Mariner Books executive editor Rakia Clark talks about unlocking the full potential of an author, how writers can shine in the query letter, and effecting meaningful change in the publishing industry.
V. Lee: What do you say when writers ask about trends or are worried about writing into a trend?
R. Clark: I tell them not to worry about it. If it’s good, it’s good. We might both be wearing jeans, but we look different in the jeans because our bodies are different. Just because somebody else has done it, was their version corny? Is your version better? And you have to be honest with yourself about that. I think sometimes writers are trying to avoid trends, but they also don’t have anything new to say about that trend.
It’s not interesting to read something that feels like a summation of other people’s work or a regurgitation of other people’s work. But if I can tell that you’ve engaged with all these other things and then you sat with it for a minute and then you were like, “Well, this is what I think about that.” Or, “What if we sprinkle this other thing in?” Or, “You know what? I’m going to turn this on its head and throw a wrench into this whole conversation.” So you’re talking about the same thing, but the angle on it is new. That’s fun.
PHV Editor Interview Series: Ed Skoog, Poetry Editor of Okey Panky
Here’s something writers don’t like to think about: taxes. But maybe that’s because we don’t get GOOD news about taxes very often.
That’s about to change.
So: let me back up. It’s been a while, but I’m so happy to be back in the saddle of the Editor Interview Series! This time around I’ve spoken with Ed Skoog, the poetry editor of the relatively new weekly online magazine Okey Panky.
And although this series exists primarily to serve as a resource for people who are considering starting a poetry market or existing publishers interested in potentially becoming a paying market, I was really happy that this interview with Ed also offered some practical advice for writers themselves.
And here’s where taxes come in. While none of us need real incentive to get paid for our poetry, so many of us don’t think it’s a big deal. But Ed has some advice otherwise, noting: “If you are paying attention to your taxes, the slight payment does help establish credibility that your writing is a business, if you choose to claim it, which can allow you to write off some professional things like books and computers and paper clips.”
So get deducting, poets! And, of course, enjoy the interview with Ed Skoof of Okey Panky, below.
STATS:
Magazine: Okey Panky
Interviewee, Name + Title: Ed Skoog, Poetry Editor
Payment for Poetry: $100 per publication (usually 3 poems)
Submission Fee: None
Funding Source(s): Non-profit parent organization, Electric Literature
Advice on paying writers: If literary magazines made any money, they could pay contributors. If anyone figures out how to increase paying readership for literary magazines, let everybody know.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
Who Are You?
Ed Skoog, poetry editor, Okey-Panky
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
Okey-Panky is a weekly online magazine of short, darkly comic, ironic, and experimental fiction, essay, poetry, and graphic narrative. We publish something new every Monday morning. We are a subsidiary of Electric Literature.
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?
It’s the right thing to do, and it encourages writers to send us their best work, to be a first-try, perhaps.
What are the funding sources for your magazine?
Okey-Panky is a subsidiary of Electric Literature, a non-profit dedicated to amplifying the power of storytelling through digital innovation, whose mission is to ensure that literature remains a vibrant presence in popular culture by fostering digital innovation, supporting writers, building community, and broadening the audience for literary fiction.
What does your journal pay for accepted poems?
$100 for publication, which is usually three poems.
What is your acceptance rate for poetry? Do you think the number of submissions you receive is affected by your pay model?
We only publish work by twelve poets a year, and we receive hundreds of submissions during our two short submission periods. I think about half of the poems have come through submissions, but we are still a new publication and it’s hard to say what our natural rhythms are. I can’t tell from the submissions and cover letters whether the pay is part of the consideration to submit; nobody’s ever mentioned it. But it certainly has helped the percentage of solicitations becoming actual submissions.
If your journal charges for submission fees, tell us why you chose that route, how it’s worked out and what you think about that system:
We do not charge a submission fee, but we do limit submissions to two periods a year.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?
We do not receive any financial compensation ourselves. Only our contributors.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation, and that can be true, especially for young or emerging writers. How do you feel about exposure as payment?
Exposure is not payment, but payment at the modest levels that poetry receives isn’t really payment either. It is a gesture. If you are paying attention to your taxes, the slight payment does help establish credibility that your writing is a business, if you choose to claim it, which can allow you to write off some professional things like books and computers and paper clips. I suspect that many writers and small publishers are not taking advantage of the slight opportunities provided by the tax code.
The Poetry Has Value project was created to spark conversation about poetry, money and worth, since it seems taboo to consider poetry in terms of financial compensation. Why do you think this taboo exists?
To prevent crying. The fact is, devoting your life to poetry is equal, financially, to setting your house on fire every few years.
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now? Whether as writers, editors, readers or just people: what can we concretely do to work toward a system that compensates poets for their work?
Who knows? If literary magazines made any money, they could pay contributors. If anyone figures out how to increase paying readership for literary magazines, let everybody know.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately?
“Push,” by Michael Torres
(photo credit: Matthew Dickman)
Ed Skoog is the author of Mister Skylight, Rough Day (winner of the 2014 Washington State Book Award) and the forthcoming Run the Red Lights, all published by Copper Canyon Press. He has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, George Washington University, Bread Loaf Writers Conference and Hugo House. He co-hosts the podcast Lunch Box, with Ed and John with the novelist J. Robert Lennon, and is also the poetry editor of Okey-Panky, He lives in Portland, Oregon.
PHV Interview Series: George David Clark, Editor of 32 Poems
George David Clark is an all-around good guy. That’s really nice to see in the poetry world, isn’t it? More importantly, though, he’s incredibly thoughtful about the workings and philosophies of the 32 Poems, and that really shows in the recent interview I did with him about the magazine’s relationship to money.
In fact, David (as he’s known in daily life) made me think about something that--in these many months of running Poetry Has Value--I never really considered. We’ve talked about reading/submission fees a lot here at PHV, so perhaps it’s strange that I never thought of this tidbit of truth he dropped:
“There may not be another art form that requires less of a financial investment from its practitioners. Painters buy canvas and paint, musicians purchase their instruments, but poets need only a pencil and paper. In terms of training costs, the better grad programs fully fund their writing students. A poet could pay fifty reading fees a year for three years and still not spend as much as one does buying a good guitar.”
And while he continues on to empathize with and lament the lack of payment in the poetry world, it is true that some early investment in one’s art might go a long way in helping *us*, as practitioners, realize its value...even if the world doesn’t. (Well, not in the form of compensation, anyway.)
So, read the heartfelt, thoughtful and very smart interview below. And, as always, please comment and share widely so we can continue this wonderful conversation about poetry, money and worth.
STATS:
Magazine: 32 Poems
Interviewee, Name + Title: George David Clark, Editor
Payment for Poetry: $25
Submission Fee: $3 for electronic submissions; free by post
Funding Source(s): Subscriptions/Submission Fees
Advice on paying writers: Paying our poets is one more way for us to stand out as a place that cherishes poems and curates them with special care.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
Your name, your journal, your position with the journal:
George David Clark (David), 32 Poems, Editor-in-Chief
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
32 Poems is printed twice a year and distributed internationally with subscribers across the US and in about twenty foreign countries. Each issue includes 32 shorter poems, most of them under a page in length. We publish no critical prose whatsoever in the print issues, just the poems and brief author bios, and we hope that minimalist focus allows us to foster an intimate, unhurried reading experience that lavishes as much attention as possible on each individual poem.
We are not limited to a particular school or style of poetry, but we do tend to favor work that is keenly aware of its form and that avails itself of a variety of sonic resources. We prefer free verse that remains attentive to rhythm and metered verse that complicates its patterning of stress with a variety of other effects as well.
In our thirteen years, 32 Poems has showcased many of the most-recognized poets currently writing in English, including Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, MacArthur Genius Grant winners, Poets Laureate, and recipients of the other major honors in American letters. The journal also prides itself on championing talented writers early in their careers and has, on several occasions, featured poets appearing in print for the first time. Our emerging poets have gone on to earn such honors as “Discovery”/The Nation Prizes, National Poetry Series Prizes, Ruth Lilly Fellowships, Stegner Fellowships, Walt Whitman Prizes, and many other book prizes, fellowships, and awards. Work first appearing in 32 Poems can be found frequently reprinted in the Best American Poetry and Best New Poets series, on such “best of” sites as Verse Daily and Poetry Daily, and in a wide variety of anthologies. Selections from 32 Poems have also been made into short films and recited by high school students in the national Poetry Out Loud Contests.
