July 9th, 2013 / 9:20 pm
Presses
Ben Mirov
Presses
Subito Press is Open for Submissions…
Subito Press, publisher of Mathias Svalina’s The Explosions, and Sandra Doller’s Man Years, is having an open reading period. Subito is “a non-profit publisher of literary works. It is based in the Creative Writing Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder.” You can submit work, here.
twenty fucking dollars
All the money goes into publishing the two winning books as well as a third (sometimes selected from the pool) if we have enough cash left over…
Also, just so you know where the fees go, and in honor of total transparency, the submission service takes a bit right off the bat, so we only get $18. 01 per submission. Then the site also charges a monthly fee. So that’s just for starters. Our book designer starts at $700 per book for the design and layout. We print the books via Bookmobile, who at the volume we begin with charge around $3 per book. We have to pay shipping on top of that of course. Then there’s the cost of mailers, the cost of the review copies we send out, the cost of running ads, the cost for our website, etc. etc. We don’t sell enough copies of our books to cover all of this. We wish it were otherwise, but the truth is that folks are simply quick to complain about things like reading fees and slow to actually buy books. So we have to charge to support the press.
An “open reading period” does not mean something you pay for. It is publisher’s responsibility to finance their books, not writers. Every time I see the burden of publishing fall on the writers it just is a big turn off. Basically the message is “the writing we publish we are unable to sell, so the authors pay for it, because it will give them an ego boost”.
It is your responsibility to find readers. If you can’t find them, why should the writers have to subsidize you?
So I pay 20 dollars to get published by a press that can’t find enough readers to pay for publication costs?
Sales can’t be the sole judge of what gets published. Some perfectly valid writing simply doesn’t appeal to many people. In those cases, shouldn’t alternative financing be explored? I agree that publishers should explore a variety of options, and not just soak aspiring authors. But it’s not like Subito is asking for money after acceptance (as some presses have done). So if writers like the press and what they do, and want to be published by them, why can’t they pony up $20? (A lot of presses offer a free book in exchange for doing so; not sure if that’s the case here.)
Subito doesn’t appear to me to be doing anything unusual. This is a contest, right? And such contests almost always require submission fees. FC2 and Les Figues both charge $25, in fact, if you want them to consider your (unsolicited) work.
So I don’t really get the objection, or the argument that presses should live solely off sales.
Cheers,
Adam
Why would someone want to be published by a press that they don’t support? It’s fine that you see this as a solipsistic pursuit wherein you’re the star, but our press is interested in a larger conversation, not just one person talking.
It’s a yearly book prize, not an open reading period.
The burden is not falling on the writer, rather the collective community is putting enough faith in both the press’s past decisions and the aesthetic affinities of the final judges to elect to support the conversation.
The larger conversation? It is a writing lottery….
Hi Adam,
Of course I don’t think sales should alone determine what gets published. But there are many other avenues for raising money – grants, fundraisers, etc. But to pretend that a writing lottery is somehow a high minded endeavor…. It essentially limits the people they might publish to those who can’t find publication based on the merit of their writing alone. And though twenty dollars is not much it does leave out anyone truly in the lower income bracket. Like “hmm groceries or submit to this contest…” It is also a University Press (I guess?) so I suppose it is a “learning experience” for those involved? No idea – I just see the word SCAM whenever anyone says a writers should pay to be published. In any form.
A side note: it’d be interesting to see all the presses that offer books in exchange for the reading fee (along with, of course, _reading_ the submitted manuscript). Omnidawn does this. Copper Canyon does, too. There are others, and I think the practice should be championed.
“Why would someone want to be published by a press that they don’t support?”
So support entails sending you twenty bucks? That is the only way you can think of that people can support you? I think these contest probably do more to drive away real support than gain it.
