Balancing Act: The Realities of Running a Literary Journal without Submission Fees

I want input from poets/writers about submission fees, “pay-to-play”, and the ethical quandaries as well as financial realities faced by lit mags.

What are honest opinions about how ONE ART (and journals that read lots of submissions) should handle "pay to play" ... I want to continue to avoid this but there is so much daily reading. It feels important to me to have my eyes on all submissions… but maybe that's a "me problem". (Feel free to say that in the comments.)

I've never wanted to charge fees to submit. The concept seems wrong and exclusionary, in many instances, though I understand why the practice is common (covering costs of Submittable, for example).

Personally, in my 20s, when I first started submitting, I did not feel in the position to pay a fee to submit and that put me at a disadvantage, and I don’t want to put anyone else in that position.

Fees can add up. Writers/Artists, especially when younger, are typically not wealthy. I don’t want starving artists choosing between getting their work out in the world and being able to feed themselves and pay bills.

Recently, I've been thinking about encouraging (not requiring) a $1 token donation to ONE ART with each submission as a form of token compensation for daily hours of otherwise unpaid labor.

Sustainability is a factor as I’m sure many can understand. If I read 50 submissions in a day (relatively standard) and 20 submitters donate $1, then I’ve been compensated $20 for several hours of work. If every poet who submitted donated $1 (which I wouldn’t expect) that would still not result in crazy money for spending hours reading work and sending responses.

Why $1? The basic concept is to create a small amount of friction. I’ve always wanted to make the submission process as poet-friendly as possible. The result (surprise, surprise) is that it is very easy. You can toss random poems in the body of an email (personally a preferred method for me when I’ve submitted my own work) and then send it off. The lack of friction means people send a lot of work that is not even close to a good fit for the journal. Work that I do not think they would consider submitting except for a few factors:

#1 – It’s free

#2 – The turnaround time is known to be fast

#3 – There’s a trend to rack up 100 rejections a year (sigh)

Other reasons? Am I missing a key component?

This is not an editor whining that poets don’t read the journal before submitting. I know the game. Don’t hate the player.

I really do not want to dissuade anyone from submitting. Hence, the $1 would be entirely optional.

What are other ways to make a poet/writer stop and think before clicking the “send” button to submit?

Much of this comes down to courtesy. We shouldn’t be in the business of wasting each other’s time. That’s what so much of the public conversation around the attention economy centers on. Time is our most cherished resource and taking someone else’s time is a big deal. It’s real currency. I do realize that I have consented to have my time taken in this situation. I believe it truly is an honor to curate/publish/platform poet’s work. There are competing impulses and, perhaps, irreconcilable issues at hand here.

ONE ART is not currently a paying publication/market. I agree it is appropriate or even almost necessary to compensate those published if a publication is directly charging fees and, in turn, making money off of poets/writers. I do believe there is a distinction when we’re talking about optional donations. That being said, I want to go on the record as saying that I wish I was in a position to pay poets who are published in ONE ART. As basically all editors/publishers say, I hope there is an ability to do this in the future. I wonder the typical amount of funding, or income generated, by a lit mag that pays? Is there a logical amount of funding/income where it becomes ethically obvious that a lit mag should be compensating contributors?

I’m seeking input for how to navigate these complex questions.

I don’t think there are easy answers.