Perhaps I should also mention that while it’s just the poetry in the physical journal, we also want to host a larger conversation about contemporary poetry through our website. To that end we began publishing regular prose features online in 2013 and these reviews, essays, and interviews have themselves been reprinted in collections of essays and criticism and in such series as the Poetry Daily Prose Feature. We also partner with teachers of creative writing through a program called 32 Classrooms in which our editors introduce students to the craft of literary editing, discuss work featured in a recent issue, and invite student contributions to the ongoing discussions on the 32 Poems blog.
We’re independent, so while I teach at a college and our physical address is there on campus, we receive nothing more than that mailbox from the institution. None of our editors receive course reductions or financial compensation for their work. Really it’s the generosity of our readers (many of whom have subscribed for over a decade) that keeps us afloat. They deserve the credit for 32 Poems, they and the associate editors who do the largely thankless work of reading, simply because they love finding great poems in the slush pile and championing them as loudly as they can.
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?
We want to communicate to our contributors and our readers that this work is valuable. Really, our payment is miniscule, only $25 a poem (though we hope to increase that soon), but we feel it is important to send a check of some size with contributor’s copies. We also see this as a way to make ourselves more competitive for poets’ best work. There are so many journals out there that it’s awfully easy to get lost in the crowd. Paying our poets is one more way for us to stand out as a place that cherishes poems and curates them with special care.
What are the funding sources for your magazine?
About three quarters of our income comes from subscriptions, with the other 25% collected from readings fees for online submissions. (We accept work submitted through the mail free of charge.) While we do have a link for donations on our website, we’re not very good about asking for money and only very rarely does that page get any traffic. If our subscriptions dropped significantly we would no longer be able to print the journal and if we didn’t collect reading fees, we wouldn’t be able to pay contributors.
What does your journal pay for accepted poems?
$25
What is your acceptance rate for poetry?
Duotrope says we’ve taken .25% of the work tracked through their system, but they acknowledge that their estimates tend to run high. The last time I ran our numbers we were closer to a .1% acceptance rate.
Do you think that acceptance rate is in any way affected by your pay model?
I do, but probably not in a way one could easily track. Our submission volume and the quality of those submissions are also affected by our online reading fee.
Based on my experience with other journals, I think we have one of the most competitive slush piles around. Surely part of this is due to our pay model, but our quick response times also play a role, and the reading fee tends to discourage weaker, carpet bombing campaigns. We fill most issues with work drawn entirely from the slush pile and as a general rule I only solicit if we’re still lacking a couple poems when the deadline looms.
If your journal charges for submission fees, tell us why you chose that route, how it’s worked out and what you think about that system:
I have thought about this question a lot and, while I have answered most of it already above, I’ll add here that I like the idea of a (very) low hurdle in the submission process itself. We want something that encourages the poet to pause for a moment and ask if they really believe their work is right for us. That may be a small reading fee or it may be the mild inconvenience of printing work out and submitting through the mail. (It was important to me that we still offer some way to submit free of charge, and of course we also accept free submissions electronically from subscribers.)
I know some poets will refuse on principle to pay even $2 or $3 to submit and I can understand that position, even if I think it’s misguided. Perhaps the general lack of compensation has encouraged us to believe that if we aren’t being paid, we shouldn’t have to incur any costs associated with the production and promotion of our work.
On the other hand, there may not be another art form that requires less of a financial investment from its practitioners. Painters buy canvas and paint, musicians purchase their instruments, but poets need only a pencil and paper. In terms of training costs, the better grad programs fully fund their writing students. A poet could pay fifty reading fees a year for three years and still not spend as much as one does buying a good guitar. That poet will also be helping support her peers through those fees. Ultimately, I think it’s healthy (both for the field and for the poems themselves) when artists, especially younger artists, invest something tangible, even only a couple of dollars, in their own work. It’s a way that the submitter can assert that their work has value upfront.
Those who object to reading fees tend to voice their objections loudly, but I think they’re really a small minority. We get more submissions now than we did when we accepted fee-free email submissions in 2011-12 and the extra inch of cushion in our budget has allowed us to do so much more to support our contributors.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?:
No, our editors are not compensated for their work. Actually, I think we all lose money on 32 Poems. Our editors pay their own way to AWP and other conferences where they represent the journal and we’ve often funded special promotional efforts out of our own pockets.
We simply don’t have the money for any alternative and our thinking is that 32 Poems exists for the poets and poems it features, not for its editors.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation, and that can be true, especially for young or emerging writers. How do you feel about exposure as payment?
I agree that publication can be a form of compensation in and of itself, certainly the opportunity to appear in my favorite journals alongside my favorite contemporary poets means much more to me than any money I might be paid. I don’t think “exposure” is the right word though; most of us could find more readers by posting our poems to Facebook than we can by publishing in print. But strong journal publications also make writers competitive for other opportunities: fellowships, residencies, scholarships, etc. And perhaps more importantly, journal publication gives us access to editors who can improve our poems and champion them to readers. There are non-paying journals that I submit to primarily because I admire their editors and I know, whether the work is accepted or not, that I am likely to learn something from their assessment. Really, I don’t think anyone would say the only reason they are submitting to a journal is for the possible payment.
Along those lines, what is your journal's readership, as far as you know?
We distribute around a thousand copies of each issue, but increasingly readers come to us online where we share extensive selections from the print issues. We’re also always exploring new ways to develop our virtual community—to build a conversation around the poems—so we do a lot on the website (through our marginalia series and through a partnership with teachers called 32 Classrooms) to increase both exposure and the depth of our readers’ engagement with the work.
The Poetry Has Value project was created to spark conversation about poetry, money and worth, since it seems taboo to consider poetry in terms of financial compensation. Why do you think this taboo exists (if you do)?
I think a lot of us are embarrassed by the profound indifference of our culture to our art. We want to think of poetry as a vocation, even an artistic “career”, but the economics of this life remind us that by most definitions what we do is merely a “hobby”, and not a particularly cool one. We make this thing that we believe is incredibly powerful and beautiful, but few people want it and even fewer are willing to pay for it. If we think about it in those terms (and conversations about money make it hard not to), we’re going to be discouraged. Better to concentrate on those other non-monetary measures of value and then celebrate the affirmation of a check whenever one does come along.
What advice would you give to those starting a literary magazine who don’t plan to pay writers? What about to those starting a literary magazine who do plan to pay writers?
I wonder if one part of the problem is that there are too many literary magazines out there already. The poetry community’s resources, human and economic, are terribly scattered. To anyone who is considering starting a new magazine, I would encourage you to ask yourself honestly if there is really a need for the journal you have in mind. Will you be doing something different, charting some new place in the literary landscape? If not, well, every week Duotrope’s newsletter lists a half dozen start-ups and another half-dozen magazines that have folded. On the other hand, if your desire is simply to edit and encourage good work, you might simply seek out existing journals you respect and look for opportunities to join their teams. Good journals need the renewal of good editorial help.
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now? Whether as writers, editors, readers or just people: what can we concretely do to work toward a system that compensates poets for their work?
I don’t know…. I think those of us who are teachers should be working to develop not only younger writers, but also a larger community of poetry readers. Business people, architects, athletes, engineers who read poetry. And really all poets should be teachers in one way or another. We need to be sharing the poems we most admire with non-poets, not just our social media echo chamber, and we should be willing and able to discuss and explicate what we share. The world needs us to articulate where the pleasure lies in language.
Honestly though, the best poetry places enormous demands on a reader’s intellect and feeling, and as long as our culture suffers from a deficit of attention, it’s hard to imagine a system that could compensate poets much better than the one we have now. We are just not a patient and thoughtful people. Most evenings it does seem there is little to be done, but I also feel as though I may have done some small thing any time I turn off the TV and pick up a book or a journal. Tonight it’s going to be Diane Suess’s Four-Legged Girl and the new Southern Poetry Review.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately?
