“So, no one on here values art?”

It's like expecting someone to pay me when I sing.

I sing because it fills my heart with joy. And I sing because it fills the people around me with horror.

That's reward enough, in my book.

“Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart into you? Invention, energy, wit, style, charm--they've all got to be paid for in hard cash.”

― George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying

But some mags do pay for art. (Some pay well.) And some are produced by an all volunteer staff that isn't getting paid either.

Those of us trying to make a living from our art need to get paid for it. But not everyone who produces art intends to make a living from it. There are whole discussions about this online. Do those who take pay below the going rate hurt the rest of us? Yes. But if you're just starting out, you can't command the going rate. Do the buyers get what they pay for? Sometimes they get more, sometimes maybe less.

It's just not so simple as these tweets imply.

And then I could rant about all of the ways that aren't monetary in which art can be valued, treasured even.

Patty said:

It's like expecting someone to pay me when I sing.

I sing because it fills my heart with joy. And I sing because it fills the people around me with horror.

That's reward enough, in my book.

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If you were a good singer, or someone who wanted to sing for a living, yeah, I'd think you'd expect people to pay you to sing. If you don't care about making money or selling your writing, that's fine but...

Athletes love playing their sports. Ain't no one in the NFL playing for free. Musicians love making music. The orchestra section is often unionized.

Debbie V said:

But some mags do pay for art. (Some pay well.) And some are produced by an all volunteer staff that isn't getting paid either.

Those of us trying to make a living from our art need to get paid for it. But not everyone who produces art intends to make a living from it. There are whole discussions about this online. Do those who take pay below the going rate hurt the rest of us? Yes. But if you're just starting out, you can't command the going rate. Do the buyers get what they pay for? Sometimes they get more, sometimes maybe less.

It's just not so simple as these tweets imply.

And then I could rant about all of the ways that aren't monetary in which art can be valued, treasured even.

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Kind of what Debbie said.

If someone doesn't care if they get paid for their work, that's their decision, but if someone wants to buy or use my work, I fully expect to be paid.

The whole 'it's for exposure; it's just writing/editing, anyone can do it; don't you do it for the love of doing it,' thing, and people who allow their work to be used, disseminated, printed, for free or close to free (one cent a word my ass), have, indeed, whether they meant to or not, fucked over a lot of people. When people started taking jobs for nothing, for a cent a word, etc., it made it easy for those looking for content to argue no one needed to be paid, or paid a decent wage.

I'm with whomever tweeted that. Someone wants to publish my writing, they pay.

I'll just leave this account here.

I'm finding that whole conversation on Twitter really interesting. It's given me a view into the editors' side of things. Many of them are also poets, writers, and many of the small journals are paid for out of pocket.

My personal decision has been that I will pay a reading fee for contests but not for journals to which I send work. As for getting paid myself, I have been saving a list of poetry markets that currently do pay, but have not sent them any work yet. Most of what I have sent this year so far has been to contests. Because they pay! but it is somewhat like buying a lottery ticket. An expensive lottery ticket.

In all of it I keep going back to "where does the money come from?" -- the money to publish a journal, to fund a contest, to pay writers? Because I don't think the bottleneck is controlled by editors. We can say "people need poetry" and I think that's true, but most don't know they need it and so are not likely to pay for it in either a little magazine or a book.

I think the problem is that people expect from market (demand and supply) to act as if it were magical deity distributing products and services based on subjective evaluation of art. Once you surrender your art as commodity, commodity it will always be. Once you surrender your innermost secrets to the market, it's the supply and demand that decides its value in dollars.

If you think it's worth more, don't write poems for money.

Not everything in life should cost money or pay money, but, since most everything does, in my humble opinion art should be included. I do believe that it offers the reward of release for the artist, and offers positive measures for the consumer, but it should be up to the artist what they want to charge, and the wanting consumer should be willing to pay whatever the artist thinks their art is worth. However, not everyone makes enough money to pay for all the art they want, nor does everyone have the means to make more money. The world is a bit messed up right now, and, this being the case, it's difficult to say what we should do, considering we shouldn't be in this position in the first place where we have to decide how to salvage the art market.

