• Guest please check The Index before starting a thread.

Haunted Waters Press

Spy_on_the_Inside

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 17, 2011
Messages
701
Reaction score
41
Location
Minnesota
What do people know about Haunted Waters Press? They posted in the Nonpaying section of the site, but when I looked at their website, I found that they charge a reading fee. They save they have 'free reading' months starting in January, but this seems like a red flag to me.

You can find a link to their post here and their website here.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

dawnjstevens

Registered
Joined
May 23, 2018
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
Any update on this publisher? They are still around and accepting submissions. They are also a paying market, it looks like.

Also, was the 'reading fee' because of too many Submittable submissions in one month? Those that use that platform only have so many free submissions per month, then they have to start charging. All you really do is wait for the next month and submit when it's free again. I'm looking at one of their submission pages right now and it's free to submit.
 

mrsmig

Write. Write. Writey Write Write.
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Messages
9,883
Reaction score
7,171
Location
Virginia
I have submitted to their Penny Fiction anthology, since there is no submission fee for that publication. My rejection was personable and prompt.

I've been keeping an eye on Haunted Waters, because I like the look of them. However, I balk at paying fees of any kind (whether they're termed "entry fees" or "reading fees"). Reading submissions is a integral part of what a publisher does - it's part of their cost of doing business. What submission fees are, basically, are an income stream for the publisher, siphoned from the very individuals who are hoping to sell a story to that publisher.

Look at the figures on their website. For example, they charge a $10 submission fee to enter their flash fiction contest ($15 if you want to push your story to the front of the line). Let's say 200 writers submit a story to that contest and pay the basic $10 fee. That's $2k that goes into Haunted Waters' pockets. From that $2k, they will pay out $250 to the contest winner. Maybe they'll publish 20 additional stories, for which they pay each author $20. That's another $400. So...from the $2k they made from submission fees, their payout to their published authors is $650. (Remember, everyone paid $10 to enter, so the writers that "won" publication actually only made $10.) Haunted Waters still has $1,350 profit in its pocket.

The digital version of their anthologies are free, but they sell their print anthologies - which are usually in the 40-60 page range - for a whopping $15.99. I don't know about you, but I, as a disinterested member of the reading public, am not going to buy a 38-page mag for $15.99 (plus shipping, which ranges upward from $4.88), especially if I can read a digital version on my computer for free. But you know who does want a hard copy of that publication? The writers whose work appears in those publications.

So let's say I'm not the grand prize winner, but my story was chosen for inclusion in the magazine. I paid $10 to submit and sold the story for $20. So far I'm ahead by $10. But if I want a copy of the magazine for my bookshelf at home, I'm gonna pay $20.87 minimum for that copy. There go my profits, and then some. I don't earn royalties from the hard-copy sales, so none of that income goes into my pocket. Haunted Waters gets it all. All I have for my work is $10, provided I don't buy a copy for myself.

Granted, Haunted Waters has production and admin costs of its own to meet (I'm sure Submittable takes a percentage of those submission fees). Granted, the figures are a little easier to swallow if you look at the payout for their longer works (1-4 cents per word, for stories at a maximum of 10k words). But it still boils down to this: the payment - whether it's grand prize money or the purchase price of the stories themselves - is being paid by writers.

So what you basically have here is a lottery. Everyone pays to play and everyone hopes to win - but only a few will ultimately profit. And as is the case with all lotteries, the biggest piece of the pie goes to the entity sponsoring the lottery.