Like most writers who wish to publish new writing, I spend
considerable energy submitting unsolicited poems and stories through online
submission managers, and to a lesser extent, the snail mail. In the old days,
of course, writers would send all
their submissions through the post office: a buck or two for the big envelope plus
a single stamp for the SASE. Lately, a number of highly-visible literary
journals have begun to require reading fees, typically $3.00 a pop, for online
(slush pile) submissions. The journals defend this practice by reminding us
writers that we’d spend just as much on postage; many indicate that the reading
fees help them to defray the administrative costs of producing the periodical. I
don’t wish to dispute either of these explanations, but at the same time,
journals cannot demonstrate that they’ve actually considered the submission.
They cannot demonstrate that they’ve provided a service (evaluating the
submission) for the fee ($3.00) they require to accompany the writer’s creative
work. At least by paying postage in the old days, I knew that the U.S. Postal
Service had delivered the submission, and later, delivered the response; the post office had provided a service. If the journal didn’t choose to appraise my
writing, that didn’t matter, because the journal didn’t profit from my correspondence.
Similarly, if I upload an electronic submission for free, the magazine can choose
to reject it outright, since it doesn’t profit from my interest in becoming a
contributor. Unfortunately, these fee-for-submission literary magazines may have
entered fraudulent terrain. Who’s to say they don’t delete poems and stories,
while pocketing the money? If they receive several thousand submissions, then
they may profit considerably without exerting much more effort than clicking a
mouse. I would imagine that many thoughtful writers (as well as those who lack
the means to submit) are offended by this practice and aren’t participating in
the fee-for-reading environment. This would potentially shrink the population
of viable writers contacting a given magazine, and to me, reinforce the sense
that fee-for-reading journals solicit most of their published material on the dollars
of those willing to pay the toll. In order to squash this perception, a journal
should offer personal feedback to any author who’s submitted $3.00 along
with a sample of writing. There must be incontrovertible proof that editors
have dedicated time and consideration. Otherwise, more and more journals slither
into gunk, junk, murk, mud, slime, grime, oil-spill, habitat-wreck,
flight-of-species, blight-of-planet.
Cultural Affairs Week Editorial Schedule
March 2: Crows & Owls
March 3: I Eat Mushrooms!
March 4: Literary Magazines That Charge for Slush Pile
Submissions
