The Joys of Publishing

This is an email that the editors of SpringGun just received- it was clearly mass emailed. I guess donating a significant amount of your time to publish work you believe in is not enough for some people. I wish he could have been at the Boulder Small Press Festival. Finally, who is this guy? :)

Hello:

Do you pay for accepted works or have you become a paying market? It would be nice to tell readers this in your guides area for submissions. There is really no excuse for being evasive about your guidelines regarding pay. These are basic things that need to be in your guidelines. Why do half you editors out there have to be admonished to put basic stuff in your guides like pay and rights issues? Where are these things at your website? They should be in conspicuous places. You are more concerned with putting fluff instead of terms for writers to access up front.

And if I've asked before, well...i don't memorize guidelines, so it would help to just be communicative to writers and save extra emailing back and forth. Though since so many editors choose not to let the writers know if they pay or not, I'm creating a NO PAY journals in my email account so I don't have to keep asking.

If you don't pay, please don't give me that tired cliche-ridden lecture that small presses don't pay like I've gotten from a number of small press eds...I could give you list that's very long of presses that are small and pay something.

Some pubs. that do pay something don't state it in their guidelines, too.

Also, some eds. who don't state their full guides make me feel like I'm the only writer to ask these questions. Yet any writer who submits work to you or another publication without knowing the pay, rights, and reprint & simultaneous sub. issues, is very naive, indeed, and is not looking out for their interests.

Why is it so hard for some of you editors to be upfront with writers about pay issues?

Thanks, Roy