This past spring we published an incredible lyric by Chad Abushanab that has been on my mind again in recent days. “Halloween” is a poem that begs to be memorized; it’s so sonically interesting you will find yourself chanting its lines at odd points in the day, but even more importantly it’s a poem that risks real sentiment. The conceit of Halloween dress-up and pretend belies the tragedy of our parents’ seemingly irresistible models. And like Larkin’s “This Be the Verse”, the brilliance of Abushanab’s poem lies, in part, in its ability to transcend simple criticism of the father and implicate the poem’s speaker as well. I won’t forget this one any time soon.
George David Clark is the author of Reveille, winner of the Miller Williams Prize, and his most recent poems appear or are forthcoming in AGNI, The Believer, Blackbird, FIELD, Yale Review, Verse Daily, and Poetry Daily. The editor of 32 Poems and an assistant professor at Washington & Jefferson College, he lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and their three young children.
PHV Interview Series: Brianna Van Dyke & Kristin George Bagdanov, Editor-in-Chief / Poetry Editor of Ruminate
I usually write long introductions to these editor interviews because they spark so much thought that, to me, is really valuable for the Poetry Has Value project. This particular interview with the editors of Ruminate –while useful in similar ways–also left me a bit speechless. The intelligent, practical and, well, real way the editors articulate the struggles with and importance of sound business focus in the poetry world was so important for me to read. And I think it’s important for you to read, too. We could all use a little more straight talk and, perhaps, a little less fear that we’re ruining our art when we try to perceive the many ways it’s valuable, including economically.
Anyway, I’ll just leave you with this excerpt that blew me away:
“I think the first step in figuring out how to amend conceptions of value in the arts sector begins with artists valuing their own work and the work of other artists. If we don’t even attempt to do that in a way that the larger economy recognizes (ie, $$), then this unsustainable self-destructive cycle of the artist producing solely for the “love” of the art will become less and less tenable, especially those who do not come from a privileged economic background.”
The rest of the interview with Brianna Van Dyke and Kristin George Bagdanov of Ruminate follows…
STATS:
Magazine: Ruminate Magazine
Interviewee, Name + Title: Brianna Van Dyke, Editor-in-Chief and Kristin George Bagdanov, Poetry Editor
Payment for Poetry: $15/poem and contributor copies
Submission Fee: none for regular submissions
Funding Source(s): Entry fees for contests, subscriptions and single copy orders, and donations (we are a 501c3 nonprofit).
Advice on paying writers: Three steps: Start small; don’t re-invent the wheel; study your business model.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:
Your name(s), your journal, your position with the journal, journal website:
Brianna Van Dyke, Editor-in-Chief and Kristin George Bagdanov, Poetry Editor / Ruminate Magazine
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
Kristin George Bagdanov (KGB): We’re an independent journal, so we don’t have any subsidies to keep us afloat, which definitely adds a challenge to paying contributors and staff. In terms of genre or type of poetry, I think my editorial vision best describes what I’m looking for:
Ruminate’s mission is to chew on “life, faith, and art.” The emphasis on process in this digestive metaphor is central to my own vision for Ruminate’s poetry. I do not seek poems that are fully digested or those that have been carelessly spit up. Poems suitable for Ruminate are those that enact this churning meditation, that break open their own fibrous structure to ask whether they can do anything other than ask, repeatedly, what they are for. To that end, I’m not interested in poems that leave the reader at peace—only a precarious peace at best—or poems that postulate and prove their premise by the end of the fourth stanza, that know what form they will take before they begin. I’m wary of these poems for the same reason I’m wary of any faith that can exhibit such unrelenting confidence. I am interested in poems that listen to their own chewing—the humming inside their bodies charted by the line of the poem in whatever form that demands. I’m interested in poems that reach toward God, toward mystery, toward “other” not by naming them as such in the poem, but through the gesture of that reaching. To publish poems that do otherwise, poems that want us believe that the bread has been broken rather than is breaking, that all has been consumed and finished, are not poems that match the yearning in Ruminate’s mission. Rather, we need poems that exist in the space between the crumbs of hope that keep us writing and reaching, poems necessitated by gnawing stomachs that tell us there is so much left to devour, that there is so much left we cannot.
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?
Brianna Van Dyke (BVD): Our vision for our magazine has always been to create a sustainable business, which includes paying our staff and our writers. We believe in the work we’re doing and the writing we’re publishing, which is why we want Ruminate to last. And in order to do so, it needs to be sustainable. This is why we focus a lot of our attention on the business side of the magazine–working to grow our readership and circulation, our contest entries, and our donations. This past year we did a redesign of our renewal campaigns, and we’ve been focusing a lot of energy on improving our subscriber retention rate.
BVD: $15/poem plus two contributor copies or a half year subscription.
What is your acceptance rate for poetry? Do you think that acceptable rate is in any way affected by your pay model?
KGB: Last year, we had an acceptance rate of 4% for regular poetry submissions.
Do you think the number of submissions you receive is affected by your pay model?
KGB: We don’t have any quantitative data on this, but I think the magazine’s growth overall, in terms of submissions and subscriptions, likely corresponds to the fact that we are getting not only more submissions, but higher quality submissions. I say “higher quality” because I think more people who consider themselves to be “professional writers” view payment as a determining factor for which journals they’re going to entrust their work to.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?
BVD: Like our goal to increase our payment to contributors, we are working toward paying our staff more. Right now, we have two full-time staff members who are paid part-time wages and about 10 volunteer staff members who receive an occasional token stipend. Overall, we are primarily volunteer-powered, and we’ve realized this just isn’t sustainable. So our goal in the next year is to have 2-3 full-time staff members.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation. How do you feel about exposure as payment?
KGB: Well, it’s definitely an important part of payment, but we think you can do both. We try to provide extended exposure for our writers on top of actual monetary compensation. We ask for our contributors’ Twitter and Instagram handles so that we can promote them via social media. We do our best to share news about our contributors’ books, nominate them for Best New Poets and Pushcart prizes, and pretty much try to keep them involved in our little community long after they’re published. This isn’t merely about exposure, but also about the relationship we form with our contributors, which we see as beneficial for ourselves (we get to know a lot of really cool writers) as well as for the poets we publish. Nothing makes us happier than meeting up with a contributor at AWP or getting their book reviewed in our magazine.
Along those lines, what is your journal’s readership, as far as you know ?
BVD: Our current readership per quarterly issue is 3,700. Our website averages around 4,000 unique visitors per month.
The Poetry Has Value project was created to spark conversation about poetry, money and worth, since it seems taboo to consider poetry in terms of financial compensation. Why do you think this taboo exists (if you do!)?
KGB: It’s hard to fight the feeling that discussions of economy and worth sully the “pure” art of poetry, but I’ve come to realize that it’s naive and irresponsible to withdraw from these conversations. I’ll lean on Andrew Ross’s “The Mental Labor Problem,” which already does an exceptional job unpacking labor issues in the arts. In his essay, Ross discusses how artists often feel pressure to “discount the price of their labor for the love of their craft.” Because we poets see writing as more than merely a job, we are vulnerable to being taken advantage of by a society that capitalizes upon cheap or free labor. Academics (particularly adjuncts), women (especially women who work in the home “for free”), people who work for non-profits or causes they “believe in,” etc. often fall prey to allowing themselves be undervalued as well. Ross continues: “it is fair to say that the largest subsidy to the arts has always come from the workers themselves…largely because of the artists’ traditions of sacrifice, it often appears to spur them on in ways that would be regarded as self-destructive in any other economic sector.” I think the first step in figuring out how to amend conceptions of value in the arts sector begins with artists valuing their own work and the work of other artists. If we don’t even attempt to do that in a way that the larger economy recognizes (ie, $$), then this unsustainable self-destructive cycle of the artist producing solely for the “love” of the art will become less and less tenable, especially those who do not come from a privileged economic background.
What advice (whether concrete, logistical, philosophical or all three) can you offer editors who would like to switch their journal from a non-paying model to a paying model?
