Thank you for clarifying your challenges and the complexities of this issue. One barrier is that the US is not a country of readers, and this is reflected in the paucity of commercially successful literary magazines (The New Yorker, and....?) Your thoughts about this?
Sorry, but charging fees is an inherently exploitative and illegitimate practice. When you do that, the author is your customer, not your producer or collaborator, and what you're selling is a writing credit for a writer, not a magazine for a reader. There were so many good little journals out there well before you could conveniently charge a credit card to submit work. We're to believe that you can't survive without it, when they did for decades?
The job of magazine publishers is to find readers and funders. Any business or nonprofit needs to market itself, but editors don't seem to want to do that. So few seem to put more effort into that than they do into justifying their exploitation of authors. This long essay seems to indicate you're no exception. How much effort you've put into this tells me that you know in your heart this isn't justified. You need to rationalize it to yourself.
Given your own accounting of your expenses and your income, it's laughable to say "you" pay your authors. It's your customers--authors who want a shot at being published--who are paying them.
But why bother with all that *work* of marketing a sustainable publication when you and your peers can instead collude to dictate the market (i.e., one that charges your producers for the privilege of you reading us)?
Becky, I'm frankly upset at you giving this crap a platform.
I appreciate the transparency of Christine's essay. I also understand that writing grants is the pits and barely seems useful. That said, as a former Administrator of a non-profit, I also know that there are ways to appeal to the philanthropically-minded that extend beyond the usual sources of money. Our community center survived at some level thanks to a Board of Directors that basically paid for the honor of advising us. We also organized a lot of events. It is exhausting work but that's what being a nonprofit takes. Should magazines be nonprofit? Has anyone considered a more entrepreneurial approach to lit mags? Added to that is the difficulty of the contemporary landscape: lit mags seem to be like islands in a river during the spring melt: losing ground rapidly. There seem to be less serious readers (does anyone really know?), less space for more entrants in the scene. Everyone wants to be a lit mag editor, but no one wants to create a workable business plan. I wish Hypertext well and I thank its Founding Editor for her willingness to tell us about her situation. I still hate pay to play.
Another way to look at author fees is to see them as an expression of who considers the lit magazine valuable. Writers, artists, designers, and editors pay with free labor and fees because they (we) are the ones who believe the slow, steady hum of literary production is necessary to produce the gems. We might even see literature like public education: a free society depends on art and education for every person, not just those who can buy it. If we believe that, then writer fees and editorial contributions of labor tell us who is paying to keep the arts open and available to all. Patreon is a good idea, but it’s likely that any given editor is already so stretched that even the “simple” initiation of a campaign is one hopeful task too many. (I speak as a former small-press editor-publisher.) Editors are not just exhausted; after being told too many times to go it alone, they may need infusions of hope from outside the masthead. Perhaps a writer could negotiate to replace an author fee with volunteer work to start the magazine’s Patreon. Even crazier, maybe veteran groups and literary groups should get together and talk about what it takes to keep people free. But please don’t ask the editor to initiate that meeting. She’s booked til 2034. “God bless us, every one.”
To those of you who commented respectfully and in good faith: I am grateful and I hear your concerns. Whether you agreed or disagreed with my opinions, I thank you for taking time to respond thoughtfully and honestly.
But damnit, I feel compelled to stick up for myself.
I’ve been blogging for a few decades now and, as a woman, I’m used to bullies on comment threads threatening my physically, telling me how to run my business, how to dress, how to write, how to think, how to talk, how to walk, how to parent, how to chew gum, etc. This is nothing new but I was hoping that, on Substack, the discourse would be more respectful.
When you write an opinion piece, you put yourself in a vulnerable position. I get that. I expect disagreement. Hell, I WELCOME disagreement. But when you start insulting me personally, I have to push back. My opinion is not ‘trash’ and I am not ‘lazy.’ This kind of online bullying is why many people don’t speak up. It shuts down good faith discourse. Check yourself. You don’t have to resort to insults and meanness to make a point.
Thank you for this behind the scenes, honest posting about submission fees. I especially appreciated and was saddened to read your account of other well-known publications unable to hang on. I know many people disagree. I do feel there is a difference between nominal submission fees and contest fees. I feel that there are journals that charge exorbitant fees for contest and as a former first reader, I know that hundreds of people enter contests. This is a debate that will continue, as it should - open, polite discourse is free speech. Anyone writing a Substack or any form of self-publishing understands the work that is required to produce quality, build a community, and manage all the balls in the air.
Brilliant accounting of the stark realities Christine. I hope those who are upset by this look at Poetry Magazine and their history. It tracks these same lines. They worked out of a closet and often didn’t have money to even mail the subscriptions to people. They scraped. They almost closed a lot. Then whammo,
the heavens opened and they got a huge endowment that changed EVERYTHING for them.
In a perfect world, the Arts would be funded and writers would be paid decently for their published work. We don't live in that world. Any submission fees I pay are my contribution to sustain a publication in which I would love to see my byline. I am in awe of the many editors who run publications on their own dime.
Well and thoughtfully written. I am always fine with paying a submission fee of reasonable amount. I've stopped sending to some places as the prices have gotten higher.
Thanks for a bit of insight on the publishing world. I have been meaning to publish some of my own work, and now I understand a bit more about the process. Thank you.
Christine: charge away. We all have to eat. You're providing a service. You should be paid for it. Writers have always had to struggle; it's often the same for those who publish writing in small fora. As long as you're not gouging us, charge away--without guilt!
Thank you for clarifying your challenges and the complexities of this issue. One barrier is that the US is not a country of readers, and this is reflected in the paucity of commercially successful literary magazines (The New Yorker, and....?) Your thoughts about this?
