Lit Journal Pricing

Matt Bell's post about Fence earlier today (and the following is from an email he received from the journal):

"It's very important to us that Fence have readers--that the work inside Fence have readers, really--and so we want you to pay us whatever you want for your year's subscription.

All you have to do is go here http://www.fenceportal.org/support/ and click on "donate," then choose your level. Payments are processed by PayPal (it's free and easy to set up an account if you don't already have one: http://www.paypal.com). Anyone who chooses to pay $300 or more, god bless you, will, as always, become a lifetime subscriber, and receive a receipt for your tax-deductible donation.

This offer will be good from now through April 30th. If you take us up on it you will receive your brand new Spring/Summer 2008 issue of Fence sometime in May."

His post reminded me of an email I received from American Short Fiction back in February where they suggested they were doing something similar:

"Starting this February, the award-winning literary magazine American Short Fiction presents a pioneering subscription plan for the literary world.

            Publisher Melanie Moore says, "With our Winter 2008 issue, we are launching a pay-what-you-can plan for subscriptions. Our goal is to reach people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to subscribe. We believe literary art should be inclusive, not exclusive. With this new plan, we’re bringing new work to new audiences.” Readers can opt for one of five price points: $30, $25, $20, $15, or $12 for a year’s subscription.

            “Literary magazines are expensive,” adds managing editor Jill Meyers.  "And the people who really want to read them—writers, students, teachers—don’t have a lot of disposable income. We wanted to give people greater access to fiction.”

            The minimum cost for a year-long subscription is twelve dollars, just two dollars above the cover price of a single issue. Now people who could afford only one issue can manage to pay for an entire subscription."

It's interesting to see the various routes literary journals are going to find readers.  Between things like these, and Hobart's year-end calendar offer, and others out there, it becomes even more obvious that those who are putting literary journals out are not in it for big bucks (or, hell, even bucks at all), but instead because they feel they're doing something important - giving another location for writers to find homes for their work, etc.

There are links to dozens of literary journals off to the right, including this trio (and while I enjoy Fence, I love Hobart and ASF.  Find one or two that are interesting to you and subscribe!