Well, it at least serves a purpose of getting the books out there and no one is left feeling that they just threw their money off a cliff…so, certainly a step up, yes…
No, support is buying books. Why would you want your work publish by a press whose books you don’t own or care about, that’s the issue…
Again, you are basically saying authors should be the ones to support you, not readers. You can’t find readers, so you say that some “community” of writers should support you. Funny, none of my publishers have ever asked me if I bought some of their books. And I own literally thousands and thousands of books…. But some writers, take Frederick Rolfe for example, did not reader contemporary literature at all. I guess you would not have published him. It isnt about good writing, but just about some false ethos you are using to justify asking writers to pay. I mean – you should be offering to pay writers, not the other way around. That is how it is supposed to work.
And when it comes down to it, the thing is that we’re a small press, we’re interested in community-based small press culture. You seem to be interested in having your work published, which is great, more power to you, but when that interest is built out of necessity rather than desire, this is to say, when it’s driven by the need to publish with small presses because others won’t touch the work and you’re simply settling with whoever will, well, then you’re not really aligned with our vision as a press. We’re not here simply to serve authors…and if we didn’t run this contest that’d be three or so (good!) books a year that aren’t being published.
So complain all you like, but just know that we understand that those complaints emanate from an epistemology wholly outside of our own.
Isn’t a book prize one given for a book that is well written?
so none of the fees cover a prize for the winners? what exactly do they win? If you lack readership/sales, and you don’t have a cash prize?
Community based?
I don’t settle for “whoever will” – or “necessity” – actually I think I am published by all very good presses. Yours seems more like necessity – because who would pay money to be published by a press without a readership and have to pay? Would Voltaire? James Joyce? Hemmingway?
Ah yes, but they were not part of a “community” – not part of the “conversation”…
“vision”…..
a lot of poetic imagery used to validate charging authors
i mean really, you’re paying your book designer before you’re paying your authors? really?
good question
I’m not against reading fees (though I’ve barely even begun to make enough money to justify more than one or two a year). I’m not against contests. I’m actually really glad that you shared your costs like that. Transparency is always good. But to pay authors last, after sales start coming in, or to pay them less than the designer, is unfair.
It also seems like you’re suggesting that contests and reading fees are about community, and that if someone isn’t not willing or able to pay the fees than they don’t belong in the community, which sounds kinda fucked. I think that’s what the implication is, but I doubt that’s what you meant. Idk, I know the books have to get published somehow, but maybe the sales would be better if you picked authors who believe in their work and are fiercely dedicated to the community, beyond the required $20 ticket price. Pick an author who (or pick an author who will agree to) tour, do interviews, review other books, and in general actually engage with the community, and you’ll have much better sales.
There’s a reason Steve Roggenbuck sells lots of books, and makes poetry writing sustainable without institutional support, and it’s not because his work is so great that people have to have it, it’s because he’s engaging his community.
I feel uneasy about ubiquitous reading fees because they ask for money that someone might otherwise spend on a book (though not necessarily). So I don’t think the model itself is as sustainable as it could be, and prefer presses that have you order a book and send them the invoice number.
However, a book tour will financially prohibit far more aspiring poets than a reading fee, and to some extent locks out poets from beyond major population centers, or beyond borders, regardless of their finances (or their ability to take time off work without being fired).
Poetry and innovative fiction have always required some kind of patronage. Dispersing it among submitters seems quite progressive compared to having it come from moneyed interests, universities, or the state, and probably allows for greater aesthetic diversity in the community, even if it’s not as perfect as more financially independent arts.
to the comment awaiting moderation:
I don’t think you addressed a single one of my points (entry fee to community, engagement with community, paying a designer but not the author [why not pay them both by sales royalties?]), but I’d like to address a few of yours:
1. I buy books. Lots of books. I buy books, borrow books, steal books, whatever it takes to get books, because I like to read, not because I feel like I need to support some “community” or because I feel like it’s my duty to poetry. So, it’s kind of absurd that I wouldn’t want to buy a book because you told me not to or because I disagree with the “system”. It would be like not listening to music because I disagreed with the music industry.
2. if “author’s should only be paid in relation to their sales,” maybe presses should only publish in relation to theirs as well.
