32 | The Writer • November 2019
month. “It’s our primary source of
income and has replaced the sale of
print journals,” says Executive Editor
Alexandra Watson.
Jennifer Baker, a contributing edi-
tor to Electric Literature, sees digital
bringing more opportunities for mag-
azines that prioritize and amplify
BIPOC authors (those who are black,
indigenous, and people of color),
including Kw e l i Jo u r n a l, The Offing,
Aster(ix), and Hyphen Magazine.
Other online magazines have arrived
on the scene with great promise, such
as The Establishment, but, alas, dis-
covered even a digital model is diffi-
cult to sustain.
Practical concerns prompt journals
to go online as well, notes the staff ofthe Kenyon Review, who answered
questions collaboratively via email for
this story.
“We’re slowly losing institutional
print subscribers, as the libraries who
have historically subscribed have tight-
ened their budgets and begun to move
to online databases for print content,”
the Review staff says. “Bookstores have
limited shelf space, so newsstand sales
have taken more time and effort.”
It doesn’t have to be either/or.
Online can complement print. Kenyon
Review launched Kenyon Review Online
a decade ago, and it functions as a sepa-
rate magazine, publishing every two
weeks. “We’ve expanded what and how
much we publish in KRO significantly
since its early days, and we have the
ability to reach readers all over the
world,” the Review staff says.3
SUBMITTABLE: PART
SALVATION, PART
TRIBULATION
Editors will tell you Sub-
mittable has been the big-
gest game-changer in literary magazines
during the past two decades. It’s also
been the biggest headache.
Submittable, if you aren’t familiar, is
a cloud-based system where you sub-
mit work to magazines. You register
for a Submittable account and then use
your login to submit to any publica-
tions that use the platform.
For magazines that once received
submissions via email, Submittable has
been a godsend. Editors still have night-
mares about losing stories in over-
stuffed inboxes. Submittable trackssubmissions and allows editors to assign
each one to an initial reader, making
acceptances and rejections way easier.
“Submissions at EVENT have
increased dramatically in the past few
years as a result of our beginning to
accept work online through Submitta-
ble,” says Shashi Bhat, editor of
EVENT. “Prior to that, we accepted
only snail-mail submissions.”
But there’s a tradeoff for this ser-
vice – money, of course, and as we’ve
already established, most lit mags
don’t have much of it. A number of
editors told us, on background,
they’re reeling from recent Submitta-
ble fee bumps.
For many magazines, Submittable
charges an overall fee, then takes a slice
of submission fees as well. Not all maga-
zines charge one (see: “The greatWHAT ABOUT
ADVERTISING?
With the financial concerns
facing literary journals, you
might think a few full-page
ads for a writing conference
or new novel-writing soft-
ware might pay the bills.
But the majority of literary
magazines don’t accept or
pursue advertising. To some
degree, this is a practical
consideration; lit mags are
small operations, often volun-
teer-run. They don’t have the
luxury of an advertising sales
staff. As it is, editors are
strapped for time.
“I’m not against advertis-
ing,” says David Olimpio, edi-
tor-in-chief and owner of
Atticus Review. “I’d just like it
to be more focused toward
what this community would
want to see, be more taste-
ful. And I haven’t figured out
a way or had the time and
energy to put into doing that.”
It’s also a matter of per-
ception. Lit mags don’t want
to become commercialized.
There’s a prestige factor to
being accepted in a literary
journal, where a writer’s
work might be discovered by
an agent seeking new talent.
Ads jar that perception.
Submittable has been the biggest
game-changer in literary magazines
during the past two decades.
It’s also been the biggest headache.