Hatrack River Writers Workshop: How Much?

This is topic How Much? in forum Hatrack Writers - Publications & Reviews at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

There's been a pretty good amount of activity in these pages lately, announcing sales of this and that. And some of them have been to some big markets.

So...you guys...how much money did you get for your sale?

This is the kind of personal question where you can definitely say, "Mind your own business," and stick with it. So---don't answer if you don't want to.

Posted by Sara Genge (Member # 3468) on :

I'm not talking about specific amounts, but it's easy to find out, if you really want to by checking magazine guidelines.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Ah, there's the rub of it. The guidelines say you get such-and-such for such-and-such number of words---but did you get it? And what do, say, the top name-established pros get for something of similar length?

One reason for my morbid curiosity is the word rates the markets give. My rough estimate of relative values and inflation makes me think the top SF magazines pay less for material right now than they did back in the 1930s and 1940s when it was only a penny a word. I'm also relating the effort I put into a story (quite a bit) to the money I get for it (nothing so far). I'm starting to think it'll only be psychological satisfaction for me to sell something to these markets---I don't think it will be financially satisfying. (Assuming I sell something, that is.)

Posted by Bent Tree (Member # 7777) on :

I recall reading in Heinleins Expanded Universe That his first sale was enough to fill ten stationwagons full of groceries, or some such. I would expect that same sale today would barely fill the gas tank to one station wagon.

But think how spoiled we are with our word processors

Posted by Sara Genge (Member # 3468) on :

quote:
Ah, there's the rub of it. The guidelines say you get such-and-such for such-and-such number of words---but did you get it? And what do, say, the top name-established pros get for something of similar length?

Of course you get what they advertise for. Pro markets are called that for a reason. They wouldn't get anything for swindling you, except getting sued. And believe me, getting sued for short-changing a writer 50-100$ is so not worth it.

The semi-pro markets pay less, but the ones I've deal with have always been incredibly prompt with payments and professional in their dealings with me. They pay what they say they pay: 5$, 25$, whatever they advertise in their guidelines.

I don't know what big pros get paid, the rates on webpages apply to the slush-pile, not to solicited subs.

quote:
My rough estimate of relative values and inflation makes me think the top SF magazines pay less for material right now than they did back in the 1930s and 1940s when it was only a penny a word. I'm also relating the effort I put into a story (quite a bit) to the money I get for it (nothing so far). I'm starting to think it'll only be psychological satisfaction for me to sell something to these markets---I don't think it will be financially satisfying. (Assuming I sell something, that is.)

This is true, and self-evident. It's a market economy. Offer and demand determine price. The demand has dropped considerably since the 40s.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

On Bent Tree's comment...yes, I've observed that phenomenon in my own life (and I read Expanded Universe, too). When I was a kid watching my mother buy groceries, twenty dollars would fill a shopping cart to the brim. Now, to do that, I'd have to go, oh, probably about two hundred dollars total, though I'm shopping-for-one and rarely go that high.

But there are things you can get now in the 2000s that you just couldn't get in the 1960s...CDs and DVDs and downloaded music come to mind. And you couldn't buy a word processor for any money before, oh, the 1980s or 1970s...

But the items you can buy, then and now, can be compared...

(Of course, the gas Heinlein bought to power the ten station wagons wouldn't have been unleaded, either...)

On Sara Genge's further comments...I'm suspicious of "market value" being the sole cause of rates being so low. Over the course of the 1940s, I gather, the big SF markets went from one-cent-per-word to two-cents-per-word. Then Frederik Pohl, then an agent, used a squeeze play to get these same big markets to pay three-cents-a-word.

Right now Asimov's lists six-cents-a-word as top rate (with something of a sliding scale as the work gets longer). We're not talking any adjustment for inflation here. In this period we're talking about, gasoline has gone from a low of five-cents-a-gallon to a high over four-dollars-a-gallon. A considerable comparative difference.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

One thing I didn't mention, inflationwise, because I didn't think of it until a while after...a raise, over seventy-five some years, of one-cent-a-word to six-cents-a-word is multiplying word rates six times.

Now, I looked back on some old Astounding covers online and found in the thirties and forties, when they paid one-cent-a-word, they charged twenty-five-cents an issue. My latest issues of Analog and Asimov's go for four dollars and ninety-nine cents---multiplying cover price just a hair under twenty times.

[edited 'cause I messed up one set of italics]

[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited April 01, 2008).]

Posted by Rick Norwood (Member # 5604) on :

Sf magazines pay less now than in the 1930s and 1940s (adjusting for inflation) because they have far fewer readers now than then. There was a brief time when Amazing Stories sold over a million copies.

At some point, the sf magazines decided to opt out of the popular fiction game, and try the literary fiction game. They chose a game with more respect, but far fewer players.

Also, fewer and fewer people read short stories. Most people who read fiction want a big, fat novel.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Well, I don't know what The New Yorker pays for what it buys (I couldn't find it on a quick look at their site), but they play the literary game and I'm sure they pay more than the SF magazines. (They have a few policies involving submissions that rule it out for me, but I'm not a fan of what they do publish, so my submitting to it would be even more unlikely.)

But I do know of some markets that have lower sales figures than the SF mags and pay a lot more for what they publish...

(Though I do agree about the "big fat novel" being the preferred fiction experience these days. Maybe especially in SF...)