Fair enough. What I was saying is that the entry fee is lower now than it’s ever been. I’m not defending contests or high submission fees, but I’ll take those over publishing practices that center on a very narrow sliver of the writing population, often defined by socioeconomic, educational, geographic, and ethnic/religious parameters.
In terms of your first point, I was only saying that, as someone who also can’t afford too many reading fees a year, the money for a reading fee comes out of the small amount of expendable income I have, which is the same expendable income I use to buy books. Which is not a sustainable model, in my mind.
As to your second point, I happen to fundamentally disagree, if only because of how few books people like Gertrude Stein and HD and George Oppen and Lorine Niedecker sold in their lifetimes, and how few books someone as important as Susan Howe will sell today.
I take your point on paying the designer before the author, though the designer may not have a stake in the book itself beyond the money he or she receives for a service provided, whereas the author wants to see his or her book in print regardless of whether they’ll make money off it (if they don’t feel that way, they are probably not trying to publish poetry and innovative fiction in the first place).
I’d simply ask who you’re serving if you’re not serving authors, and you believe that the books you publish can’t attract enough readers to cover the cost of publication.
If you don’t believe it is your own obligation as a publisher to attract enough readers to your roster of titles to cover you costs, and if you then use reading fees to support your publishing roster, it strikes me that you’ve inadvertently positioned yourself as a vanity publisher without recognising it. The dynamics are very similar, except in this case instead of asking one author to pay to have their work published, you’re spreading the cost across a pool of hopefuls.
I don’t want it to seem as though I’m picking on you in particular as this mode of thinking is relatively common among small publishers, but it’s a cop-out to suggest that authors have an obligation to read work from your roster to create the community around your press.
this just blew my mind, i’m so entirely inundated to accepting the fact that “writers don’t make any money” that the total-fucking-absurdity of that fact didn’t even hit me until your comment.
This thread is so funny. Everyone’s losing their shit over Subito Press charging a reading fee for their contest, which like every single other press does. If you’re going to get mad at Subito, get mad at everyone. Meanwhile, I think all this anger stems from Ben Mirov accidentally calling what Subito was doing an “open reading period”? So why not…get mad at Ben? Brendan, you could have…clicked on the link, and noticed that Subito wasn’t doing anything extraordinary? But critical reading skills are less fun than people arguing in the comments, I agree.
Look. If people want to give Subito Press $20 to consider publishing their MS, I don’t see how that’s scandalous. Presumably anyone who’s doing so likes Subito and considers it worth that much money to have them consider the MS. I, for instance, once gave $25 to FC2 to have them consider my MS. FC2 did not accept it. I still like FC2. They’re welcome to my $25. Go FC2.
Meanwhile, if you or anyone else doesn’t like Subito, or don’t want to give them $20, then…don’t submit something! And if you really feel passionately about it…start your own press! If you can fund it through your own money, wonderful. If you can support it through book sales, wonderful. If you can support it through bake sales, wonderful. But in the final analysis, the money has to come from somewhere. Subito has chosen a business model, they’re being transparent about it, no one is being abused, those who want to participate can and those who don’t want to don’t have to. Of all the potential controversies, this seems to me the most boring one imaginable.
Cheers,
Adam
And it’s not a lottery. It’s a contest, judged by Julie Carr (poetry) and Stephen Graham Jones (fiction). I will paste all the relevant text below, for anyone too lazy to click on the link and actually read the text there. I warn you, though, if you’ve read even one other press’s contest description, you’ve essentially already read this one:
to be fair, you’re a “small press” running out of the university of boulder and the actual reading of the slush pile is outsourced to graduate students, right?
Almost completely agree. That said, just because a certain practice is commonplace doesn’t mean it’s beyond interrogation.
