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 This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
| Pay For Play I have mentioned in the past that any publisher that charges you money and also puts some of their own in is a hybrid publisher. And I will say this again: Self-publishing stands head and shoulders above hybrid! I will still always do traditional except under very specific circumstances… Anyway, lately a few Literary magazines have started charging a reading fee. These are legit magazines that have been around, in some cases, for decades, and they have started this practice. The rationale is this: 1) only legitimate authors will submit; 2) it covers costs that print magazines are not covering on their own and through their advertising; 3) those who are selected to get into the magazine will have their money returned; & 4) it is the way the online services are going. (By that, they mean subscription services for programmes you used to buy the disc for.) Some firms say that if you pay they guarantee your submission will be read, whereas if you don’t, your submission will be put at the bottom of the pile and may or may not be read. So you pay for… a guarantee of being read. Not accepted – just read. There is a chance that the new owners of the magazines Asimov's Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction And Fact, The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Must Read Magazines, a subsidiary of Must Read Books, will also start to do this, as apparently some filings have been made. Now, if a not-for-profit company puts out an anthology as a fund-raiser, then charging a nominal amount for submissions I think is acceptable. They are raising money for a cause. And the one I have submitted to only charged $3 (or 3 * $1.20 postage stamps! Seriously). Anyone else… check how your business is run. Unfortunately, there seems to be a normalisation of this. And while authors pay, it will continue. If no-one pays and they only get sub-standard work, then they will quickly go out of business… as Meanjin here in Australia discovered. They became so up-themselves with regard to what they were accepting that they saw themselves as the publication for serious writers, and were charging a $10 reading fee. They went bust earlier this year. Australian writers did not pay the money. It is not for any reason other than to get extra money into their pockets. I still say, despite its increasing prevalence, do NOT pay to play. We are worth more than that. |
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