Are We Eating Each Other Alive in the Indie-Lit World?

Chill Subs co-founder discusses money and profits in indie-lit publishing

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

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Submittable pulls in 36.4 million per year. Reedsy’s estimated annual revenue is 94.4 million. Duotrope brings up the rear with annual revenue of 1-2 million. Meanwhile, the publishing industry is projected to grow to 19.2 billion in the U.S. by 2026. So why is it so common to hear people lament, “There is no money in writing!”

Because there is no money in writing for writers.

It’s odd, isn’t it? There would be no sports without athletes, no concerts without musicians, no movies without actors. All of them get paid well enough, sometimes incredibly well. Even when you account for some well-paid book deals, it pales in comparison. (The average income for authors is below the poverty line ($6,000-$20,000). For reference, athletes avg. $100,000, actors: $65,000, musicians: $57,000). So why, if there would be no stories without writers, is there no money in it for them?

There are countless reasons for this. Rather than over-simplify it to something along the lines of, “THIS IS WHY!” I will contain my enthusiasm by pointing out one of the reasons I believe this happens, specifically within indie lit.

Writers are willing to pay for any hair-line crack at success. Therefore, all mechanisms within the industry have contorted themselves to facilitate it.

We will tolerate abusive marketing tactics, scale ever-rising paywalls, throw money at astronomical odds, and pay buckets for anything we think might give us an edge—all the while recreating a new version of what has been going on for much of writing’s history. That being: a writer’s chance at success exponentially increases based on how much money they already have and whether it allows them the education, time, and connections to succeed.

It is not only the tech and services that have evolved to make money, but certain publishing outlets within the community as well. In Chill Subs’ database, you’ll find 1,200 contest listings. I collected this data manually over two months and here are some things to be aware of. The average fee for a contest is $15-20. The average contest payout (totaling up the prizes) is around $1,500.

Let’s take a closer look at a few popular contests. In 2019, The Masters Review tweeted that they’d received over 2,000 submissions for their Flash Fiction Contest, a yearly contest awarding $3,600 in prizes. This year, the submission fee for this contest is $20. Assuming their submission count is similar, that’ll be $40,000 being run through this one contest.

This is not to slag on The Masters Review in particular. It’s rather to highlight the way in which some magazines operate as businesses. They have teams, marketers, editors, advertising budgets, and owners. The Masters Review is one of several outlets connected by Discover Art LLC, home to the additional publications CRAFT, Frontier Poetry, Palette Poetry, Fractured Lit, Uncharted Magazine, and The Voyage Journal. Most of these magazines have contests.

Now let’s take a look at a big well-established one. The National Poetry Competition. The National Poetry Competition 2022 winners were announced at a live awards event at the Southbank Centre, London on 29 March 2023. There were over 17,800 poems submitted to the 2022 competition from 8,112 poets from 103 countries worldwide. It awarded a total of around £10,000. The fees to enter are outlined on their site as follows: “The first poem in a submission costs £7. Subsequent poems in the same submission cost £5 per poem.” Let’s cut them some slack and say that each poem entered came with a £5 price tag. That’s nearly £90,000. Not bad.

Similarly, Fish Publishing tells contestants how many submissions they received for each of their contests on the announcement pages. Here are those from their latest round. Poetry - 14€ with 2,348 (€32,872), their latest flash 14€ with 1,127 (€15,778), Short memoir - 18 with 879 (€15, 822), and short story - €20 with 1382 (€27,640) submissions. That’s €92,112 (or $100,174.56).

Of course, there are expenses for all of these contests. Advertising, web-hosting, time commitments, salaries. There isn’t one person tucking $100,000 into their pocket and calling it a day. But with thousands of writing contests, we’re looking at millions of dollars being flushed into a never-ending cycle without ever being redirected toward anything other than a bit of prize money for a few writers, but mostly getting more writers to spend more money to submit to more contests.

How about fees? Everyone’s least favorite aspect of the writing world. 409 of the 3000 magazines we list charge fees. The standard fee for a submission is $3 though we’ve seen them go as high as $15 ($25+ for small presses) but let’s stick with $3 and take a look at a few magazines. AGNI charges $3 per submission and average 14,000 submissions per year ($42,000). The Gettysburg Review - $3 with 6,000 submissions ($18,000). Virginia Quarterly Review - $3 with 15,000 submissions ($45,000). You get it. That’s $100,000 flying around among just three magazines. These magazines also receive grants, donations, advertising, sell subscriptions, and each has university affiliations (and not all of them use a paid submissions manager). Money. Is. Everywhere.

This is not even mentioning the thousands spent on advertising with agencies like LitBreaker facilitating 15 million ads in hundreds of outlets, the CLMP charging hundreds per ad plus membership fees, and Poets & Writers plastered with Google Ads for everything from MFA programs to editing software while selling print ads for thousands. Most with one target in mind: you, the writer.

At some point in the past twenty years, a shift happened. Funding was cut, readership declined, costs rose. Rather than trying to innovate, the indie lit world turned inward. Mechanisms to profit off of writers became the norm, the go-to. Want to be published? Pay. Want to meet other writers? Pay. Want to succeed? Pay. Want to study writing at University? That’ll be an arm and a leg. Nom, and nom.