I don’t think anybody would doubt there’s an issue when you have more people attempting to submit to a press or publication than people actually willing to purchase titles. A reading fee is one way to mitigate that issue, by raising a barrier to entry for writers that also financially supports the venture. However, it doesn’t solve the issue on the other side, which is lack of demand for work. And if you’re paying a reading fee for the chance to have your work published… isn’t there the expectation that the publisher should feel some responsibility to actually properly market the work so it recoups losses? If the reading fee is a primary source of income for the press, the publisher has no real reason to promote the published title(s), which perpetuates the problem.
I’m finding this thread fairly interesting. I don’t think its fair to single Subito out, but I think it’s fair to use it as a point to open up a discussion.
God damn it AD, stop signing your posts w/ your name. That is what the AD Jameson at the top of all your posts is for. Stop doing it. Like, right now.
I have never paid a reading fee or any fee or joined any contest that charges money. I have had, I think, maybe 7 books published, and I think 4-5 forthcoming. Fuck anyone who charges a reading fee, whether they are FC2 or anyone else.
Still seems like an odds kind of thing. The only difference is if I pay my 20 bucks I don’t get money, but publication. Same basic idea though.
Ultimately, I don’t deeply care about Subito press in itself
or this instance in itself. I do however deeply care about the current
situation with writers-publishers-readers. The universities churn out “writers”
while at the same time fewer Americans than ever actual read books. People talk
a lot about “communities” and HTMLgiant and other sites and individuals
constantly give tips to writers and promote small press books that, despite all
this “promotion” probably rarely crack 500 copies in sales. “Writers” are
people who pay to learn the “art” by going to University and getting MFAs and
churning out more lousy writing and then getting jobs teaching other people how
to write lousy books no one cares about. The only thing publishers should worry
about is publishing really kick ass writing – and nothing else should matter –
certainly not some inane contest or whether or not someone has 20 bucks to
throw down. And guess what? The next Rimbaud or Dostoevsky or Virginia Woolf or whoever is not going to need to give a reading fee because that level of
writing is apparent and will be published.
So, the University of Colorado is using this as a way of educating students who are paying to go to school there, but they won’t undertake the expenses of publication? That is progressive? The authors are essentially paying to give Grad students experience.
why not pay the author of the chosen book $700 and then have designers pay a $20 submission fee for their designs for the book
also, you know, if you’re not “selling enough copies of [your] books to cover [your costs]”, consider printing fewer copies of yr books–it costs a lot less. plus you can always print another small edition if the book does super well. and you can do this as often as you want. there are many ways to print books.
Well, that sounds more like an argument against contests than anything, whether they charge a fee or not.
Exactly. I find this bizarre. I also find it wacky that they add up all their costs, including the cost to keep their website running, cost to use the submissions manager, cost to pay the designer, and so on, but then use this as a justification not to pay authors (or to pay them last of all – it’s a little unclear).
If you’re running a legitimate press, a substantial running cost should be payments to authors (whether up-front, revenue share, or combination), and a substantial income stream should be sales of the author’s work to readers. If not, you can justify it however you’d like, but you’re either screwing somebody, or not running your press properly.
AD, in the design community, these kind of contests *are* frowned upon. They’re referred to as “spec work”.
yeah the submissions manager cost to me is BIZARRE both because: a) it’s totally easy to have people just submit their files to an email address FOR FREE, and b) nobody is pointing a gun to your head and MAKING you use a product that costs money
Hey connortomas, all,
Sure, if people think it’s wrong for presses to charge reading fees, then they should make that argument. But what I see is people criticizing Subito Press for charging a reading fee for a contest. And I think the criticism stems at least in part from Ben’s incorrect claim above, that Subito is holding an “open reading period,” rather than a contest. That was mainly what I wanted to point out earlier.
I also see people arguing that Subito can’t sell books, or should fund its books entirely through sales. But why are people assuming here that Subito can’t sell books? Does anyone here have any idea how much they sell? I myself have no idea whatsoever.
