Reading Fees! Oh No!

Reading Fees! Oh No!

 

Well I’m getting a lot of email from unhappy writers complaining about reading fees. I’ve heard reading fees called amateurish, ridiculous and just stupid. This is in response to magazines like the Mississippi Review charging a $3 for submissions. I think you might see more of this. With the introduction of Submittable it is much easier for small literary magazines (many times with no tech departments) to take money for submissions and contests.

I grew up around race car drivers. Race car drivers are obsessed, you can guess, with racing. They go to the races each week, watch their friends race and spend lots of money to eat and drink in the grand stands. They also spend $1000s per year on their cars. I have family members who are sprint car drivers. Those are the fast little racers that can go over 100 miles an hour in a half mile oval. Cool stuff really. All the drivers I know spend money for tires, gas, repairs, new engines, fire suits, and you name it. One tire on these cars costs $180, and the people I know who race are not wealthy, but they are obsessed. They devote lots of time and energy to the sport. Keep in mind at this level they can only win between $50-$500 per week. Even if they came in first every week, it wouldn’t pay for the cost of racing. They still do it, and yes, you guessed it, they have an entry fee of $30 to $100 per week. They pay the people just for the opportunity to race!

Writers are not like this. The small racing communities around the country are thriving. NASCAR is doing great because of their fanatical race fans. Not so much with writers. Writers are obsessed. They love writing, but that’s about where the comparison stops. Communities of writers that support one another are hard to come by. Check your newspaper for the next poetry reading in your area. Go to it, if you haven’t been before, and you’ll see just a few people there, sometimes a handful watching the people read their work. Even well known poets have trouble getting people to show up, and when they put out a book very few people buy it. Why?

Writers want to get paid for what they do, I understand this. I think they should be paid, but how can a literary magazines pay something to writers when writers won’t buy the magazine, won’t pay a reading fee, and even think it is amateurish to charge an entry fee for a contest that pays a $1000?

I know writers are frustrated by it. There are 1000s of literary magazines out there, and very very few people are making any money off the writing community. Some writers will even tell you. “I don’t read.” Others will say, I only read dead writers. We have 100s of thousands of writers maybe even millions of writers, but they won’t pay to support the community. A few donate money, and this is great, but we need a ground swell of support. If you want to really get paid we all have to be part of something. We all have to go out, buy a literary magazine (buy a couple), go to a reading (take 10 friends), support writing. Go online and find literary magazines and buy T-Shirts. If you want to be a rock star writer you have to put your money where your pen is. I’m not even talking about this site EWR. Forget that for a minute. I’m talking about for once in history creating a community that cares about and supports writers. Can you imagine what it might be like if we all decided to show up one day for our local poetry reading? Imagine if we all decided to buy one literary magazine and one book of poetry or short stories per month. The community would be thriving.

I know writers who have hobbies that they spend more money on than they spend on writing. Writing is supposed to their dream and their career, but they think it is outrageous to pay a $3 reading fee or a $20 contest entry? They spend more on the lottery each week. Writers I know spend more on music, cooking, movies, scuba diving, swimming, the gym, tennis, guitar lessons, decorating their houses, and lawn care than they spend on writing. I know writers who have 2 subscriptions to video game magazines but not one subscription to a literary magazine! They don’t’ even buy Atlantic or the New Yorker.  So they have a dream of writing a book, or they love poetry and fiction, but they won’t cough up $3 dollars for someone to read their work.

Why do literary magazine editors charge for readings? Here is a hypothetical example (that closely follows reality). This editor makes no money at publishing a certain magazine. He may get a small stipend (if it is a university magazine) or he makes zip if it is a private magazine. The editor works another job full time to support himself and his family. He spends maybe 2-5 hours per night for the literary magazine, reading submissions, talking about layout. If it is print time, he’s spending much more time than this. So he checks his email every day. He gets maybe 5-10 submissions. He likes those submissions and is happy to read them. Then he starts to notice that 1 or 2 people are sending 2 or 3 submissions a month. At first he thinks well they will stop this nonsense eventually. If I keep rejecting their poetry filled with hearts and flowers, I’m sure they will realize that we are not going to accept their work, and go away. They do not. More and more people begin to double up. Those writers spent time writing the work, but now they only have to cut- paste-send to submit it. These writers don’t even bother to send cover letters. As the magazine progresses that editor has 10 or 12 people sending 3 submissions a month. It’s sloppy writing many times. They are just basically spamming him with work they didn’t even put much thought into and no cover letter, no bio, no nothing, just bad work, work, work. In the mean time the editor has had to fix his computer 5 times because one of these writers has a virus and keeps sending it to him. So now he has spent maybe 10 maybe 20 hours this month dealing with writers who do not read the magazine. They do not traffic the editor’s site, they don’t buy any merch, and they don’t even bother to send a letter with the submissions. It begins to look very much like these people do not care about writing, just submitting. The editor realizes he can stop these submissions very quickly if he charges a very small fee. So he tells his readers this is what he is going to do. He is going to charge $3. Submittable (his submission system) takes a percentage and 99 cents for every fee he collects. So $3 dollars is about the minimum he can charge and walk away with at least a dollars profit. His readers blow up in a firestorm of anger. People are outraged that this editor, who doesn’t get paid, and spends about 100 hours a month on the magazine/website is going to start charging! Who does he think he is? Those writers need that money for scuba diving lessons and guitar picks!

There are many writers out there who do not respect the idea of community. They are simply putting poetry or short stories in an email and sending it 100s and 100s of times even after it has been published! The editor is getting 100 or 200 submissions per month and less than 100 visits a month on the site. So the editor can now either pack up and go home or he can charge a couple dollar reading fee to stop all the nonsense. Which would you do?

I know there are many amazing writers out there. I know there are many who are devoted to the craft, but we need to try to be devoted to the community of writing too. We need to buy a literary magazine, subscribe to one. We need to go to readings and support other writers. If we want people to take the business of writing seriously, we have to take it seriously too! I know many do, but many more do not.

The same writers who complain about reading fees and contest entry fees are the same ones who never buy the magazine. They have never even heard of the magazine before, but they heard they are giving away $1000 for the best poem, so they want to have a chance at a $1000 with no risk or commitment at all.

If we want a community of writers in the world and on the web we have to be willing to show the world that writing is in fact worth something.  Give up one album, one concert, one month at the gym, your scuba diving lessons, or your guitar picks and pay a few dollars for a reading fee or a contest, and find a literary magazine and buy it! Really, if this is your dream and it’s so important buy 2 and subscribe to at least 1.