A little more about our pay rates...

[Jordan Lapp]

We spotted some discussion recently on an author's LJ about our rates and how low they are. When we explained that EDF is a strictly volunteer effort and didn't make a profit, this author responded thusly:

... I'd like to see EDF succeed and grow.  And I honestly think that the best thing you could do right now in that direction is to raise pay rates.  That was an honest opinion that had nothing to do with being "cheap", but was about taking the magazine to the next step.

I'll just going to ramble in response to this, so please bear with me:

First and foremost, we only pay a dollar a story because we don't want to go  bankrupt.

Writers are often unaware of the huge financial and time commitment that goes into running a webzine. Quite frankly, Camille, Steven and I are working ourselves to the bone for no money. I'm the lead designer at a technology firm, and could make a decent living just by doing work on the side of my main job. Heck, I can even make money writing fiction. Instead, I'm losing money on a webzine. What does that tell you? I love finding buried treasure in the slush, helping other writers in their careers, and, hopefully, creating a few more fiction lovers.

Now, so far, Every Day Fiction hasn't cost as much as we intially planned for, thanks to the very generous contributions of writers who have donated their payment back to the magazine. Believe me, we love each and every one of you. If however, we'd raised the pay rates to, say 5c / word, we'd have lost 7 GRAND so far. Does anyone have that much to spare? I'm getting married in September. I certainly don't.

How do other magazines make money? Some are sponsored by specific publishing houses (Clarkesworld & Wyrm Publishing, Fantasy Magazine & Prime Books, ChiZine & Leisure Books, Jim Baen's Universe & Baen Books). Others have generous financial support from anonymous donors (Strange Horizons). Some are members of huge publishing conglomerates (Analog & Asimov's) or have big names that have been publishing since the stone age (F&SF, Weird Tales). Everyone else? Well, let's just say that most of them are a labour of love.

However, let us, for the sake of argument, say that I win the lottery tomorrow (come on, baby, come on). Would raising rates REALLY result in more readers? Here's a quick case study. According to compete.com, both Chizine and Clarkesworld Magazine (5c/word & 10c/word, respectively) have fewer readers than Every Day Fiction (and I'm talking UNIQUE readers. Because visitors come back to EDF every day, our pagecount lays the smackdown.) So it appears that high pay rates (unsurprisingly) lure writers to magazines, not readers, and any magazine that caters solely to writers (and there are many) is on a short lifeline.

But, the argument goes, with better pay rates comes better stories, and thusly are readers lured! First off, I'll put our best stories up against anything on the web. However, it's true that if John Scalzi or Jay Lake or Tobias Buckell wrote us a story AND plugged it on their blog, it might result in new readers. However, many authors don't have a massive web presence, and without that, would be unable to send us many new readers. So what makes good business sense here? Right! Pay THOSE authors 5c/word and pay others a buck a story. Does this feel fair to you?

Now, as a fellow writer I WANT to raise rates. What steps are we taking to do that? Well, you've all seen the Project Wonder ads on the site. We tried Google Ads, but no one was clicking on them, and only one guy has ever clicked on the donation button (and he did it twice! We love you Mike!). We've been talking to a syndication guy, but things are moving like molasses. And frankly, we're so busy with the site, it's tough to find the time to pursue some of these avenues. We get about 7000 words of fiction subbed to us EVERY DAY. I read a novel a week of flash fiction. My time is chewed up mainly with the slush.

So, how can you help us raise pay rates?

• Donate.
• Plug us often on sites you frequent and your personal blogs. Right now we have >1000 subscribers, but 400 or so are e-mail subscribers, which don't count to advertisers. We need people to subscribe to our RSS feed (using a feed reader like Google Reader). Once we get 1000 RSS subscribers, we can start selling ads right in our feeds, and hopefully generate money that way.
• Write an article on us and submit it to Boing Boing, or Neil Gaiman, or John Scalzi, or someone else with a massive virtual presence. If they even mention us, it would help tremendously.
• Review our stories and submit it to the Fix Online or SFReader or any number of online review sites. Exposure really helps here.
• Participate in our forums. Post your own articles here. Anything to lure traffic from Google.

What doesn't help? Bitching about our rates, or making vague statements like "taking the magazine to the next level". We're open to new ideas. In fact we yearn for them. If you have some honest to God concrete ideas on how we can make enough money to raise our rates, please post them here.