And even if Subito can’t sell a single book—well, so what? Lots of great books never sell any copies and never will, and that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be published, or that the presses who put them out shouldn’t exist. Ten years ago I worked for Dalkey Archive Press, a widely beloved not-for-profit press that has published scores of books that have never sold. Like, Piotr Szewc’s Annihilation—brilliant novel, but has anyone ever bought it? Who the fuck is Piotr Szewc? (I myself own two copies of that book, and didn’t buy either one of them. Hell, I might even own three copies, now that I think about it! And at least one of them is in hardcover.)
For everyone here slamming Subito—have you read anything they’ve published? Do you think that the books they’ve published don’t deserve to be in print? Are you upset because you think Subito should be running more ads or something? Do you even know what marketing does the press does? What precisely is the argument you’re making and how is it relevant to Subito? I’d be more sympathetic to specifics than the lazy generalities much on display here. (Apologies, but the assumptions in this thread really are weak.)
Why have you assumed that Subito is not “aggressively marketing books” (whatever that means)? Again, consider Dalkey: they do a great deal to market the books they publish. But their funding (and thus their aggressive marketing budget) is not dependent on book sales. They use other funding to market the books. (And part of their marketing is selling the books as cheaply as possible to school and prison libraries. As well as holding their annual mass sales, which people adore. They are using alternative funding to publish books that do not sell copies, then practically giving those copies away! That is their business model and I don’t think people fault them for it? But I guess you could say, if you wanted to, “Oh, Dalkey, you can’t fucking sell any books, begone with you.”
(Not saying Subito is Dalkey, mind you—I have no idea. But I don’t think anyone else here does, either.)
As far as I can see, the reading fee is funding publication of the winning books, plus runners up? And not the entire press? (i.e., it’s not “the primary source of income for the press” as you claim—but correct me if you have other information). Looks to me like they’re running a contest off reading fees—not the press off reading fees. Though I may be wrong.
I guess my point in this comment is: Does anyone here really know anything about how Subito Press functions? I have to say, I get the impression people are just arguing.
Cheers,
Adam
This is the not-for-profit publishing community, though. Not the (I assume commercial?) design community. Isn’t that, like, relevant? A
I tend to do that when arguing with people because I find it more polite. Sorry I offended you.
It also reduces warehouse costs, even if marginally. Win-win.
a month ago I read in five cities, without a book or chapbook. I can’t even imagine how cool that would/could have been had I the support of a publisher. But I did it because I got to kick it with poets from Tuscon to New Orleans.
In the end, I’m going to buy books and travel and spend money hanging out with poets and loved ones, well before I spend money on a reading fee. I mean, I’m going to pay reading fees because I want a book and this is the system, but it’s still a little wonky to me…
this comment was directed at this post which has apparently been deleted:
Yep, certainly relevant. You’re totally right that different communities have different norms, but (if we do want to open up a wider discussion), it is worth considering that *many* creative communities aren’t fond of the competition model.
I’d like to agree with you, Brendan, but I don’t think it really works like that. e.g., twenty years ago, in 1993, FC2 published Yuriy Tarnawsky’s Three Blondes and Death. I think it’s a remarkable novel, one of the best I’ve read in the past two decades. Want to guess how many copies it’s sold? And how many people have read it?
I don’t have hard figures at hand, but suffice to say it hasn’t been flying off the shelves. And that has nothing to do with the quality of the book. It’s a big, strange book by a guy with a strange-looking name. I’ve been praising it since the late 90s, and I can barely get anyone to read it. (Maybe it’s me?)
I’m very glad the novel got published, even though FC2 probably took a loss on it.
Incidentally, Yuriy never went to a writing program. He came to the States in the 1950s and worked for IBM his entire adult life; he’s a linguist with an engineering background. That’s part of the reason why he’s largely unknown in literary circles, and rarely discussed/read.
What’s wrong with competitions?
Adam, some great points. I reckon I might bow out of this discussion as, ultimately (and for all the reasons you’ve outlined), I don’t think it’s fair to target Subito. However, I also don’t think it’s worth brushing this all off. There are clearly some real issues with the business model(s) around small publishing. I appreciate those in this thread that have been able to examine the issue more broadly, and I hope this discussion continues elsewhere.
