Pro pay or quality?

Check, please.

ClaudiaGray said:

Check, please.

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I knew you would say this and I can't disagree more, Claudia. I would say Cheque, please.

I think the answer is: it depends. It could depend on the magazines and the reputation each had. It could depend on the amount of money involved. It could depend on what other stories I was putting out and where they were going. You've had a story published in a non-paying market before, how did it feel and why did you settle for non-paying?

I think the question would rarely come down to a simple one of a high production value market that pays tokens or one that paid professional rates but looked home-made.

But if I had to make a cold decision based on that simple question, 9 times out of 10 I'd probably got for money. If the peanut-paying outlet had a lot of credibility that could sway me.

Cheers,
Rob

Lucifal said:

Perhaps I should have added, if you were buying a magazine would you buy the home produced mag or the one with high production values, or would it be based on the stories and writers and have nothing to do with quality?

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In my experience there's a direct relationship between the quality of the mag and the quality of the stories. I haven't seen a poor quality mag with high quality stories. That's just my experience, mind, but for that reason I would always choose to buy a high quality mag unless I had a specific reason not to, for example I've bought poor quality mags to support the local writers involved.

Cheers,
Rob

If the less than shiny mag can afford pro pay, then there has to be readship behind it. However, there could be a trade off if the token pay mag makes up for the cash with prestige.

I probably go for money 4 times out of 5, but if I really like the voice of a magazine and think they're trying to do something fun or different, I'll settle for token for my flash fiction pieces. Longer stuff I put actual sweat into, I'll hit all the big markets first.

One token/semi-pro market I'm eager to get into is Space Squid. I read one of their issues, and throughly enjoyed it. Likewise, if there's a high-paying market that looks like it might lack a little professionalism, I'll read the stories and make sure I'd feel comfortable seeing mine among them, but I'm more concerned with content than layout.

Nicole

I HAVE gone for non-money in the past...as in completely none...purely because it meant I'd get published in the (beautifully designed) music magazine run by my favourite independent radio station in Melbourne (Aus). I felt like writing something for free for them was the least I could do, given how much I'd gained from years of listening to them. Actually, they did some some chocolate in the mail along with lots of copies of the mag....

None of the above. It'd need to be a magazine that published my genres (which doesn't exist) and be recognized by professional resources such as ITW. Otherwise, it's not a good investment of my time.

The poll doesn't make a lot of sense unless you can choose two replies. It also seem to assume good money and good money are dichotmous choices--in my experience they correlate.

This is going to sound a little strange coming from me, but I chose Pro Pay over Quality. I've been writing most of my life, and I've never had a legitimate publishing credit. I'm frankly tired of it and want to be paid good wages for my hard work.

I see a logical fallacy in the question. Just because a magazine has a quality printing, does not mean it has a quality reputation. Something can have a beautiful glossy finish, but still be considered a joke within the industry. Personally I'd find it interesting that the magazine would rather spend money on making itself look pretty, than paying its authors. And if the making it look pretty doesn't garner enough readers to then make it worth the magazine's while, and thus allow it to pay its authors, I'm not sure why the magazine works so hard at looking good unless it's just vanity.

For a magazine that is publishing writing, I would think it was the content that mattered, and that respecting those providing the content would be of key importance.

So for me it isn't about how pretty a package it is, but the reputation the package holds within the community. If the magazine is pretty AND has a solid reputation, then yes, I wouldn't mind getting a smaller fee to have the credit for my resume. But the same thing goes for an ugly mag that paid little as well and had a solid reputation.

If it is a matter of being paid a lot vs a magazine that is respected in the community (which is different from one merely with good production values), then I might be more interested in the respected one, but to be honest, I don't really know of a well respected publication that doesn't pay its authors what they deserve.

At any rate, that is my answer.

Oh hm, I thought I knew what you meant by quality and answered wrong.

I care very little for production values. But overall quality of writing in a magazine, and reputation, matters a lot to me. I'd rather be published in a small zine with a good reputation and good TOC-mates than a pro-level publication I couldn't respect. There are a few such and I don't submit to them.


And Toothpaste -- there are a lot of very well-respected zines in spec fic that don't pay much at all. They're done for love, and are often the more experimental venues. The award-winner list and the well-paying list don't really correlate terribly well, in part because (I believe) some of the big markets are a bit stagnated.

And honestly I don't know of many short speculative fiction venues that can afford to pay authors what they're worth. There's pretty much no living on short fiction, at least as a fantasy/SF person.

Lucifal - your answer to my post is very interesting, but a bit odd as now you are defending your own magazine as if my response was somehow accusing it of something. From your response it sounds like you are defending your magazine for not paying its writers. But I was not talking about your magazine, I know nothing about your magazine. I was simply responding in theory. And what I said was, if the mag has a good reputation in the industry, then yes, I would sacrifice being paid to be in it. You might think that the reputation of some mags aren't deserved, and I am sure I would agree, but at the same time, if the unearned reputation means that the mag has a high readership and when I mention it in a query the agent goes, "Woah, that's a very well known mag, good for her" then, yes, I would still want to be published there. After all as a reader I want to be read. I'll do favours for my friends, if they have a small zine just starting up, sure I'll give them some stories. But I probably wouldn't to a non-paying mag that also had a very small readership.

