A Sneak Peak Into The Echo’s New Venture

I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to work on a project as I am with this one. Of course, I love working on our magazine and getting to filter through submissions and finally bring our magazine to life. The Echo, and everything I do as a part of the staff never fails to bring me joy; managing this organization never feels like work, but brings me genuine happiness.

But—and this is a big but—this new project honestly feels like it’s my baby. Anyone who’s ever met me knows that I am an avid reader. I read so much that it’s basically my whole personality. I bet there’s not one picture taken of me that I don’t have a book or my kindle in my lap. And a huge advantage of reading so much is that I’ve developed the skill to read at a very fast pace.

It’s this skill along with new members of The Echo staff who love to read almost as much as I do, that has swelled The Echo’s womb. And my God, I’ve never been more appreciative of a pregnancy. After a lot of planning and deliberation, a new project is taking off this upcoming year. The Echo is now going small press! We are going to be publishing books!

This sneak peak will take you through the ins and outs that happen behind the scenes in order to make this new venture/baby a possibility, and how now that it is, we hope to reach all the far corners of the world with our new expansion.

Of course, for me, the reader whose life revolves around books, this is like the holy grail of any project that I could've been a part of. So, to the surprise of literally no one, I jumped right into the process of getting this idea off of the ground.

This isn't some small easy task either. There was a lot that went into planning, brainstorming, seeing if we even had the funds to support this project. And even when we had a well thought out plan, we still had to get it approved by The Echo's board.

But this isn't the type of story that is only deserving of a tiny little summary, no, we must give credit to where credit is due (to the new Echo baby) and you very very lucky readers get so see how everything happened step by step in the perspective of yours truly. So, without further ado...

It was a bright and sunny day at around 12 in the afternoon when I unwrapped my daily ham and cheese sandwich and shoved it in my mouth so that my hands were free to open and prop my kindle onto the desk in front of me. The next thirty minutes of my day at school were always my favorite ones. My blessed lunch period that I spend in none other than my advisor, Mr. Vona's room. This, is a daily routine, shove food in my mouth, open my kindle, and read whatever new romantacy or romance novel had caught my attention that day.

Unfortunately, I have no recollection of what book I was reading that exact day so that detail will have to remain a mystery to us all, but nevertheless, there I was, munching on my mundane sandwich, and contemplating as to why I torture myself everyday by always eating the same thing. It gets tiring after a while eating the same exact thing every single day.

I tabled this thought in favor of paying attention to my kindle in front of me, immersing myself into whatever book I was reading. I have no idea as to how much time passed because of one tiny talent (others may call it a flaw since they don't know better) is that when I read, I have the gift of completely blocking out everything else around me. My peripheral vision is completely stripped away and sounds just cease to exist once I start reading, So you see, this is obviously a very amazing skill that I am capable of.

So I guess you can say I was a little startled when a figure appeared seemingly out of nowhere and called out my name. I like to hope that there wasn't a period of time where he was calling out my name and lil' old me had blocked it out until he was directly in my line of vision. As I said, I like to hope.

This figure, was none other than Mr. Vona himself, and what he had said to me that bright and sunny day, lit up a million fireworks in my brain. He had proposed the idea that we try to publish a book, a novel written by a teenager that we choose, edit, format and elevate The Echo into a small press organization.

Now, I can imagine that I looked like one of those cartoon characters when their eyes completely bug out of their head. This was just an idea, a few words strung together that were now floating out in the air around us. It was like a lightbulb not screwed in all the way, flickering with the possibility of this idea.

My brain didn't really take in the chance of this not happening; it threw reality out of the window, and it felt like there was a ping pong ball bouncing off the walls of my skull, with ideas and flash-fowards, like a scene playing out in front of me, turning a teen's dream into reality.

As a teenager that is trying to write a book myself, having researched and discovered exactly how hard it is to get a novel out there in the world, the potential prospect of providing this opportunity to teenagers all over the world is something that in my mind is a must, now that the seed of potentiality is planted firmly in my mind.

It was on this fateful day that my daily routine of sandwich shoving and reading was altered, unbeknownst to me, for the rest of the scholastic year.

Every day after this dim light began to flicker, I looked forward to my daily lunch of still eating ham and cheese sandwiches, but my kindle was noticeably closed beside me.

From that day on, we began to construct a proposal through the amazing tool that is PowerPoint. We began to make a plan and build up the logistical side of this loose idea. We decided that we would publish one book a year. We constructed a timeline as to when everything would happen and fall into place. We came up with phases where we review the first few chapters of every submission before picking and receiving the rest of the manuscript. We talked about the financial side of things, and how much exactly this project was going to cost, and if we could even afford it. I have to admit, as much as I loath math, this wasn't too bad.

We spent a lot of lunch periods like this, thinking and planning and brainstorming our ideas into this powerpoint. And still nothing was concrete. We had to change and adapt to certain guidelines, make financial cuts and a clear process as to where this money was going.

But before we knew it, this lightbulb was slowly twisting its way into place, becoming brighter and brighter until its flickers were few and far between.

Finally, the day had come where we were going to take our project all the way upstairs and present it to The Echo's board.

I am relatively new to The Echo, with this being my first year as a part of the staff, meaning, that I had never attended a board meeting before, I didn't really know what to expect. My brain had constructed some sort of zoom call with very tall people wearing fancy suits and a briefcase at their side, pulled back hair and an imposing aura of professionalism.

Well it's safe to say I was wrong on that front, it was a lot more... relaxed, than I thought it would be. Now don't be mistaken, I was still as nervous as a bull rider right before mounting the craziest bull out there. Right when I was about to present my little baby to these definitely not scary people, it was like all the information I'd spent months constructing just evaporated out of my brain.

I think I went into autopilot mode in the beginning but after a couple minutes I found myself relaxing into the presentation. After my near death experience/a not scary presentation, I was overjoyed when our publication idea was approved. And right before my eyes our lightbulb burned bright, and a baby was born.

But our baby is just that, a newborn. A foal trying to stand up on shaky legs, and all we can do as parents is hope it doesn't fall; that our project can one day stand up tall and proud, as immovable as a mountain during a hurricane.

I hope, with all my heart and soul, that I'll be lucky enough to see this project take off this upcoming year. But the next steps aren't up to me, but up to you, my dear reader. I hope that this blog reaches all those hopeful teenagers, the ones with aspiring dreams that sometimes feel out of reach. And I hope that all those ambitions teens out there grab possibility by the horns, and throw themselves into a hopeful and bright dream come true.

Find out everything about submitting your novel to The Echo here.