Obviously I don’t know exactly what Subito’s doing, and for all I know they’re spending the submission fees on designer pet monkeys to ferry them coke, but $700 to design and lay out the two winning books isn’t much—it’s slightly better than minimum wage for two weeks to do all the production work on those two books (and more, if they can publish more). Speaking as someone who used to help design and lay out books, that ain’t much.
Not saying there aren’t alternative business models available, but it might be helpful to look into some of the specifics here before getting too enraged.
Also, $3/book isn’t an exorbitant publishing cost. And it’s often more expensive to print fewer copies than more. Funny how that works! Blame capitalism.
http://www.nospec.com – again, can only really speak from the perspective of a designer, here. When it comes to publishing, things get a little hazier (as many competitions for writers allow writers to publish previously-written work, as opposed to producing work specifically for the competition), but I do sometimes wish more writers were familiar with the No Spec movement.
I should stress that I, too, don’t really know what Subito is doing. I’m mainly trying to sharpen the criticisms. Lord knows the publishing industry deserves many.
Good night, connortomas. Your handle reminds me of Die Fledermaus :)
if the designer gets paid more than the author, the author’s work is less valuable than the work of the designer. If I just wanted a book to be in print, I would send it to LULU. It’s more than that. It’s knowing that you have people who love your work, stand by it, promote it, and value your words more than they value the cover art. (it’s also how you get things like NEAs and Tenure Tracks and fluffy things like that, but I’m not interested in these aspects of getting published. I think that stuff is more valuable to older poets who love institutional recognition)
Being against spec work makes total sense to me. But literary competitions aren’t the same thing, I don’t think (?).
Doesn’t anyone here ever pay money to participate in a contest? Like, to run in a marathon? Tho maybe I’m just numb because I spend lots of time watching people pay to play in Magic: the Gathering tournaments.
it’s $700 per book.
Well it’s gotta be monkeys and blow, then.
Hey, Subito, I’m available…
Implication here is that someone like you, because you haven’t paid no f**king reading fee!, is the next Rimbaud or Dostoevsky or Woolf… pretty convenient.
As a former athletic competitor (at the collegiate level, which I say only to indicate that my status was a higher tier level of amateur), I really am tired of the whole competitive fiction prize thing. I’ve served as a judge to a fiction prize or two and it’s unavoidable, I think, for it to come down to random aesthetic sensibility. If I remember correctly, the winner of a prize I judged was chosen first (of six or so finalist) by two judges of, I believe, five total. That’s a little more parity than most of these contests I see judged by a single writer / poet and still the annihilating subjectivity (randomness of those who entered and ultimate taste of those reading) of the experience makes me feel as though it really does come down to a quasi-lottery, or maybe in some ways like the outcome of a wrestling match in which the wrestlers’ identities are hidden? That might be getting a bit divergent from the topic at hand, but I kind of love / hate physical competition and in that there is worlds more room for evaluative parity. Art doesn’t lend itself terribly well to competitions and judging.
Also, Subito’s reading fee is exorbitant — no two ways about it.
Did FC2 used to charge reading fees? I seem to recall no.
By the way, as far as Dalkey, they do not charge reading fees or run contests, which is what I am arguing is a lousy way to run a press. I am not saying people need to publish commercial fiction – you misunderstood me there. I simply said it is the presses responsibility to find ways to publish the work without charging authors.
It’s always nice to see a young man on his toes.
This is all about keeping alive a publishing paradigm that no longer works for poetry. We should get creative and explore and invest in new paradigms. One possible alternative is the nanopress model – details here: http://thenanopress.wordpress.com
No offense. It just annoys the hell out of me. You’re still a pretty cool guy though. No sarcasm there.
Possible solution: Give each submitter a copy of the winning book. That gives something back for the fee. It also gives the book a wider readership. Another possible solution: Require submitters to purchase one Subito book that’s already in print.