BVD: I’ve studied the magazines that do pay their writers and their editors to try to figure out how they have made it work. I’ve looked at all sorts of indie magazines and have found more business insight from say, a small indie craft and design magazine, than most literary magazines. Sun Magazine is my favorite example of a sustainable, independent literary magazine. And one thing I’ve noticed in my research is that it seems to take at least one full-time staff person to really focus on the magazine and the business side of things. If all the staff members have other full-time jobs and can only give the magazine a few hours of time and attention each week, I don’t think you’ll ever get to a financial place where you can consistently pay your writers.
The other thing we did is we started out small and just kept growing the contributor payments. I think we started with $7/per poem and then every year we’ve increased that amount.
Are there any particular resources you suggest editors who hope to pay writers check out?
BVD: Check out sustainable magazines and see what they’re doing right. Try to find a magazine with a similar business model to yours–affiliated with a university, independent, nonprofit, grant funded, etc. It’s good to remember that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel here. Also, I recommend taking some business classes if you don’t have much business experience.
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now? Whether as writers, editors, readers or just people: what can we concretely do to work toward a system that compensates poets for their work?
KGB: This is a hard one. Some of the best answers I’ve heard have to do with being a “literary citizen”–so taking a break from self promotion to support the work of fellow writers. Personally, I try to choose a handful of new literary journals to purchase each year. In fact, I started an annual blog “Literary Magazines You Should Read (other than Ruminate),” to try and help promote other journals out there that are doing good work. You can read the blogs for 2014 and 2015.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately?
KGB: Excerpts of our recently released issue 35, “A Loss for Words,” features several talented poets, including PHV’s own Jessica Piazza! You can read an excerpt online and order a digital or paper copy. We’re sort of bibliophiles in terms of the made thing, so if you haven’t held an issue of Ruminate in your hands, we’d really recommend ordering a paper copy! It smells really good, too (is that weird to say?).
Brianna Van Dyke is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruminate. She loves Annie Dillard, hoppy beer, the ocean, and barbeques along the Poudre River. Brianna lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband and their two children. She also enjoys leading retreats in the Ruminate Barn and taking retreats, too.
Kristin George Bagdanov recently earned her M.F.A. in poetry from Colorado State University and is currently a PhD student in literature at U.C. Davis. Her poems have recently appeared in or are forthcoming from Cincinnati Review, The Laurel Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Juked, and Mid-American Review. She is the poetry editor for Ruminate Magazine. More of her work can be found at www.kristingeorgebagdanov.com.
PHV Interview Series: Denise R. Weuve, Founder / Editor of Wherewithal
Out latest editor interview is with Denise R. Weave of the relatively new literary magazine Wherewithal. Like the first editors we interviewed at Poetry Has Value - Nicole Brewer and William Kemp of (parenthetical) - Denise pays for her magazine out of her own pocket, hoping to eventually make enough revenue to break even or make a profit.
This system of personal funding of journals is something we increasingly see in the lit mag world, especially with the advent and exploding popularity of online magazines, which are somewhat cheaper and easier to get off the ground than print ventures. But this sparks some serious debate, too, doesn’t it? How do we feel about a world where so many literary magazines exist only because their editors can fund them though day job salaries? How do we justify a world where the magazines can’t support themselves?
Now, let’s back up. We can potentially see what the editors of these magazines gain, of course, because being a vibrant part of the community and conversation of poetry is a beautiful thing. And surely on an individual level the readers of these magazines gain the joy of whatever poems those editors choose, which hopefully are fantastic. But - and this is a serious question - what does the poetry world at large gain? Would those writers just send to other journals and eventually get the same poems into the world another way? Do these magazines get read and appreciated enough to make sense?
I don’t know. I really don’t have an answer, but I definitely think it’s time (on this site, and in general) to start examining some of the bigger picture questions about the value of poetry magazines, especially in such numbers, and the way the system is serving, or not serving, the poetry world.
For now, though, let’s appreciate those editors who spend their own, hard-earned money trying to make sure we have amazing new poetry to read each month...including Denise R. Weuve, Founder and Editor of Wherewithal:
STATS:
Magazine: Wherewithal
Interviewee, Name + Title: Denise R. Weuve, Founder/Editor
Payment for Poetry: $10 a poem (until we can afford more)
Submission Fee: None
Funding Source(s): Me, and my teacher’s salary
Advice on Paying Writers: Just make sure you can afford what you do.
INTERVIEW:
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
Wherewithal is a poetry journal created out of a simple love for poetry. All of the people that have signed on as editors, readers, and designers are all poets in their own right. Damn great poets in my opinion. We have no affiliation to a university or any other institution, just to ourselves, and to making sure we publish the best damn poetry sent to us.
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?
After the first issue I realized that when deciding what poems went in the magazine I had strict criteria:
I wanted to read the poem I took and be jealous I did not write it
The poem had to make me want to read and reread it, and discover layers.
I wanted the poem to make me feel like it respected the art and craft of poetry.
I wanted to feel like I would pay to read a book by this poet.
Add that last question to the fact that I am paying for submittable, advertising, and a website, it just seemed stupid not to pay for the work I was putting on the website, which was the reason people were coming to the magazine.
What are the funding sources for your magazine?
I am the funding source of my magazine. I’m a teacher, so it is not easy, but it is worth it.
Wherewithal conducted a contest in hopes of generating some money. It ran until July 6th with a prize of $200. There was an $8.00 entry fee for 3 poems. Honestly, I was simply hoping for enough entries to cover the prize.
What does your journal pay for accepted poems?
$10.00 per poem
What is your acceptance rate for poetry?
Our acceptance rate according to us is about 5% of all the poems we get, and according to duotrope under 3%.
Do you think that acceptance rate is in any way affected by your pay model? Do you think the number of submissions you receive is affected by your pay model?
I really do not think the pay model at all affects the acceptance ratio, but oddly enough the submissions dropped when we started paying by 23%. I don’t quite understand that, and was really shocked. Perhaps poets don’t think their work has value because we have been trained to think it doesn’t.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?
Good point; I don’t pay the staff, and I don’t make anything. In the end I simply never thought about it, but I do not have the money to pay the staff and the poets. Hopefully they are enjoying the magazine and knowing their part in getting such great work to the public is satisfying enough.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation, and that can be true, especially for young or emerging writers. How do you feel about exposure as payment?
Well, it’s true, exposure is payment at most magazines. I don’t fault them. I understand how expensive it is to run a magazine, online and in print. I am spending over $3000 a year just to run the magazine and have an annual contest and an annual print issue. It’s hard, so I do not fault those who don’t pay, but I guess I just thought more should be given to the poet than exposure.
Along those lines, what is your journal's readership, as far as you know (print and online stats, if applicable)?
As far as readership, it’s always sort of hard to figure out with tracking on journals, but we have been averaging more than a 1000 views a month. Hopefully when the first issue is printed this summer we will reach far more.
What advice can you offer editors who would like to switch their journal from a non-paying model to a paying model?
Honestly, if you have been a long-standing magazine the only new thing will be cost and if you have the ability to pay, you should. Just make sure you can afford what you do. The reason I started with $10 per poem is simply to make sure I can afford it. When the magazine becomes larger or I get a raise at my real life job (teacher) then I will increase payment.
What advice would you give to those starting a literary magazine who don’t plan to pay writers?
Prepare for hours upon hours of work that you did not think about. It’s not simply reading poems and saying yes or no. It is so much more. Artwork, layout, contributors’ pages, links (if you are online), labeling envelopes if you’re a print magazine.
The Poetry Has Value project was created to spark conversation about poetry, money and worth, since it seems taboo to consider poetry in terms of financial compensation. Why do you think this taboo exists?
Our society as a whole gives very little value to the idea of art as a career. It’s superfluous to most, though for the artist and those who love it, it is the essence of breath and life. Unfortunately, those who love poetry happen to be the ones supporting poetry...and they’re mostly poets. We don’t make much money, and we use what extra we have on poetry, so it has a stay in the family feel. Well, a stay in the poor family!
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now?
One of the things poets can do is simply not submit to magazines that aren’t paying. It sounds petty, and I love the magazines that didn’t pay and took my work when I started (and still today) but if you want the system to change, change yourself first. I think I’m a writer whose work has value, and if I’m going to stand by that then I have to make that move and only submit to paying markets. However, I have a lot of friends that run magazines that don’t pay, and they are doing it out of a love for poetry. I would hate to see those go away. So in the end, I don’t have an answer or advice to change the system.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately?