[Bill Ward]

Don't listen to them, raising your pay would be pointless. We're talking stories of less than a thousand words, what payrate would start to make a difference to a writer? A penny a word is ten bucks--big deal. Two, three cents a word-- again, big deal. A meaningless amount of money for the writer but clearly enough to put someone paying it out 365 times a year in the hole very quickly.

How many markets are dropping like flies because they think they need to pay pro rates to attract better material, and that that better material will sell more books or magazines? We see again and again it doesn't happen.

A lot of 'for the love' markets say they pay exposure while delivering nothing of the sort. You deliver. The formula works, leave it alone. People worried about what they're paid for flash fiction probably shouldn't write it.

The resources from ads or donations would be better put in marketing, or even a print anthology.

[Lyn]

I agree with Bill. Those who write flash for money would be better served by writing short stories or novellas for per word rates. One of EDF's strengths is daily visits and that translates into author exposure and helping that author develop that elusive fan base.

I like your observation here: "So it appears that high pay rates (unsurprisingly) lure writers to magazines, not readers, and any magazine that caters solely to writers  (and there are many) is on a short lifeline." And this: "However, many authors don't have a massive web presence, and without that, would be unable to send us many new readers." Given those two truisms, I would say stay focused on your plans to take the zine 'to the next level' and simply assure critics that is exactly what you are doing. :-)

[darkbow]

I can get this much feedback and marketing just for the price of writing a piece of flash fiction? Are ya kidding me?

Sign me up! Oh, wait, I did.

Honestly, I don't know how someone serious about writing could ask for anything more than what EDF has to offer. I've had more response to the one piece of fiction, "Walking Between the Rain," that appeared on EDF than I've had from all the other dozen or so pieces of fiction I've sold over the years. My blog spiked quite well on the very day my story appeared on EDF. I've had more e-mails and forum responses on my EDF story than anything else. For all that, EDF can keep my $1 to help the staff and site.

[Matt Strada]

You may want to post a brief message at the top (or side) of the front page encouraging people to subscribe to the RSS feed.  Until reading this thread, I didn't realize that only RSS feed subscriptions affect advertising revenue.  Now, I'll happily receive stories both by RSS feed and by e-mail.

Matt

P.S. -- I, for one, don't care about the money.

[GMoney]

Interesting thread - thanks for the stats Jordan.

I didn't even realise you paid anything, and that didn't stop me submitting before! As much as I'd love to get paid for something I've written, it doesn't matter to me whether I get $1 or $100 dollars right now - just seeing it up at an established site is good for me. The fact that many people read the stories here and give feedback (although not always that detailed) is a massive extra benefit.

Keep the $1 just so people like me can aspire to say to their friends and family "I got paid for that story!" but continue progressing the site. I'll think of a few ideas.

[Gay Degani]

EDF!  What a fabulous idea that works. 

1) Quality.  It is amazing to me the quality that is published here.  To be a part of that brings with it a super-jolt of confidence, something that hangs around most writers like a thin mist in hot sunshine. 

2) Sincere commitment.  Jordan and Camille give thoughtful notes.  They are committed to writing, committed to quality, committed to improving what we read. They offer honest and intelligent comments that encourage me to write, write, write. 

3) Brilliance of the concept.  Writers need to write, and everything in REAL LIFE, at least for me, conspires to keep that from happening.  EDF offers a place to learn, strive, push myself, in 1000 words.  Best training ground ever.

And I have no plans to support myself writing 1000 word pieces.  When you think about it, it's fun, it's a learning experience, it's challenging, BUT let's get real.  For most of us, we want to grow in what we do.  And that growth for me is symbolized by writing longer pieces, sustaining a unique voice page after page, with deeply observed characters reacting to life's most compelling obstacles.

4) Exposure.   Once I write that tome, where does my reading-base come from?  One of those places is this site.   I am seducing readers (or at least trying to seduce) while I learn my craft.  It is a stunning platform for those of us who see writing as a life-time endeavor but who haven't yet "made it."  And for those who have?  Where else can you pick up hundreds, maybe thousands, of readers in one day?

[Alex B.]

