Foreword

 

Welcome to the Winter Issue V 2025 of Samjoko Magazine. As you can see, we have published eleven writers, in part because of donations from Steven Roiphe, who donated $15, and Peter, who donated $25, through BuyMeCoffee. We were pleased that these two individuals decided to help us pay authors, and we would be remiss to not mention LowKeyWorlde, who has been a Patreon to Samjoko going on three years now.

We would like to urge the visitors to our magazine to support us with financial contributions, which will allow us to increase the number of writers we publish from around the world. We have paid some 170 writers from around the world, and hope to add at least another forty through the seasonal issue releases of 2026.

As many will notice, we added a holiday theme to this issue. Themes will be announced exclusively through our newsletters, so make sure to subscribe to stay up to date on the latest tidings from Samjoko Magazine.

We will also like to announce our 12 month indie author challenge. Each year, the number of books that are produced grows exponentially, but the number of book readers is steadily shrinking. We think back to the times when we used to wander library aisles and bookstores, picking out books by authors we’ve never heard of and going on new and unexpected adventures.

We understand that these times have largely left us. Readers are more prone to stick to books someone else has told them about, or judge the quality of a book by the number of reviews it has. Simply choosing a book at random only because it sounds interesting is a dying occurrence, so we here at Samjoko would like to encourage more reading of a wide range of titles. Our 12 month book challenge is aimed at spotlighting indie authors and writing a review of their book. We encourage those who join us in this event to send a review to Samjoko Magazine of 400 words or more so that we can also spotlight the author.

Samjoko Magazine has now released 17 issues, going back to 2021. We hope to continue to expand down the road, so once more we ask to anyone who values publishers who pay writers to Buy Us Coffee or to become a recurring donator on Patreon.

And with that, welcome to 2026!