This is from our first issue and still one of my favorites. It is The Cartography of Alice by Erin Elizabeth Smith.
Denise R. Weuve is a Pushcart Prize Nominee whose work has appeared in San Pedro River Review, HEArt Journal, South Coast Poetry Journal, Four Chambers and several other journals along with anthologies such as "What’s Your Sign?" and "Self-Portraits." Several of the poems from her book, “The Truck Driver’s Daughter” (ELJ Press, 2014) are on display at the New York University’s Library as part of the Riot Grrrl compilation and Art Archive. Her poetry has been recognized with awards from Sheila-Na-Gig Journal, A Kind Of Hurricane Press, South Coast Poetry Journal, and Donald Drury Award. She is founder and head editor of Wherewithal, and is a poetry editor for Cease, Cows!, voted a top 10 new literary journal. Currently, she attends Queens University of Charlotte, where she will receive her MFA this coming January.
PHV Interview Series: Kelly Davio, Poetry Editor and Publisher, Tahoma Literary Review
Today at Poetry Has Value we talk to Kelly Davio, Poetry Editor and Publisher of Tahoma Literary Review, a new(ish) literary magazine out of the Puget Sound area. I first ran across Kelly’s name and stance on paying writers in this interview at The Review Review. Along with co-editors Yi Shun Lai and Joe Ponepinto, Kelly answered questions about TLR’s ideology on the importance of paying writers, and I was blown away.
An excerpt from Kelly’s interview:
Something Joe and I talked about a great deal in the formation stages of Tahoma is the fact that literary work has been slowly but seriously devalued. There’s the problem of retailers like Amazon driving down prices to unreasonable levels, but there’s also the problem of writers feeling compelled, obligated, even, to work for free because of dwindling resources, declining readership, and steadily rising costs at literary journals.
As writers, editors, and publishers, we could rail against Amazon’s business practices—and yes, sometimes we do!—or we could create a venue in which we do something about the problem. Are we changing the world? Probably not, but we’re making a small stand for creative writing.
Of course, I was all like: YES, YES and YES. This whole project has taught me nothing if not that small changes and big gestures at changing the conversation can, in fact, make a difference. A little research revealed that the editors at Tahoma Review have been big public proponents of compensating writers, so I knew I had to talk with them here.
I remain in awe of TLR’s philosophy on running a magazine, and on the business savvy they demonstrate in being willing and able to pay writers out of the gate. For those interested in doing the same (or just in learning how they do it and why), read on:
STATS:
Magazine: Tahoma Literary Review
Interviewee, Name + Title: Kelly Davio, Poetry Editor
Payment for Poetry: $25 to $100
Submission Fee: $4
Funding Sources: We provide a to-the-penny breakdown of our income here: http://www.tahomaliteraryreview.com/2014/06/10/tlr-by-the-numbers-results-of-our-first-reading-period/
Advice on Paying Writers: From a business standpoint, the single greatest thing you can do to free up your budget is to cut your print costs. From an ideological standpoint, be open with your readers and writers about your budget. From an ethical standpoint, quit soliciting work. (See full answer in the interview below...)
INTERVIEW:
Your name(s), your journal, your position with the journal:
Kelly Davio, Poetry Editor, Tahoma Literary Review
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
We’re an independent literary journal based in the Puget Sound region. We publish poetry, fiction, and nonfiction three times per year. Each issue is published in both print and e-reader formats, and our issues include audio via our Soundcloud feature.
The poetry that I publish is typically in the lyrical, formal, and narrative modes, and I have a soft spot for long (often very long!) poems. As an editor, I’m committed to publishing a truly diverse range of writers—that includes writers from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, gender identities, ages, abilities and disabilities, religious perspectives, and sexualities. Our nonfiction and fiction editors have the same commitment.
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?:
Monetary payment for writers wasn’t just a nicety for us when we founded TLR—it was a must. We believe that paying writers is critical. We live in a time when books sometimes sell for the same price as a single music track, or when writers feel compelled to give their work away for free for “exposure.” We believe that paying poets for their work is one way we can take a stand for the value of literature. We know nobody is going to be able to quit her day job just by publishing a piece with us, but we hope that other publishers will begin to adopt similar business models that help bring monetary value back to literary publishing.
What are the funding sources for your magazine?:
We have a full breakdown of all of our financials—divided by each issue—available here.
But in summary, we have so far (issues 1 to 3) brought in $6,494 via submissions, $642 in donations, $232 in sales. We’ve paid out $4,551.60 to our authors, and Submittable has taken $1,702.78 in fees (this doesn’t include the cost of our plan—this number only accounts for per-transaction charges). We have held on to $1,297.42 for operating costs for the journal—that’s web hosting, the costs of representing TLR at conferences like AWP, paying for our Submittable plan, paying for those darned ISBN numbers, and the like.
What does your journal pay for accepted poems?
We pay $25 to $50 for short poems and $50 to $100 for long poems (7+ pages)
What is your acceptance rate for poetry?
As of today (May 21), I’ve received 985 submissions of poetry, each averaging 5 poems per submission, so that’s roughly 4,925 poems. I’ve accepted 65 poems, so that makes the individual poem acceptance rate just over one percent.
Do you think the number of submissions you receive is affected by your pay model?
I absolutely think that the volume of submissions I receive is affected by the pay model; poets appreciate the opportunity to be treated professionally, and so far, they’ve returned the favor by being professional with us. Our contributors have been a true joy to work with thus far.
If your journal charges for submission fees, tell us why you chose that route, how it’s worked out and what you think about that system:
Let’s be clear: you can’t fund a journal that pays writers (or has the expensive niceties writers have come to demand, such as a Submittable submission portal) if you don't a) have deep pockets, b) have institutional funding of some sort, or c) charge fees. Option a) does not apply to us. Option b) will only apply once we’ve got enough of a great publication record that we qualify for grants that recognize our efforts. For now, it’s option c). We are, however, actively working on several new projects that we hope will—in time—result in lowered or even eliminated fees for our writers.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?
We don’t. We hope that, in the future, we’ll be able to give ourselves a small honorarium, but at the moment, we’re just happy to be able to pay our writers and fund our journal without out-of-pocket expenses.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation, and that can be true, especially for young or emerging writers. How do you feel about exposure as payment?
Exposure is great, but there comes a point in every writers’ life when she needs to do more than be able to add another link on her website or item on her cv. And there is a certain line that gets crossed when work does net return: our model tells writers that someone is willing to pay for their work, which is the way it should be. Finally, we want our writers to feel like professionals. Paying them is part of that equation.
Another part of professionalism is literary community. We've had incredible success with our writers contributing to TLR's success aside from sending us their work: they promote our magazine and other writers' work in the magazine and at our blog. This exchange, too, is part of being a professional writer.
And let’s not kid ourselves—there are enough journals out there that “exposure” is a strange concept when we consider how small the literary readership is today. However, we think literary work can reach larger, more mainstream audiences when publishers adjust their models to reach those audiences. That’s one of the reasons we’ve made the journal available in so many formats: print, e-reader, and audio.
Along those lines, what is your journal's readership, as far as you know?
Our circulation exceeded one thousand readers with our first issue, and we hope to keep growing year after year.
What advice can you offer editors who would like to switch their journal from a non-paying model to a paying model?
From a business standpoint, the single greatest thing you can do to free up your budget is to cut your print costs. A traditional print run gets more expensive every year as the cost of paper rises. Go with a quality print-on-demand service.
From an ideological standpoint, be open with your readers and writers about your budget. We’ve found that writers really appreciate knowing where their money goes when they pay a submission fee. Many people, for example, tell us that they never knew Submittable charged journals a fee, or that ISBN numbers are expensive. Once folks realize what we pay to use these services, they’re comfortable with chipping in.
From an ethical standpoint, quit soliciting work. Just don't do it. Give everybody who submits the same chance to be published and paid.
What advice would you give to those starting a literary magazine who don’t plan to pay writers? What about to those starting a literary magazine who do plan to pay writers?
