The Rise Of The Submission Industrial Complex

In 2015, Joy Lanzendorfer wrote an article for The Atlantic connected submission fees wherever she warned, “If each publications did this, there’d beryllium nary master writers, only group pinch different jobs who constitute connected nan side.” Welcome to 2025. Let maine drawback you up.

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A pandemic happened. Left wrong pinch thing but their hobbies, writers founded lit mags astatine an unprecedented pace. Between 2000 and 2015, an mean of 40 caller magazines launched each year. In 2020 alone? 200. The adjacent 2 years deed 201 and 194. That’s a fivefold jump. Outside nan lit world, advancement took 1 measurement guardant and fell ass-backward into nan darkest timeline. Universities are bleeding funding. Government support is now a governmental football. And nan magazines trying to support literate penning live are near pinch much title and less options: tally a contest, waste workshops, aliases complaint submission fees to each of america folks pinch jobs who constitute connected nan side.

I emotion a bully spot of hyperbole, but I for illustration data. And nan information we spot astatine Chill Subs, our level that tracks thousands of literate magazines and submission calls,  paints a beautiful clear picture: submission fees aren’t nan objection anymore, they’re nan norm astatine nan top. Across each nan literate magazines we track, astir 13% complaint fees. Zoom successful connected Brecht De Poortere’s apical 1000, and that number jumps to 24%. Narrow it further to conscionable nan apical 100 astir celebrated magazines, and it spikes to 56%. That’s not a slippery slope. It’s a cliff. The higher nan prestige, nan much apt it is that writers are paying conscionable to beryllium considered. So while submission fees mightiness look for illustration a mini nuisance, they’re really acting arsenic a filter. Not for quality, but for who tin spend to participate.

These barriers came up slow astatine first. Submittable launched successful 2010, creating nan option, not to mention nan request (a $3 interest nets lit mags $1.86, not to mention level fees). By 2015, respective of nan apical names successful nan industry, including Ploughshares and American Short Fiction, had begun charging fees. And it snowballed from there. You tin spot nan appeal. Multiply that $1.86 by thousands of submissions per period and it becomes 1 of nan only accordant gross streams a lit mag tin trust on. Grants and assemblage backing tin beryllium pulled without warning. Ad gross is scarce, moreover for those pinch an assemblage to warrant it. And subscriptions hardly support nan lights on.

David Mahaffey from The Sun, 1 of those apical 100 magazines, explains really this happened to them, and really (whatever nan broadside effects) a interest is simply a select for quality:

The Sun’s $2.50 submission interest helps offset our important Submittable costs—currently $18,000 annually positive transaction fees—while allowing america to support fee-free options for our Readers Write conception and exemptions for writers pinch financial need. When we started charging, we were getting astir 36,000 submissions a year, including thousands that felt wholly inappropriate for a mag focused connected individual writing—from 1 peculiarly memorable chemistry insubstantial to a bunch of newsy, impersonal accounts of governmental unrest astatine location and abroad. The submission interest reduces that benignant of submission—we’re down to astir 24,000 paid submissions annually—while supporting our editorial operations.

At Chill Subs, we tin besides spot submission patterns. Writers are astir doubly arsenic apt to taxable to a fee-based mag than a free one. Not because they want to, but because that’s wherever nan attraction is. Considering nan mean portion takes 20 aliases truthful submissions to onshore somewhere, nan costs to people conscionable 1 communicative adds up fast.

Globally, this hits moreover harder. India is 1 of nan fastest-growing countries connected our platform. In a spot wherever $3 mightiness beryllium nan balanced of a repast aliases a day’s wages, submission fees tin wholly trim disconnected access. Karan Kapoor, a writer from India, explains:

When I first started sending retired activity astir six years ago, it was brutal. A $3 submission interest (slowly becoming $5) mightiness look for illustration pouch alteration successful nan U.S., but acknowledgment to conversion rates and a small point called late-stage capitalism, successful India it tin bargain you a afloat meal, a rickshaw thrust to and backmost from nan restaurant, and a speech from your mom astir redeeming money. If you’re submitting to 100 magazines a year—which, let’s beryllium honest, is what it takes to get 2 aliases 3 acceptances if you’re fortunate (and I do mean lucky, not talented)—that’s $300. That’s much than a month’s net for galore young professionals here. And that’s conscionable to “maybe” get published. If you’re a writer successful India, Pakistan, aliases Nigeria, wherever penning communities are ample and vibrant but nan rate isn’t, you’re priced retired of nan crippled earlier you moreover get to play.

