Q: How do we spot scammy lit mags & presses (part 1)?

"Blinking lights in no way matching the true thing."

Welcome to our weekend conversation!

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Happy Holiday weekend, everyone.

Here in Philadelphia, Independence Day is a huge deal. There have been fireworks going off every night this week. Last night, July 4th, the display was extraordinary and continued until nearly midnight. After watching the main show over the city’s art museum, we were trailed home by bluish smoke that filled the streets. There were police everywhere to protect the huge concert area, and their cars’ blinking lights were nearly blinding, mentally supplanting the bright dazzle we’d just witnessed up above.

I’m relating this partly to share a bit of my holiday experience with you all. (It was super fun! I am super exhausted!) But also, I think there is a metaphor here when we consider those lit mags and presses that do not serve writers’ best interests.

That is, such entities may look exciting. They offer something that dazzles. They promise to light up the dark expanse within us, that infinite sky where our dreams reside.

Once you start engaging with them, however, what they give you is far from awe-inspiring. They deliver smoke that makes your eyes tear. Blinking lights in no way matching the true thing. Crowds. Garbage. Cheap flashing toys. Bewilderment and exhaustion.

These scammy predatorial entities, we might say, are like the Fourth of July of the lit mag world. Only without the beer, music, family, friends and fireworks—just noise, chaos, litter and environmental damage.

Let’s not fall prey to these false lights, my friends!

Sadly, there is so much to say on this topic that I’m dividing this discussion into two parts. This weekend, the first part will focus on the letters that some lit mags send to submitters and people on their mailing list. Next weekend we will look at signs to look for on the magazines’ and presses’ websites.

Let’s jump in!

Earlier this week we looked at Street Lit. There was a lot to cover with this lit mag as they hit many rungs on the scam-o-meter. This includes an anonymous masthead, no contact information, repeatedly soliciting submissions, charging $5 for general submissions yet not paying writers, plus burying the cost of submissions deep in the submissions form so that it is not readily apparent to submitting writers and so that Submittable classifies the journal as “free to submit,” when it is not.

In addition to that, a writer posted on X the letter they received from this magazine, asking for contributions (highlights the writer’s own):

letter from Street Lit

This letter has so many red flags it’s hard to see the actual words. Let’s go through some of it.

For one, there is a spelling error right in the first sentence. “Litmags” should not be capitalized. I would argue lit mags should always remain two words but I know this is debatable. At any rate, a spelling error from editors, right at the jump, should give any writer pause.

Then they talk about how lit mags come and go. But “gradually, submissions decline…” Uh, I’m sorry, what? Submissions decline over time? Editors can correct me here but I have never, not once, heard of that phenomenon. As lit mags produce issues, bring in talented contributors, promote the work and the magazines, list calls for submissions everywhere possible, submissions should only increase.

If submissions are indeed declining, then that is in no way the responsibility of the writers. Promoting your lit mag is part of running a lit mag.

In the next part of the sentence, they give the game away: When submissions dry up, so does “the income that sustains the myriad fees associated with running an independent lit mag.” Note that they don’t say anything about why most editors decide to create lit mags in the first place. They don’t say, with declining submissions comes a loss of the talent pool, a dwindling supply of beautiful work, a limited opportunity to showcase the exciting voices we seek. No. The loss of submissions means a loss of income for the editors. They want the cash.

Then they say they’re not The Paris Review. They don’t gain “venture capital investments, sponsorships, advertisement fees, nothing.” Venture capital investments? What lit mags are supported by venture capital? As for “sponsorships”—what the heck does that even mean? What entity sponsors lit mags? Are sponsorships even a thing for lit mags? If so, I’m sure a whole lot of journals would love to know about this.

As for “advertisement fees,” sorry to be a stickler here but it should be advertising revenue, not fees. The larger point, however, is that this in no way is the burden of the writer. Your lit mag doesn’t receive advertising dollars? Well go out and find some advertisers! It’s hard, often unpleasant work. I’ve done it myself. It takes a lot of time, a lot of cold-calling, a lot of rejection and a lot of network-building. It is certainly not something any magazine simply “receives.”