Rather than starting a new journal (if you’re new to the publishing game), volunteer for a journal you love. See what works and what doesn’t. Try new things. Help. Invest. Share ideas. Talk to writers, not just editors. Once you have a very solid understanding of the internal workings of the lit mag world, you’ll be ready to strike out on your own.
When you do start your own journal (whether paying or not), for the love of all that’s holy, _make a clear budget and define your business model. _Don’t wing it.
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now? Whether as writers, editors, readers or just people: what can we concretely do to work toward a system that compensates poets for their work?
Buy journals. Donate to journals that do work you love. Promote the venues you value. Volunteer at journals you appreciate. Offer to write a grant if you have experience in that world, or provide event space if you’ve got it. Every bit counts when it comes to supporting the literary arts.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately?
Picking favorite poems is like picking a favorite beer—impossible! But one poem I’m incredibly proud to have published is Arian Katsimbras’s piece, “Growing Up, All the Mobile Homes” from issue three, which is available to read here.
And read beautifully by the poet here.
Kelly Davio is the poetry editor of Tahoma Literary Review and author of the poetry collection Burn This House (Red Hen Press, 2013). She writes the column "The Waiting Room" for The Butter and is a reviewer for Women’s Review of Books. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, The Rumpus, and others. She earned her MFA in poetry from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and is a freelance writer in the Seattle area.
PHV Interview Series, Barbara Westwood Diehl, Founding and Senior Editor of The Baltimore Review
In today’s interview with Barbara Westwood Diehl (of the esteemed and delightful Baltimore Review), she writes: “Everyone likes “free,” but “free” can come at a cost—the cost of journals not surviving. We’re going on 20 years old and want very much to survive for a lot longer.”
This interview was a really eye-opening one for me. It’s inspired me to write a whole new post (which I’ll publish this week) about the poetry community and our complicity in allowing the work we love to struggle and, too often, die out.
Diehl is illuminating and honest, and her interview sheds serious light on the workings of a journal that’s been publishing great work for two decades but is still struggling to get by. And by revealing how uninformed so many writers are about the publishing process (”I still get emails and resumes from people wanting to work for us, as if we’re Hewlett Packard or Apple”) she highlights the desperate need we have for transparency in this field we love so much.
If we’re not aware -- if we refuse to become aware -- of the fiscal and philosophical realities of the journals we so desperately want to publish in, and of our part in those grim realities, then we are the problem. As we’ve learned for decades (and certainly more so lately), when we close our eyes to problems (social, cultural or financial), they don’t go away. They get worse, and ultimately we’re the ones who suffer. In this case, when we look at the poetry world solely as a way to advance our own careers and agendas and art, instead of hoping to be a part of a thriving, living community we wholeheartedly support, then we are straight up #DoingItWrong.
Please read Barbara’s fantastic interview below. And, needless to say, go subscribe to The Baltimore Review, or another wonderful journal like it.
STATS:
Magazine: The Baltimore Review
Interviewee, Name + Title: Barbara Westwood Diehl, Founding and Senior Editor
Payment for Poetry: $40 payment to each contributor, regardless of genre (either as Amazon gift certificate or PayPal payment) + online publication + copy of annual print compilation); contest prizes are different
Submission Fee: Only for contest
Advice on Paying Writers: “I wish that more readers and writers would support the publications that they enjoy reading (and, when journals produce paper books, buy them). Having enough money in the bank, finally (mostly from contest fee revenue), was the turning point for us. I think that contests are the biggest revenue generator, unless journals are supported by an academic institution or major benefactor.”
INTERVIEW:
Your name(s), your journal, your position with the journal, journal website:
Barbara Westwood Diehl, Founding and Senior Editor of The Baltimore Review
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
The mission of The Baltimore Review is to showcase Baltimore as a literary hub of diverse writing and promote the work of emerging and established writers.
The Baltimore Review was founded in 1996 as a literary journal publishing short stories and poems, with a mission to showcase the best writing from the Baltimore area, from across the U.S., and beyond. Our mission remains just that. However, in our online format, we can now bring that fine writing to the world's attention, more frequently, and at less cost. We can also explore new ways to bring the world of writers and writing to the reader's attention.
The journal grew to become a nationally distributed journal, and later became an independent nonprofit organization in 2004. Susan Muaddi Darraj led the journal from 2003 to 2010, expanding contributions to include creative nonfiction and interviews. In 2011, Barbara Westwood Diehl resumed leadership of the journal and now serves as Senior Editor.
In 2012, The Baltimore Review began its new life as a quarterly, online literary journal, publishing poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction. The journal also accepts video submissions. Work accepted for online publication is also published in an annual print compilation.
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?:
I’ve always felt strongly that writers should be paid for their work—I’m a writer myself—but it is difficult for most literary journals, particularly journals providing content online for free, to have sufficient income to do this. And for most independent literary journals, sales of print copies don’t generate significant income. I wish that more readers and writers would support the publications that they enjoy reading (and, when journals produce paper books, buy them), but the hard truth is that journals usually have to find other, and sometimes pretty darned creative, ways to raise funds if they want to survive, and particularly if they want to get to the point of paying contributors. Print-on-demand became a more cost-effective option for us but, trust me, we’re not raking in money from that.
Note that all our editors are volunteers. Even the webmaster (OK, he gets token payments, mostly food).
Having enough money in the bank, finally (mostly from contest fee revenue), was the turning point for us. I feel comfortable now about promising to pay people. We take the business end seriously, and I treat writers the way I want to be treated.
What are the funding sources for your magazine?
Funding through contest fees, sales of annual print compilation, the “Pay the writers. Get some writing ideas for yourself.” category in Submittable, and the occasional donation. We’re working on ideas for events to generate additional income.
What is your journal’s budget, approximately?
Largest expense is producing the POD annual compilation and mailing it to the 80 or so contributors. Contest prizes. Payments to contributors. Monthly Submittable fees. Some technology expenses. Honoraria to contest judges. Some other, small expenses. Again, we’re all volunteers.
What does your journal pay for accepted poems?:
$40 payment to each contributor, regardless of genre (either as Amazon gift certificate or PayPal payment) + online publication + copy of annual print compilation); contest prizes are different
What is your acceptance rate for poetry? Do you think that acceptable rate is in any way affected by your pay model? Do you think the number of submissions you receive is affected by your pay model?
Acceptance rate for poetry can vary. We publish poems, short stories, and creative fiction. The percentages can vary depending on the quality of what’s submitted. In 2014, we received a total of 4,957 submissions.
The summer issue will be our third for paying contributors, so it may be a little early to tell if the payment affects submissions. So far, since February 1, we’ve been averaging about 18-19 submissions per day, and that’s about par for the course. Since February 1, poetry submissions account for 32.77% of our total submissions. Fiction is our largest category. (Our reading periods are Feb. 1 – May 31 and August 1 – November 30.)
If your journal charges for submission fees, tell us why you chose that route, how it’s worked out and what you think about that system:
We do not charge fees for regular submissions, but we do charge contest fees. I absolutely understand why many journals do charge fees now, though, and I’ve submitted my own work to a few journals that charge fees.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?:
We’re volunteers, and the journal does not receive enough revenue to pay both editors and contributors. We do it because we love and support good literature, or maybe we’re a little crazy. And just about all of us have day jobs. On a more serious note, if readers and writers supported literary journals, this might be different, but it’s always been a problem. Yes, as a nonprofit, we could pursue grant and other types of funding more aggressively, but this takes a lot of time and energy and no small amount of expertise and patience. Tough when you’re working day jobs. And frankly, I like being independent. And I think that journals should be able to support themselves. Is there a philosophical dilemma in producing products that consumers aren’t interested in paying for? Everyone likes “free,” but “free” can come at a cost—the cost of journals not surviving. We’re going on 20 years old and want very much to survive for a lot longer.
Maybe by making everything so accessible, we’re giving away the farm. But I think a lot of us are finding revenue streams that having nothing to do with the purchase of books, but support the cause. A little odd, but we must care an awful lot about putting writers’ work in the public eye.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation, and that can be true, especially for young or emerging writers. How do you feel about exposure as payment? And, along those lines, what is your journal's readership, as far as you know (print and online stats, if applicable)?