Sorry, but charging fees is an inherently exploitative and illegitimate practice. When you do that, the author is your customer, not your producer or collaborator, and what you're selling is a writing credit for a writer, not a magazine for a reader. There were so many good little journals out there well before you could conveniently charge a credit card to submit work. We're to believe that you can't survive without it, when they did for decades?
The job of magazine publishers is to find readers and funders. Any business or nonprofit needs to market itself, but editors don't seem to want to do that. So few seem to put more effort into that than they do into justifying their exploitation of authors. This long essay seems to indicate you're no exception. How much effort you've put into this tells me that you know in your heart this isn't justified. You need to rationalize it to yourself.
Given your own accounting of your expenses and your income, it's laughable to say "you" pay your authors. It's your customers--authors who want a shot at being published--who are paying them.
But why bother with all that *work* of marketing a sustainable publication when you and your peers can instead collude to dictate the market (i.e., one that charges your producers for the privilege of you reading us)?
Becky, I'm frankly upset at you giving this crap a platform.
I appreciate the transparency of Christine's essay. I also understand that writing grants is the pits and barely seems useful. That said, as a former Administrator of a non-profit, I also know that there are ways to appeal to the philanthropically-minded that extend beyond the usual sources of money. Our community center survived at some level thanks to a Board of Directors that basically paid for the honor of advising us. We also organized a lot of events. It is exhausting work but that's what being a nonprofit takes. Should magazines be nonprofit? Has anyone considered a more entrepreneurial approach to lit mags? Added to that is the difficulty of the contemporary landscape: lit mags seem to be like islands in a river during the spring melt: losing ground rapidly. There seem to be less serious readers (does anyone really know?), less space for more entrants in the scene. Everyone wants to be a lit mag editor, but no one wants to create a workable business plan. I wish Hypertext well and I thank its Founding Editor for her willingness to tell us about her situation. I still hate pay to play.
Another way to look at author fees is to see them as an expression of who considers the lit magazine valuable. Writers, artists, designers, and editors pay with free labor and fees because they (we) are the ones who believe the slow, steady hum of literary production is necessary to produce the gems. We might even see literature like public education: a free society depends on art and education for every person, not just those who can buy it. If we believe that, then writer fees and editorial contributions of labor tell us who is paying to keep the arts open and available to all. Patreon is a good idea, but it’s likely that any given editor is already so stretched that even the “simple” initiation of a campaign is one hopeful task too many. (I speak as a former small-press editor-publisher.) Editors are not just exhausted; after being told too many times to go it alone, they may need infusions of hope from outside the masthead. Perhaps a writer could negotiate to replace an author fee with volunteer work to start the magazine’s Patreon. Even crazier, maybe veteran groups and literary groups should get together and talk about what it takes to keep people free. But please don’t ask the editor to initiate that meeting. She’s booked til 2034. “God bless us, every one.”
To those of you who commented respectfully and in good faith: I am grateful and I hear your concerns. Whether you agreed or disagreed with my opinions, I thank you for taking time to respond thoughtfully and honestly.
But damnit, I feel compelled to stick up for myself.
I’ve been blogging for a few decades now and, as a woman, I’m used to bullies on comment threads threatening my physically, telling me how to run my business, how to dress, how to write, how to think, how to talk, how to walk, how to parent, how to chew gum, etc. This is nothing new but I was hoping that, on Substack, the discourse would be more respectful.
When you write an opinion piece, you put yourself in a vulnerable position. I get that. I expect disagreement. Hell, I WELCOME disagreement. But when you start insulting me personally, I have to push back. My opinion is not ‘trash’ and I am not ‘lazy.’ This kind of online bullying is why many people don’t speak up. It shuts down good faith discourse. Check yourself. You don’t have to resort to insults and meanness to make a point.
Thank you for this behind the scenes, honest posting about submission fees. I especially appreciated and was saddened to read your account of other well-known publications unable to hang on. I know many people disagree. I do feel there is a difference between nominal submission fees and contest fees. I feel that there are journals that charge exorbitant fees for contest and as a former first reader, I know that hundreds of people enter contests. This is a debate that will continue, as it should - open, polite discourse is free speech. Anyone writing a Substack or any form of self-publishing understands the work that is required to produce quality, build a community, and manage all the balls in the air.
Brilliant accounting of the stark realities Christine. I hope those who are upset by this look at Poetry Magazine and their history. It tracks these same lines. They worked out of a closet and often didn’t have money to even mail the subscriptions to people. They scraped. They almost closed a lot. Then whammo,
the heavens opened and they got a huge endowment that changed EVERYTHING for them.
In a perfect world, the Arts would be funded and writers would be paid decently for their published work. We don't live in that world. Any submission fees I pay are my contribution to sustain a publication in which I would love to see my byline. I am in awe of the many editors who run publications on their own dime.
Thank you, Christine, for writing this.
Well and thoughtfully written. I am always fine with paying a submission fee of reasonable amount. I've stopped sending to some places as the prices have gotten higher.
Thanks for a bit of insight on the publishing world. I have been meaning to publish some of my own work, and now I understand a bit more about the process. Thank you.
Good stuff
I appreciate this article. It's hard to understand the pressures on literary organizations unless you have an inside perspective.
Christine: charge away. We all have to eat. You're providing a service. You should be paid for it. Writers have always had to struggle; it's often the same for those who publish writing in small fora. As long as you're not gouging us, charge away--without guilt!
I should add that windfall came from a writer who was rejected repeatedly from the magazine. No I don’t know if she paid fees (but fees aren’t new).
This was hugely helpful in its transparency.