If that’s what an editor wants, then they should work to acquire it. At the very least, they should not imply that this is something owed to them and whose lack is the responsibility of writers.

Frankly, there is too much to cover in this letter. I’ll turn it over to you to find other absurdities. I do want to point out one final thing. That is, “No-one is holding a gun to your head.”

Firstly, no one does not have a hyphen. But the much larger red flag is this violent image. It is needlessly graphic and to my mind quite threatening. Yes, obviously no one is holding a gun to my head. Why even say that? Why even put that image in any reader’s mind? Why evoke murder in a solicitation for donations?

Smoke and litter, my friends. Pure smoke and litter.

The next press whose solicitation email I was alerted to recently is Neon Origami. I said I would focus on websites next weekend, but I must share what’s on their homepage/blog, as some red flags are readily apparent. Do you see them?

Neon Origami

Now, here is the letter someone shared with me, from this press to a writer who submitted a book manuscript:

To be clear, it is not entirely uncommon for lit mags to advertise their editing services within rejections. Many of us are not crazy about that, and it can certainly feel inappropriate. The body of a rejection letter is a terrible place to try to sell something. It may also make a writer wonder whether the editors truly consider submissions or if the submissions window is just a vehicle to sell the editors’ services.

That said, it is done, and it’s not always a scam. We do recognize that running lit mags is a constant hustle, and if editors are indeed able to offer good feedback and help writers, then some might argue it makes sense for services to be promoted in this context.

With this letter, however, we’ve got problems. For one thing, there is nothing specific about the work submitted. If an editor is promoting a service for hundreds of dollars, on a book, a project a writer has poured their heart and soul into for possibly years, the editorial observations should be personal and specific. What exactly does the editor see as an area for potential improvement? In what ways is the book close to publishable? On what grounds is this editor claiming “many publishers would be happy to accept it”?

This latter statement is a bit of the old flashy fake fireworks, as it dangles something bright and promising before the writer’s eyes. Really? Just a handful of “right revisions” and MANY PUBLISHERS will be HAPPY? Pretty seductive. But of course, there is no guarantee whatsoever that this is true, especially since we have no idea what those “right revisions” even are.

Personally, I would be suspicious of any editor offering a manuscript consultation for $250. This is indeed “far less than most editors charge.” I don’t know the length of the manuscripts in question here. But editorial feedback on a book? Check Reedsy, where many qualified editors promote their services. The cost is usually in the thousands of dollars. I got a quote recently for a 300-page project from a highly reputable editor. It was $6,500.

When I spoke with this editor about a potential edit of my book, her observations were specific to my work. She had read it, thought about the characters, thought about the book’s major concepts and themes, and had concrete ideas for improvement which could never be suggested to anyone else and were clearly not part of a generic form letter.

I did not hire her, in the end. That figure practically made me weep. But I can tell you that’s what to look for with an editor you might hire for something as important as a book-length project. Or, for that matter, even a single story, a poem, an essay. Namely, why does this editor think your work is close to making publishers “happy”? What specifically do they think could be improved?

Also in this letter, there is that curious last bit: “If you do request feedback and revise your manuscript accordingly, I’ll re-evaluate it for publication. I’ll carefully consider how much you’ve been able to elevate your book when making a final publication decision.”

Huh? What does this even mean? When deciding whether or not to publish a book, they will consider how much the writer has been able to “elevate” it?

This sounds like a wishy-washy maybe-promise to publish the work if the writer pays the fee. But what kind of feedback would they be getting here? And what does it mean, specifically, that they will consider how much the writer has worked on it in order to determine possible publication?

We don’t know. Will we know more after we pay $250? We don’t know that either.

And that is perhaps the biggest sign of problems. If an interaction with any editor has you scratching your head, has your gut squeezing with that something-isn’t-right feeling, has you coming away with more questions than answers, has you feeling uncomfortable, makes you think about being held up at gunpoint, and all this is happening while they ask you for money, it’s okay to walk away.

We know how badly the desire to be published can burn within. We know how hard the work is, how yearning and desperate writers can feel.

But we must keep our wits about us. Fireworks can be beautiful. But sometimes all we are witnessing are flashing cars, loud noise, and smoke.

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What do you think?