I absolutely believe that online exposure is a form of compensation. Many writers like being able to provide a link to their work. They get more readers that way. How many of their friends will buy the paper journals?
Per Google Analytics, we get a solid number of hits. But I’d like to see site visitors linger on the various pages longer (and not just on the Submit page).
What advice (whether concrete, logistical, philosophical or all three) can you offer editors who would like to switch their journal from a non-paying model to a paying model? And are there any particular resources you suggest they check out?:
I won’t swear to it, but I think that contests are the biggest revenue generator, unless journals are supported by an academic institution or major benefactor. Even with contests, it takes time to build the numbers. You have to be patient. If you have the time and energy to host workshops and conferences, those can produce significant income, too. We’re working on some ideas. Editors should be prepared to devote a lot of time and energy to this. A good crew helps.
What advice would you give to those starting a literary magazine who don’t plan to pay writers? What about to those starting a literary magazine who do plan to pay writers?:
Volunteer with existing journals for a while to get your feet wet. They need the help, and you’ll learn an awful lot.
The Poetry Has Value project was created to spark conversation about poetry, money and worth, since it seems taboo to consider poetry in terms of financial compensation. Why do you think this taboo exists?
I’m not so sure that it’s a taboo subject, but maybe writers don’t feel their work is valued if they’re not compensated. And that hurts. We all want to be recognized in some way for the work we do. For whatever work. Writers and editors, I might add.
Here, I can’t help thinking of a young woman who stopped by our booth at the Baltimore Book Festival last fall. Her mother bragged about what a great poet her daughter was, and she offered to buy her daughter a copy of the Baltimore Review. Her daughter took our free pen and bookmark with our website address on them, looked down her nose at us and walked away. Obviously, she didn’t need to have the book; she’d just look us up online. And her mother would have paid for it!
I think the problem is larger than publications (those mean old editors) not paying writers. It’s a matter of consumers (sounds crass, but there it is; we’re talking money) not wanting to pay for poetry. It’s a matter of people not valuing poetry over, say, spending time in front of a TV or Facebook. Or, if they’re reading at all, reading novels or other forms of writing instead of poems. Also, I should mention that even the activities above can be done pretty much for free, unless you’re paying for cable with a lot of premium channels. If people were clamoring for, and paying for, poetry, editors’ jobs would be a lot easier and poets wouldn’t need day jobs. I love our readers, especially readers who will buy our books or make a small donation but, let’s face it, they’re a relatively small percentage of the population. We’re not Sports Illustrated. We’re also competing with ourselves, to some degree. There are thousands of journals out there. They’re always coming and going. It’s easy to start a journal—the technology has changed enormously in the last 20 years—but sustaining it is hard work.
There’s also an unrealistic perception of how journals actually function. I still get emails and resumes from people wanting to work for us, as if we’re Hewlett Packard or Apple. And I’m always tickled by the office furniture catalogs or the occasional call from a financial advisor. Some writers may need a reality check. See note about doing time on the editor side of Submittable. A real eye opener.
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now? Whether as writers, editors, readers or just people: what can we concretely do to work toward a system that compensates poets for their work?
Support those who are willing to showcase your work. Support writers by buying books and donating to sites you like. And spend some time volunteering for a journal. They always need help.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately? :
Sorry, I don’t play favorites. I’ll only say that there’s a lot on our website to love, and I encourage everyone to spend time on all the pages.
Barbara Westwood Diehl is founding editor of The Baltimore Review. Her fiction and poetry have been published in journals including MacGuffin, Confrontation, Potomac Review (Best of the 50), Measure, Little Patuxent Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, Gargoyle, Superstition Review, Word Riot, Bartleby Snopes, Penduline Press, NANO Fiction, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Thrush Poetry Journal, and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
Timothy Green, esteemed editor of the highly successful, Southern-California-based literary journal Rattle, has been pretty open regarding his mixed feelings about the Poetry Has Value project. In one post he’ll call me out for asking people to subscribe to the journals they love, and in another he’ll eloquently explain why taking money from your writers has ethical questions attached to it, at best.
And you know what? I love that he does that.
Tim’s strong, nuanced feelings about this project and about this topic are so representative of why I’m putting this blog together in the first place. The answers to these questions aren’t easy. In some cases they don’t even exist. People are of two (or three or four) minds about poetry and it’s value. None of us wants to undervalue the joy and magic of the poetry they create and read in order to over-privilege the money question. So, it’s a sticky subject. And Timothy Green isn’t afraid to talk about the ambivalence these topics cause.
In his discussions of money, poetry and worth online, I’ve read some of the best arguments both for and against thinking about poetry as work and expecting to be compensated accordingly. Sometimes he’ll say something so perfect that it’s hard to argue against, even when my overall opinion isn’t exactly aligned with his. In the interview below, for example, he wrote: “If it were about the money, you'd get a job at Walmart and make more. Money's gravy. And it feels great to be able to pass the gravy, but gravy isn't what sustains us as poets.”
There is no arguing with that. Or is there? That’s the question, perhaps. And in this way, Tim is my exact audience. I’ve often found myself writing these blog posts with him in mind, which has helped me explain more clearly and more precisely my own point of view....which, to be fair, is still developing and always growing. But having someone listen and consider and argue your points is an amazing way to stay on your toes, intellectually. So: thanks, Tim!
Anyway, today we’re featuring Timothy for an entirely different reason. He’s not here today as a supporter or critic of the project but as part of the PHV Editor Interview Series. As I continue to question editors about where they get their money and how/why they pay poets, I hope to build up this section as a resource that all editors can use if they are starting a literary magazine or considering moving to a paying model. As I’ve said before, no one interview contains an answer, but together they offer a glimpse into the ways magazines make money work, and the multitude of suggestions and ideas in here might help editors broaden their possibilities.
If nothing else, these interviews aim to provide transparency into how this world of literary magazines stays afloat. And I’m starting to learn that transparency (or a lack thereof) is one of the main problems we face in business and logistics of poetry.
STATS:
Magazine: Rattle
Interviewee: Timothy Green, Editor
Payment for Poetry: $50 plus a subscription in print. $25 for online poems.
Submission Fee: None
Funding Source: Subscriptions, purchases, donations
Advice On Paying Writers: “Rob a bank? Woo a patron? Invest in cutting-edge battery technologies? Whether you pay writers or not, it takes a lot of time and money to run a literary magazine—and the more successful it becomes, the more time and money it takes.” / “I don't care that much either way about paying poets, but I really don't like charging poets fees and limiting access to just those who can afford it.”
INTERVIEW:
Your name(s), your journal, your position with the journal:
Timothy Green, Rattle, Editor, Rattle
Tell us a little bit about your literary journal:
We're an independent all-poetry journal, founded as an alternative to the academy's literary domination by Alan Fox in the mid-'90s. Alan loved poetry when he was younger, but when he returned to it later in life, after building businesses in law and then real estate, he didn't feel like anyone was publishing poetry for regular people like him—people who weren't English majors, and had unrelated careers, people who couldn't care less about schools and movements and theories, but still wanted to enjoy the emotional power, the human connection, and the natural music of poetry. One of his favorite lines in literature is Rilke's definition of love as "two solitudes touching"—and that's what poetry really is, at its heart, two solitudes, the reader and the writer, touching briefly for that moment of the poem. Rattle tries to keep it as simple as that. We don't solicit work from anyone—we treat all poets equally and openly, regardless of their stature or publishing history. We just look for poems that provide that memorable and moving connection, and give them a good home.
(That's something in this discussion that hasn't come up yet: Is it fair to pay poets, when half or more of what you publish has been solicited? Or does it not matter? That might be a good question to add to this list.)
In a world where literary markets don’t often pay poets, why did you decide to do so?