I agree with everyone else. Do even established writers make money off flash fiction? Or poetry? The way I understand it, it's novels (or other media, like television or film) that make the "big bucks." I don't even know who buys those magazines like Analog. If I published a story there, would they remember my name by the time they turned the page to the next story and later tossed the magazine in the recycle bin? Here, if they like something, they can immediately click my name, check out my blog, maybe read another story or two I've written, maybe even drop me a line if they want. I find that far more satisfying than a token two hundred bucks Analog might have paid. And in the process I might have actually gained a few fans rather than just a few passing readers.

I see the internet as a tool for selling yourself as a writer, in hopes of transferring that into something in the real world. I'm pleasantly surprised if I get paid anything for something published on the web. It's the web. It's free.

[Shameless]

Before my computer freezes up again, I want to agree with all the stuff said about the radness of EDF and the fact that it would be utterly ridiculous for them to raise their pay rates now, maybe even EVER.

Alex is right about where the money is made.  Honestly, selling a story for even a thousand dollars isn't going to do much.  That's groceries for a couple months (maybe).  Big media makes money, otherwise we're doing this for small change and big exposure.

Rock on EDF, the dollar stays in your pocket for all you buy from me.  Mutual support may one day lead to mutual pay-off, and I'm willing to bet on you guys.

Is is snowing there today?  We're getting dumped on.  I'm worried for the flowers.

My computer is slowly freezing--but not from the cold--I may not be around for a while.  Just had to say my stuff about EDF.

[erazmus]

Lets not get too far afield on this question. Analog does get you noticed and builds both fans and credentials-- Will McCarthy did quite well over the last three years going from Analog to Hollywood. The major magazines do have readers, perhaps not a many as they did twenty-thrity years ago, but they have them.
And its nice getting a check for a story that actually covers the electric bill. However everyone who has commented here is basicly right, it isn't going to make a big difference how much you get for a story-- and I say this as someone who has recieved thousands of dollars for a single novelette. It was nice, came in handy, saved my ass on more than one occasion, but it didn't change my life much.
Stan Schmidt over at Analog buys what? Sixty-seventy short stories, twenty-twenty five novelettes and a like number of novellas a year? Less than a  hundred stories total. Jordan buys three hundred sixty five real short ones a year. He pays a buck, Stan pays eight cents a word. For my six to seven hundred words Stan would pay forty-eight to fifty-seven bucks. If Stan was buying them, I'd be a fool to send them to Jordan, right?
Except Stan isn't going to buy them, which means you aren't going to read them in Analog. If I ever write one I think Stan might like for his mag, I'll send it but facts are facts-- Jordan is more likely to win that lottery. Thats because Stan isn't particularly looking for Flash fiction and Jordan is.
I'm pretty sure Jordan and Camille could continue to fill EDF with quality stories even if they didn't pay anything at all. I'm also sure Stan could get about the same quality of stories for Analog if he paid six or seven cents a word. Content isn't his biggest cost and it shouldn't be Jordan's either. I send stories to Jordan for three reasons.
First is I support what he is doing, I just like the idea of EDF. I subscribe to it and unlike several other e-pubs I subscribe too, I read almost every story EDF puts out. I like what I get there, so I want to be in that company.
The second reason I send EDF stuff is that I get read there. For at least one day, my story is the one everyone looks at. This doesn't always happen even at the big name pubs-- get your story squeezed in between a couple of well known authors and only about half, or less, of the readers give you much of a glance-- they just skip right over to the big names. This is why they are big names, and I've done the same thing when I read a magazine. Quality writing can lure them in eventually but just being in the ToC is no assurity of exposure. EDF is a lot like Baseball, every player gets to shine in turn.
The third reason is EDF's readers. You guys actually comment. I get as much or more feedback here than almost anywhere I publish, useful feedback as often as not. That has a value to me I can add on top of the Dollar I soak Jordan and Camille for every time they take a story. Its part of the payment, to me.
I understand why Jordan pays a buck-- it moves him off the "For the Luv" market lists for one thing, but I can't see him paying much more. The benefit to EDF wouldn't add up. Flat rates are the way to go with flash fiction anyways and he'd have to pay more than a nickle a word to become a "pro" market (at least by SFWA standards-- you not only have to pay at least a nickle a word, you have to pay at least fifty dollars for at least some stories, keep a publication schedual for at least two years, reach two thousand unique subscribers per issue average and I forget what other stuff) but what possible benefit would being an SFWA pro-market be for EDF? They can barely read all the subs they get now, and the real pro-writers aren't lining up to churn out award-winning flash fiction. He'd just get every piece of junk every wanna-get-in-the-club novice writer churned out, all of them around nine-hundred ninty words, which he'd have to read through to get each days story. The stories he's getting are just as good as anything getting put out anyway, I don't think we'd see a jump in quality--just a massive expansion in return times and a quick burn-out for Jordan and Co.
(A quick note to Jordan-- if you win that lottery, start paying Nine cents per word. No one pays nine cents a word, no one has ever, as far as I could find, paid nine cents a word.)
Its a good thing Jordan pays-- it adds a certain respectability. It lets me write for his magazine (like a lot of writers I have only one hard rule-- I must be paid something for my work. Without this rule I'd be nibbled to death by "for the Luv" ducks and never get paid for anything.) It occasionally buys me a bag of skittles or, combined with a lot of other sales in oter places, gets a new power supply for my PC every couple of years.
But really, a buck is enough for less-than one page of work.