My offering to those who are concerned is that you should a) be willing to pay for art that you yourself consume, b) only submit your art to paying markets if you find it to require payment, and c) offer for free or extremely cheap the things that you think everyone should have the opportunity to experience. Not all art should be for free. I repeat, NOT ALL ART SHOULD BE FOR FREE.

I don't believe that each artist is responsible for each other, and that none are responsible for the consumer. I believe that we are working with the consumer of art when we create as well as our fellow artists, so, technically every living person is involved in each transaction. At the same time, I pay those whom I work with, and they pay me; kind of like a flat-rate for different types of work deal (though it isn't always reciprocated, and I usually get the crappy end of the stick, because most people aren't honest).

For example, I almost exclusively write uplifting, positive material, and I don't think that if someone can't afford to buy it, that they shouldn't be able to experience it. It should probably be on a donation basis, but not everyone is honest, and the rich are probably less likely to donate. So I offer some for free, some for very cheap, and, for print I offer it at just about the going rate for the current art market (considering there are other ways for them to indulge than buying in print). Now, I'll charge very highly for art that I create outside of the positive, uplifting genre, because I don't find it as necessary for people to experience... it's more for fun, and although we deserve to have fun in life, as I have stated earlier in this post, the world is messed up and everything costs money, so I shouldn't be creating fun for others but be unable to pay to eat.

If your content is strictly for the entertainment of others, you should probably get paid for it, and paid well. But as far as the art market as a whole, there are many different types of work out there, and so to monetize the entire market to a certain standard, in my opinion, is unproductive and really makes no sense.

i've never had a problem with a transactional basis for poetry; my problem has been settling with the reader on a price that will convince them to read it.

I think you are not paying enough attention to the 'consumer' of poetry.

it should be up to the artist what they want to charge, and the wanting consumer should be willing to pay whatever the artist thinks their art is worth. However, not everyone makes enough money to pay for all the art they want, nor does everyone have the means to make more money.

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I think you've got it backwards: artists can charge anything they like but no-one is obliged to buy it. For a lot of people, the amount of art they want is 'none'. From painting to poetry to sculpture most people don't want all that much, and you can't make'em want what you're selling. Even in 'the good ol' days' when artists had rich patrons, they painted to please the patrons. And, lots of rich people were Philistines who either wanted art to impress the neighbours, or not at all.
As to people who don't have enough money to buy poetry: how many people, do you suppose, having got their hands on some extra money, immediately shout, "Oh, boy, I can buy poetry!"?

And, there's that old saw 'Art is in the eye of the beholder'. Just because people like art, doesn't mean they like your art, or your sensibilities. (In the general 'you', of course.)

I have a great many books. I have only 4 books of poety: Complete Poems of Rudyard Kipling, one of Shel Silverstein's, one on the War Poets and Robert Service's 'Shooting of Dan McGrew' and 'Cremation of Sam McGee'.
I have occasionally run into a stray poem that I like, here and there, but I have a huge long list of things that I'd rather buy.

As to the tweet that started this thread:

Originally Posted by @PressGaia
I see all these lit mags (mostly online format where it costs almost zilch to publish) and nobody pays! How do the editors sleep@ night? Art Is Valuable! Somebody explain. Please?

It seems to be based on some assumption that the world is filled with people desperate to get their hands on lit magazines full of poetry. I suspect that it isn't true, because why else the 'on-line format'? Those editors aren't sleeping at night, not because of guilty consciences, but because they're fretting about keeping the lights on at least until the next issue comes out.

William Haskins said:

i've never had a problem with a transactional basis for poetry; my problem has been settling with the reader on a price that will convince them to read it.

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That price would often be what they want to be paid to read it.

frimble3, you're right. I got it backwards. Whoops! I read the tweet to be asking why consumers don't buy so much poetry. My response was mostly hypothetical, offering my ideas of the consumer/producer relationship in a perfect world versus the world we live in today.

I get it now! "Why don't the lit mags pay their contributors?" is the proper question at hand, and to answer that, I say: I suppose higher quality poetry is paid for by the higher quality publications, but I don't really know what I'm talking about in this new discussion I just entered by realizing the true topic at hand, so.... please carry on!