What I am saying is that with so many juicy writers to squeeze for cash, why the hell would any corner of the literary world spend their money targeting readers?

And it’s only going to get worse. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a high school literary magazine (though high schools do pour millions of state funding dollars into sports arenas). Universities have been slashing Humanities budgets (then have televised football games in beautiful stadiums). Outside money is not only sparse but decreasing with each passing decade and nobody is lining up to help. So why wouldn’t companies behave this way?

The worst part? All anyone seems to want to do about this is fight.

I've read so many think-pieces, so many Tweets, so many comments full of blame, explanations, postulating, and targeting (which tends to be all the more nauseating when it comes from people holding $60,000 MFAs with works in top-tier fee-charging magazines). "No, it's your fault!", "No, it's your responsibility!", "You're lazy!", "You're entitled." But most, on all sides, are not ill-intentioned, but frustrated. Writers and editors are partners, siblings in a fucked-up little family. We are expending too much energy on blame rather than on progress.

Meanwhile, those who don't care about any of this can ignore the debates altogether and continue to charge whatever they want with no accountability. (Lit Mag News has reported on several). And those who are truly being fucked by this dynamic aren’t being helped one lick (fees and paywalls only keep rising).

In our corner of the writing world, with all of the money I’ve just talked about, are editors of small journals truly the bad guy? Personally, I don’t think so. Yet so often we end up in a situation where editors, who are often working for free (or at a loss) to create their vision, are the ones duking it out with writers struggling to afford to create their vision.

And all the while, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars are getting passed around above everyone’s heads.

So, outside funding is decreasing. Internal funding is being consistently recycled into getting more writers to pay. The few companies big enough to make change-creating profits have put that money into other industries or settled into the status quo. Here and there a writer makes a few grand in a contest or is paid a few hundred for a story. Through all of this, literary magazines have made little progress in gaining significant recognition from the outside world. And writers continue to pay and pay and pay.

What, then, is the solution?

Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about which venues are putting money back into the literary community and which are extracting resources from it. This may sound difficult, but it’s not.

We can begin by asking questions. When venues charge for services, where is the money going? Are the fees being charged by a venue in order to sustain the venue itself, or are the fees being used for shareholders and profiteers beyond the literary world? Where is the innovation that will sustain the literary community, rather than take money out of it?

Some people and entities who’ve been able to make strides are those passionate indie creators like Erika Dreifus, Writers Beware, Authors Publish, and The Submissions Grinder, who do so at their own expense in order to empower writers while carefully trying to build something ethically sustainable.

Profiting within an industry is one thing (i.e. using money to create positive change). Profiting off an industry is a more pernicious monster that we should learn to recognize and perhaps even overcome.

Here are some other ideas I think might help:

Encourage transparency. Who owns a company? Who runs a magazine or contest? Where does the money go? These are the important questions.

Similar to how a magazine that has no masthead deserves a critical eye, we should also be critical of those who don’t mention what they do with their money. These aren’t publicly traded companies with watchdog organizations to monitor them. We have no checks and balances like other industries do. The best we can do is create an expectation of transparency so people can make informed decisions. (Others working on this: Writers Beware, Lit Mag News, Winning Writers, Erika Dreifus, Authors Publish). (And here is a great article about contests if all that contest money got you nervous.)

Decide what is right for you: Is making money in the writing world a capital offense for all who are not writers? If that’s your philosophy, that’s fair. Authors Publish offers only free no-fee recommendations for journals. We have ‘No Fee’ filters for contests, magazines, and presses. The submission platform Moksha does not allow journals to charge a fee. This is a choice we all may make for ourselves, and nobody else. For example, I am in the camp that all outlets should be able to pay their employees but also have free options for those who can’t afford what is being offered (something we have for our membership). I believe companies who are cynical that people will abuse this are wrong; I also believe most people are willing to pay to support those creating something they love and value.

Rethink funding for magazines. Read, support, purchase magazines. Tell friends. Create local Lit Mag reading groups. The ‘funding/grant’ model is broken. At Chill Subs, we want to create a way for journals to collect donations and sell subscriptions through our platform. Many have this option on their website. Donate what you can. This is often the only way fledgling magazines can stay running.

We will also soon create an affordable submissions manager that doesn’t charge as a magazine grows. And we’re working on a way to help journals present their work beautifully and connect them directly to audiences. (Others working on this: CLMP, Moksha, Oleada, Motif, crowdfunding platforms.)

Reduce pay-to-play costs for writers, and maybe help them make some money. Editors, consider linking to contributors’ books on your magazine site. Celebrate your writers. (Some are very good about this. Others, not so much. Great example: Points In Case). Support their ongoing publications. Help writers earn money from outside sources. Subscribe to newsletters of writers or entities that encourage transparency in the literary world. Substack has made this easier than ever.

As long as we continue down the path we’re on, indie-lit will never find new methods of profit-making. But if we can shift gears, have standards for market participants, and encourage innovative use of funds, we have a chance. The money is out there. The creative energy is here. Let’s try to harness it as a community. It may take a long time. And if we fail spectacularly and the wide world rejects the idea of literary magazines having a place in it, well, we’re all used to rejection.

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