And the fact that you are saying hopefully some day your mag will get an large audience to earn enough money to pay its authors etc means that you agree with me.

You also seem to think that I don't approve of works of art being displayed in the mag. By "pretty" I mean spending money on binding, and quality of paper etc. Not visual artists. I would hope that eventually the artists you also publish would get paid as well.

At any rate, hon, I didn't realise this thread was about you and your magazine. And I am sorry if you thought somehow in my answer I was accusing your magazine of something, or telling you it wasn't good enough, so that you felt you needed to defend it. I was talking in theory.

And a logical fallacy in the question, isn't that all questions are fallacies, but that the premise on which your question is based is wrong. You asked "pro pay or quality of the appearance of the magazine" as if the quality of appearance also translated into a quality of content. But that was not an explicit part of your question. A good looking product may actually be smoke and mirrors, sound and fury signifying nothing.

Not that your magazine is, I don't know it, remember I didn't think this thread was about you.

Shweta - that is interesting to know. To be perfectly honest, I don't write short stories or submit to mags, so I don't know the industry particularly well. What I do know is, at this stage in my life, if I would submit I would want something in return. And that is either money, or the reputation of being published in the work. Or preferably both.

I chose high pay because that's how most professional writers groups decide whether or not a magazine counts as a publishing credit or not. That's assuming, of course, that I'm interested in joining said pro writer's group. However, higher pay usually means that the magazine is financially stable, which should mean that it has a bigger subscription/distribution which means more people have a chance to read my stuff.

Magazines that spend their money on high production quality, and not on their authors, just seem like more flash than substance to me as a reader and a writer, so I'm not that interested. Unless said magazine has a solid reputation behind it, I'll be looking at the quality of the prose accompanying mind and not how many colors are on the cover or how glossy the paper is.

People are going to be sick of me mentioning this publication, but I need to use it as an example of what DeleyanLee said: One Story magazine is about as unflashy as you can get in terms of production values, yet it has an excellent reputation because it consistently publishes high-quality stories.

Toothpaste said:

Shweta - that is interesting to know. To be perfectly honest, I don't write short stories or submit to mags, so I don't know the industry particularly well. What I do know is, at this stage in my life, if I would submit I would want something in return. And that is either money, or the reputation of being published in the work. Or preferably both.

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Both is always nicest!

But for context, even my longest short story (actually novelette) yet, which also sold to the highest-paying market (pro-level and paying twice the pro-level minimum for sf/fantasy) wouldn't cover a month's rent. That's what I mean when I say short fiction doesn't pay; it's pretty much for love or kudos.

And I totally agree with you about wanting something for a story. It's work. Our work is worth something. What I said wasn't a value judgment of any sort; I was just providing the information that reputation and payment don't always pattern together, and that (IMO) short fiction doesn't pay what it's worth in today's markets.

One thing i wanted to add to this was take a look at Cemetary Dance - they started out printing stories locally - nothing fancy but the quality of the writing interested people. Over time they had enough following to improve the quality of the magazine itself, but the writing was the key to their success. Good writing and active marketing. Now they are big and succesful, but again, that is not how they started

If by 'high quality' you mean 'production values' the answer becomes even easier. Some of the most prestigious literary journals are produced using very low production values indeed. Some of the magazines I esteem highly and subscribe to (Third Alternative (fantasy), Dark, Animus (horror), Altar (feminist)) have midling to 'rag' presentation. From a writer's point of view reputation is how many people will read the work and how important their opinion is.

When I first answered this (the previous thread), I took quality to mean a good reputation, good editing, interesting story choice and professional editor behaviour. Pretty printing wasn't on the list. As long as the print quality is reasonable (and you can do a reasonable job with a home printing setup), I'm not going to turn down the chance to be in a magazine with quality content.

It's perfectly understandable that a small startup would be printed in black and white or just have a colour cover. I wouldn't turn down a magazine on that basis.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction isn't exactly the prettiest to look at.

I couldn't answer the poll because I do both.

It's not an either/or for me - I write short stories, and have seen nearly 100 of them in print. I generally write with specific target venues in mind, some of which pay pro rates and some of which pay in prestige, credits, tee shirts or prize committee considerations.

I learned early on that there is not really any way for me to earn a living writing short stories, but that doesn't mean I don't cash those checks! On the other hand, I'd rather win a major prize than get a check for $500. I know this as I have recieved $500 checks, but have not yet won a major prize (been nominated, though...)

I would never pass up a venue on either pay or production value. I choose venues mostly by how I like the material they present and if I think their readership would appreciate my work.

I write to be read.