Michael D. Turner

[Clarkesworld]

According to compete.com, both Chizine and Clarkesworld Magazine (5c/word & 10c/word, respectively) have fewer readers than Every Day Fiction (and I'm talking UNIQUE readers.

I don't know where compete.com gets their data, but it's way off from the 7k per month unique readers that we (Clarkesworld Magazine) get.

 -Neil

[Steven Smethurst]

Compete.com gets most of there data from ISPs across the world.
Your ISP sells anonymous information about your website history.
They also have a toolbar, track blogs, deals with some of the internet giants like Yahoo, Google and Facebook.

Its a better service then Alexa, Hitwise, comScore in my option.
All these online tracking services are going to under estimate your UNIQUE readers because they can't track everyone and they don't have access to your hosts stats about your site.
But I still believe that its a good references for comparing yourself to anther site.

[Jordan Lapp]

Howdy Neil, I'm flattered that you'd drop by our little forums. For the record, I'm a huge fan of both Clarkesworld and Chizine, and you'll notice that I said nothing negative about either magazine in the above posting. In fact, Clarkesworld in particular publishes some of the most unique and imaginative fiction on the web. The Third Bear, by Jeff Vandermeer is a particular favorite of mine.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the rest of the article. Do you believe that raising pay rates would result in more readers? Would raising the rates at Clarkesworld to 25c/word result in 8K uniques a month?

[Clarkesworld]

I tend to completely discount the usefulness of those sites when it comes to website statistics, even for comparative purposes. Given how far off the numbers you had were, I figured it was worth the time to give you actual numbers. Also, based on those incorrect values, it was implied that our numbers were just authors, not readers. No insult taken. If our numbers were as low as they indicated, I might draw a similar conclusion. From experience, I can say that most publishers of online zines are perfectly willing to share the real data if you ask.

As for the question of pay rates. I've been quite public about my belief that the SFWA "pro" rate is something every publication should aim for. That said, the "pro" rate is long overdue for an increase. I'm a bit of a nut though.

We solicit one story and take another from slush for each issue. We pay both of these slots equally and at a rate above what is typical of the big three print magazines. Why? Aside from believing it's the right thing to do, pay, rightly so, is on the minds of the authors we hope to get stories from. Unless I had a personal connection with a publication, I'd want my work published by the person who could pay the best *and* give me the best exposure. We're still working on that last bit, but it takes a lot of time to build a reputation.

There are some authors that we can't get at 10 cents per word. If we jumped to 25, it would definitely open some doors within that crowd, and yes, those people would definitely raise our visibility. At this time, I can't say that it would be the best investment that we could make. Each magazine has to make the decision that fits best with its goals. Take Tor's new venture for example, they will be paying rates well over ours and have a bucketload of names you'll recognize (and not just their own authors). They have resources I can only dream of right now.

Short of staying within budget, our current plans to increase readership are not focused on what we pay. We're looking at podcasting, foreign language editions (China, for example, has the SF magazine with the largest readership), other non-fiction offerings and increasing the number of issues in a year. Even if we don't do any of this, trends indicate that we'll hit an average of 8K before the years end.

 -Neil

[jennifer walmsley]

Having only discovered flash fiction and new to the net and after joining a uk writers forum, I came to know about EDF. Money is not on the agenda as far as I'm concerned and I think many other writers will feel the same.  It's great to have a place to send stories to.

Jennifer