That reality is precisely why he founded ONLY POEMS:

I knew we’d ever support free submission windows. Not conscionable arsenic a gesture, but arsenic a principle. If I had to scrape together money each clip I wanted to stock a poem, there’s nary measurement I was going to move astir and make personification other do nan same. Especially not personification sweating done a powerfulness cut. We support our regular reference windows free because we retrieve what it felt for illustration to request them. And because we judge poets should beryllium paid, not asked to pay. The services we offer, for illustration optional accelerated responses and editorial feedbacks alteration america to salary everyone we publish, whether that’s a writer aliases personification reviewing a poesy book.

When a batch of American lit mags say, “just do x, y, aliases z and we’ll waive nan fee,” it tin sound generous but often ends up emotion for illustration a performative gesture. These alleged free options are often buried successful submission guidelines aliases require writers to jump done hoops, for illustration snail mailing their activity aliases disclosing individual information. It’s not that editors are trying to beryllium cruel. It’s conscionable that galore of america were raised successful a civilization that assumes grant systems will beryllium exploited.

But here’s nan thing: they mostly aren’t. At Chill Subs, we connection scholarships for our paid memberships—no hoops aliases explanations. About 10% of our members usage them. That’s it. If magazines offered intelligibly labeled, no-questions-asked free windows, a batch of folks would usage them gratefully—and past spell connected to go their biggest supporters and advocates.

When asked astir these problems and solutions, The Sun points out:

What seems for illustration a humble interest to america decidedly represents different economical realities astir nan world. In nan aged days a batch of off-the-mark submissions came from websites listing america arsenic a spot wherever writers could “get paid $1,500,” which, because we salary pro rates based connected length, has only ever been existent for astir half a twelve published submissions a year. While nan interest helps select for superior submissions, we still want to debar creating barriers for talented writers, peculiarly marginalized ones. We support a no-questions-asked exemption argumentation for everyone who requests a interest waiver. We don’t do a batch of soliciting, but we do make an effort to scope retired to writers from communities that are underrepresented successful nan magazine.

The deeper problem isn’t conscionable astir fees. It’s astir nan personality of nan literate world. Most magazines are stuck successful an exhausting dance: wanting to beryllium a labour of emotion afloat of divers voices—art for art’s sake—and a sustainable business astatine nan aforesaid time. That’s difficult capable successful a functioning economy, fto unsocial 1 wherever creation backing is slashed and attraction is fragmented. But location are different ways forward.

Magazines tin complaint for services alternatively of access. Offer editorial feedback. Sell workshops. Partner pinch mini businesses to “adopt a lit mag.” Solicit patrons. Accept donations. We’ve seen nan champion of this successful action: a while back, we compiled a database of African magazines. Not a azygous 1 charged submission fees. Many of them were built from scratch by volunteers and writers who simply wanted to spot their communities represented. And 87% of nan magazines connected our tract still don’t complaint thing to submit. That’s worthy celebrating and supporting.

There is nary metallic slug here. At Chill Subs, I’ve watched nan statement flare up present and location betwixt editors and writers, slow normalizing into a tired statement that much intimately resembles an unresolvable lover’s quarrel. Everyone has an sentiment that everybody knows. But there’s a way guardant that doesn’t punish emerging writers conscionable for trying. And 1 wherever strategically implemented fees tin supplement different gross sources. Lit mags can’t hole capitalism. But they tin take not to replicate its worst instincts. And that’s a start.

Because arsenic it stands, we’re fortunate if we moreover person a occupation that tin spend america nan luxury of submitting to lit mags.