Can I make some side money spearheading an online literary magazine?
March 26, 2017 2:04 PM   Subscribe

I am wanting to start an online literary magazine on the side while I pursue a MFA and intern in the coming fall. I am wondering if it is worth starting a literary magazine to make some pocket change? I know some magazines struggle, and I am wondering if there's any advice on how to make an ample amount? My first aim was non-profit, but there isn't much money in it, unless donations are given. I suppose it depends on the philosophical motive. I want to share and preserve the literary works, but I also want to make some money while doing this. Literarure and poetry are my two greatest passions. It's a lot of work to design and market this out of free labour; I do a lot of volunteer work myself, bur some extra cash with this project is something I would like to pursue. Some people may not view literary magazines as a business franchise while others may do so. Thoughts? Thanks, RW.
posted by RearWindow to Writing & Language (9 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Short answer: nope, literary magazines are not profitable.
I am a publisher, and I have researched this thoroughly, in the hope of creating more jobs and paying editors, copywriters and translators better. And I have not found any examples of economically successful magazines. The most successful are global brands with long histories, and even they are narrow businesses.
posted by mumimor at 2:16 PM on March 26, 2017 [26 favorites]


Response by poster: @mumimor Thanks for the honest reply!
posted by RearWindow at 2:18 PM on March 26, 2017


No, because if it were possible, many people other than you would have done it already. The literary journals that survive longer than 10 minutes and can afford to pay their writers, editors, and the staff needed to manage submissions and subscriptions (and all of these people do need to be paid, because it's a lot of work) have either institutional support (like a university) or an endowment thanks to a wealthy benefactor or two. I doubt any of them make what anyone would call a "profit." /former editor of a book review journal

(Also, starting anything is a truckload of work, and I can't imagine that would be a good use of your time at the beginning of a demanding grad program. If you need some side money, maybe look into private tutoring.)
posted by rtha at 3:01 PM on March 26, 2017 [7 favorites]


A few relevant links from NPR, The Millions, Poets & Writers, and Bookslut that affirm lit mags are no way to make money.
posted by xenization at 3:08 PM on March 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


No. Even in the days when people read more, "little magazines" were a rich person hobby.
posted by betweenthebars at 3:09 PM on March 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


Litmags run on massive amounts of unpaid labor, often to the detriment of the academic careers of the people donating that labor.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 3:12 PM on March 26, 2017 [8 favorites]


I am an editor of a professionally well-regarded, long-running online SF magazine which is routinely nominated for the field's top awards. We pay current pro rates to our writers and artists, and are a qualifying market for the SF writer's union. We have extensive name recognition, and handle thousands of submissions yearly. Stories we publish frequently show up in best-of-the-year anthologies and win awards on their own merit, and our writers often bring name recognition of their own-- many are bestselling novelists.

We do not pay staff of any kind a dime, have never done so, and neither plan nor expect ever to do so. Because even in our position, we run an annual fund drive so that voluntary reader contributions can fund things like our servers. We cannot afford to pay our staff nominally, let alone living wages, and this is without having to maintain any physical location besides the servers, or any of the other expenses we would have if we were a print magazine. No web magazine in this field pays staff.

I don't know for sure, but I would be shocked if any of the big print mags in my field manage to pay their staff living wages, unless they are owned by huge publishing conglomerates. If they do, they would pay them to the publisher and maybe one or two other important and senior staff. Maybe. You can literally make more money as a freelance copy-editor, or self-publishing erotica on Amazon, with far less effort required.

Don't go into publishing for the money. A publishing business is under optimal circumstances a genteel black hole that eats cash. Go into publishing if you have a passion for it, and then only if you have considered how you're going to eat for the next few years thoroughly.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 4:19 PM on March 26, 2017 [15 favorites]


It looks like the financial angle has already been addressed, so I'll leave that alone. But I would like to ask what niche you were hoping to serve that is underserved right now. There are already a ton of literary magazines with tiny audiences. Why dilute that more? Unless you have surveyed what's already out there and found that something is lacking. It sounds like you haven't really thought about this a lot or researched it at all. But the first part of starting any business is seeing whether the product or service you want to offer even has a market. You've looked at what you want to get out of it (money), but don't seem to have thought about what your readers or authors would get out of it, that they can't already get any number of other places.
posted by nirblegee at 5:16 PM on March 26, 2017 [4 favorites]


I have been part of a three-human team running a literary magazine for six (!) years now. We are, by all accounts, very successful. The good months are the ones where we break even. Over the course of six years, the three of us have sunk tens of thousands of dollars (and thousands of hours of labour) into this project out of our own pockets and profitability is still a dream on the horizon.

Do not do this for money. Only do it if you're doing it out of love.
posted by 256 at 5:40 AM on March 27, 2017 [1 favorite]


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