§ masterplan.md

Online Literary Journal

An editorial journal for poems and short fiction with elegant typography, issue archives and submission guidelines.

All ideas
Editorial

01

App overview and objectives

An online literary journal with a real submission and review pipeline, quarterly issues, and typography that respects poetry's line breaks. It should feel like print that happens to live on the web.

02

The problem worth solving

Literary work is destroyed by responsive layouts that reflow lines arbitrarily. A journal that treats typography as editorial responsibility attracts better writers and better readers.

03

Target audience

  • Primary — Poets and short-fiction writers seeking publication.
  • Secondary — Readers and editors of contemporary literature.

04

Roles and permissions

  • Visitor — read-only public pages, can sign up.
  • Member — owns their own records, cannot see other users' data.

05

Core features

  • Submission portal with genre, word count limits and simultaneous-submission declaration
  • Editorial review queue with blind reading and scoring
  • Issue assembly with running order and section breaks
  • Reader with typographic control: preserved line breaks, drop caps, proper quotes
  • Author pages and contributor notes
  • Archive with search by author, form and issue

Deliberately later

  • Paid contributor honoraria
  • Print-on-demand issues
  • Contest management

06

Technical stack

React front end, Postgres for submissions and reviews, file storage for manuscripts, static rendering for published issues.

Why: The workflow side is a small internal app; the public side benefits from static delivery and perfect typography.

Alternatives: Off-the-shelf submission managers (proven, expensive, ugly public side) or email-only submissions (free, unmanageable past 100 pieces).

07

Conceptual data model

Submission — author, title, genre, file, status, submitted_at

Review — submission, reader, score, notes, blind flag

Issue — number, season, running order, cover art

Piece — published submission, formatted body, contributor note

Author — name, bio, publication history, contact

08

Integrations

  • File storage for manuscripts
  • Email for decisions
  • Optional payments for submission fees

09

UI design principles

  • Reading experience first: 65-75 character measure, strong serif headings, real typographic hierarchy.
  • Images are captioned and credited; pull-quotes break long passages.
  • Navigation stays out of the way while reading and reappears on scroll-up.

10

Security considerations

  • Blind review: reader interface hides author identity until a decision is recorded.
  • Manuscripts are private files with signed, expiring access.
  • Clear rights statement — first publication rights, reverting to the author.

11

Development phases

Phase 1 — Prove the core

  • — Submission portal with genre, word count limits and simultaneous-submission declaration
  • — Editorial review queue with blind reading and scoring
  • — Issue assembly with running order and section breaks
  • — Static content and design system in place
  • — Basic analytics

Phase 2 — Make it real

  • — Reader with typographic control: preserved line breaks, drop caps, proper quotes
  • — Author pages and contributor notes
  • — Archive with search by author, form and issue
  • — Accounts, sign-in and password reset
  • — Empty, loading and error states everywhere

Phase 3 — Polish and launch

  • — Performance, accessibility and SEO pass
  • — Legal pages, contact route and 404 handling
  • — Wire up: File storage for manuscripts
  • — Wire up: Email for decisions

Phase 4 — Grow

  • — Paid contributor honoraria
  • — Print-on-demand issues
  • — Contest management

12

Challenges and solutions

Risk — Submission flood

Solution — Reading windows, per-author limits per cycle, and a small optional fee or free tier for students.

Risk — Poetry formatting breaks on mobile

Solution — Preserve hard line breaks, allow horizontal scroll for long lines instead of reflowing.

Risk — Volunteer editor burnout

Solution — Explicit reading quotas and a visible queue-ageing dashboard.

13

Future expansion

  • Translation section
  • Audio recordings by authors
  • Workshop programme

14

Page list (13 pages)

  1. 01 PUBLIC Current Issue — The latest issue, in running order.
  2. 02 PUBLIC Archive — All past issues and search.
  3. 03 PUBLIC Submit — Guidelines and the submission form.
  4. 04 PUBLIC Authors — Contributor index and notes.
  5. 05 PUBLIC About — Masthead, mission and rights policy.
  6. 06 AUTH Sign up — Create an account with email or a social provider.
  7. 07 AUTH Log in — Return to the account, with error and lockout states.
  8. 08 AUTH Reset password — Request a reset link and set a new password.
  9. 09 APP (signed in) Account settings — Profile, email, password, language and delete account.
  10. 10 PUBLIC Contact — Contact form plus real address, phone and email.
  11. 11 LEGAL & SYSTEM Privacy policy — What data is collected, why, and how to remove it.
  12. 12 LEGAL & SYSTEM Terms of service — Rules of use, liability and account termination.
  13. 13 LEGAL & SYSTEM 404 not found — Friendly dead end with search and links back.

15

Page map

PUBLIC            AUTH               APP (signed in)      LEGAL & SYSTEM
────────────────  ─────────────────  ───────────────────  ───────────────────
├─ Current Issue  ├─ Sign up         └─ Account settings  ├─ Privacy policy
├─ Archive        ├─ Log in                               ├─ Terms of service
├─ Submit         └─ Reset password                       └─ 404 not found
├─ Authors
├─ About
└─ Contact

key flows:
  Current Issue ──▶ Authors
  Archive ──▶ Current Issue
  About ──▶ Submit