I assume that every publisher would pay poets like professional athletes if they could afford it. I don't think there's really a decision involved. We can, so we do. Our primary goal is to promote the practice of poetry—that's our mission statement, as a 501(c)3. And honestly I don't think paying poets is necessary to that aim. We received over 70,000 poems per year as submissions even before we started paying—and once we did, there was no change, either in quantity or quality of submissions. It was a nice thing to be able to do, and as we continue to grow I'd like to start paying poets more, as much as we can while keeping the magazine sustainable and on-budget, but money isn't really the motivating factor for poets—poetry is about community, it's about being part of the grand dialogue, sharing your inner voice with others, and that's one of the things that's great about poetry. Buried in consumer culture, as we all are, it's refreshing to be participating in something that doesn't have to be a commodity. Poets are poets because they love poetry, not for other reasons, and that's pretty cool.
What are the funding sources for your magazine?
Half the endowment Alan set up, half subscriptions (half of which are from contest entries where the fee is a standard subscription).
What does your journal pay for accepted poems?:
$50 plus a subscription in print. Only $25 for online poems, as we've been experimenting this year with immediate responses to current events, and a few other things—those have been very successful projects, so we'll probably bump that up to be equal with print soon.
What is your acceptance rate for poetry? Do you think that acceptable rate is in any way affected by your pay model? Do you think the number of submissions you receive is affected by your pay model?
We receive 25,000 submission packets per year, and publish about 200 poems, so less than 1%. If you break that down per poem, it's about 0.2%. As I mentioned above, there was literally no perceivable change to the submissions pool after we started paying in dollars. I thought maybe well-known poets would be more likely to submit, knowing now that they'd be paid, but it's all pretty much the same as it always was.
If your journal charges for submission fees, tell us why you chose that route, how it’s worked out and what you think about that system:
We only charge submission fees for our annual contest (which now gives $10,000 to the winning poem)—and the fee is a subscription. The real purpose of the contest is just to get more people subscribing, so that the poets we publish have a larger audience. I don't like reading fees—I understand and appreciate them as a last resort, but for me they would always have to be a last resort. And I advise poets to avoid them, unless they're going to receive something that they actually want in return—a book, a subscription, a sample copy, sure, but paying just to have someone read and return your work? Even with our contest, if you don't want the subscription, don't enter, because the fact is you're probably not going to win ... only one poets does! It goes back to that wonderful way in which poetry (or any art) exists for its own sake. The value is intrinsic. I don't care that much either way about paying poets, but I really don't like charging poets fees and limiting access to just those who can afford it. All the poems that we publish in print end up online and can be read for free, too. I want to receive as many submissions as possible from as many people as possible—the more people we have writing and reading and sharing poems, the better the world—I genuinely believe that. I don't want anything getting in the way of expanding the community.
Do the staff and editors of the journal receive any compensation? If not, how did the decision come about to pay writers and not those who work at the magazine?
I'm full-time on salary. Assistant editor is part-time, hourly. Alan is volunteer. And that's the entire staff.
What advice would you give to those starting a literary magazine who don’t plan to pay writers? What about to those starting a literary magazine who do plan to pay writers?
Rob a bank? Woo a patron? Invest in cutting-edge battery technologies? Whether you pay writers or not, it takes a lot of time and money to run a literary magazine—and the more successful it becomes, the more time and money it takes. It's not like a for-profit business, where growth means more income and a larger budget to work with. I've known many people who have started magazines, and I've started my own side-projects—it's fun for a while, but then it becomes work, and then it folds. That's why so many journals last a few years and then disappear. Believe it or not, writers are doing the fun part—they're creating, and having people read what they've created. Editors are doing all the not-so-fun things that allow it to happen. We're the ones licking stamps on renewal notices, begging for donations, budgeting expenses, coding poems for websites, reading mountains of submissions, and handing out mostly bad news day after day (don't think for a second that editors are sadistic enough to enjoy it; it sucks for everyone). As far as work goes, editing is fun, but as far as fun goes, it really is work. So keep that in mind, while you're planning. Or just say fuck it and have fun while it's fun—that works, too.
The Poetry Has Value project was created to spark conversation about poetry, money and worth, since it seems taboo to consider poetry in terms of financial compensation. Why do you think this taboo exists?
It's taboo for the same reason anything else is taboo: It's a reality most people don't want to face. Our poems aren't worth doodley-squat in the "real world" of capitalism. If they were, we wouldn't be having this discussion: Poets would already be getting paid living wages, and Rattle would be trading on Wall Street. Consumerism has us so brainwashed, even us thoughtful-poet-types, into believing that money equals value, that nothing has intrinsic worth, that everything's for sale, even the little pieces of our souls that are our poems. So talking about the issue results in cognitive dissonance. We know it has value, but it has no value, so let's just avoid talking about it my head hurts.
What, if anything, do you think could help change the system in place now? Whether as writers, editors, readers or just people: what can we concretely do to work toward a system that compensates poets for their work?
Nothing. The trouble with paying poets is that we're all poets. I'm a poet; Jessica's a poet; you, whoever you are reading this, you are a poet, too. Only poets read poetry, which always sounds like criticism of poetry, but it comes from a great place: Reading poetry is so enlivening, and it's so accessible an art, that makes you want to write it. You can't read it without wanting to participate, and everyone has a unique voice inside and a story to share. For every new from-the-masses reader of poetry we can convert, we'll also be welcoming in a new poet, so there will always be only as many readers of poetry as there are poets. Exceptions exist, of course, but they wash out—it's effectively 1:1, and will always be 1:1. So by its very nature, poetry is a closed economic system. We're a community that imports nothing and exports nothing. We're bound by the first law of thermodynamics: In an isolated system, energy can be transformed, but can't be created or destroyed. If you get paid, as a poet, another poet footed the bill. And then maybe you pay it forward and buy a book, and some other poet gets paid, and pays another poet who pays another poet, and it all adds up to nothing because we're only shuffling cards. At best it's a zero-sum game; at worst it's a pyramid scheme. We could build it up so that a few at the top get paid more at the expense of all the rest, but do we really want that?
The only solution is to find ways to bring in money from external sources. A Poets' Union could lobby for more public funds, maybe. Maybe attract and encourage more wealthy patrons like Alan Fox and Ruth Lilly and Win McCormack. Maybe write poems that appeal to mass-audiences—but can anyone even envision a "blockbuster" poem? What would Michael Bay write? Would that even be poetry anymore? We could always have a cultural paradigm shift, and build a world in which everyone appreciates the arts, where poetry readings can compete with monster truck rallies at the auditorium … let's whip up a quick massive paradigm shift, what do you say?
Reality is what it is. The real currency for poetry is attention; poets get to have a voice in the din, they get to move people, change the thinking, explore ideas and feelings, create images that were never there before—and we have a pretty large group of poetry lovers to appreciate it. It's an art that costs extraordinarily little to pursue, is open to anyone, is encouraging of unique voices and perspectives. It's not a career, but not everything has to be. We know poetry has immense value, so let's value that. If some magazines are able to pay, that's great—if others aren't, it's great that the magazines exist at all. Some people say there are too many literary magazines, but a 0.8% acceptance rate begs to differ. There are never enough magazines, and never too many poets.
Many poets say that exposure to their work is a form of compensation, and that seems true, especially for young or emerging writers. How do you feel about exposure as payment?
It is, and not just for young and emerging writers. As I said, exposure is a poet's currency, for better or worse. It's a seat at the great table where you're talking to Shakespeare and Dickinson and Ginsberg. That's what has value. If it were about the money, you'd get a job at Walmart and make more. Money's gravy. And it feels great to be able to pass the gravy, but gravy isn't what sustains us as poets. It's not even the meat. (It's the company we keep.)
What is your journal's readership, as far as you know?
Rattle's circulation is almost 6,000. We have 3,000 unique visitors and 20,000 page views every day on our website. And then another 5,000 subscribers to our daily poem email and 4,000 to our RSS feed. This is going to sound a little ad-pitchy, but those are just numbers ... what I really love is how often our poets will tell me that they received their first real fan mail after publishing a poem with us. That's what it's all about.
Would you like to highlight a piece from your journal that you’ve especially loved lately?
I can't pick just one, but if you go to www.rattle.com any day, there's a great poem right on the front page that wasn't available yesterday.
Timothy Green has worked as editor of Rattle since 2004. His book of poems, American Fractal, is available from Red Hen Press. He lives in the mountains near Los Angeles with his wife and two children.
