Editor Interviews

We pay writers directly from book sales. If our book doesn't make enough money, then it's usually out-of-pocket.

We receive some funding through Syracuse University. However, like any non-profit organization we heavily rely on donations and subscriptions.

By sales - we're a commercial business.

Like a lot of indie, non-profit arts organizations, we're funded by a combination of earned income and donated income. We work hard to sell our books in the marketplace but we need financial report to be able to take risks, ignore whether our authors have social media followings, etc., etc.

About 75% of our funding comes from direct paid subscriptions, either via our website, or Substack. Another 20% comes from individual issue, "Best of" or "Themed" book sales on Amazon or via bookstore orders. The final 5% comes from nonprofit grants and donations.

This is a labor of love and currently self-funded by the editorial team and family investors.

SoFloPoJo is self-funded. We do not collect submission fees or hide the quarterly issues behind a paywall.

We're pretty lean; the non-editor staff does the work for credit (it's built into the curriculum as more or less a publishing internship); teaching the course is part of teaching load; the ongoing annual reading is essentially uncompensated. For printing/paying authors, we get a little institutional support and supplement via our small fees.

By the editors.

We are currently self-funded, which provides the flexibility to develop and validate our concept. As we build credibility and publish additional work, we plan to expand our revenue through donations and crowdfunding, creating a sustainable funding stream that will enable us to move beyond the proof of concept phase. As a podcast, we also have the opportunity to generate revenue through advertising and sponsorships in the future.

We are a self-funded, non-profit passion project.

Everything out our pocket. We are a no-fee, no-pay. We do this out of a passion to help unknown authors to get their first break. We have several established authors also.

Self-funded at this time.

Self-funded through sales.

I do content creation for an NGO in India to earn enough money to keep the magazine going. This is a labour of love.

We're a lean, independent project fueled by passion and driven entirely by an all-female team of volunteers. Our operations are funded through a hybrid model: foundational support from our founder, the generosity of our community of donors, and revenue generated from our magazine sales. While we're in a phase of strategic growth and operating at a slight deficit, these resources allow us to maintain our editorial independence. Our goal remains to foster a sustainable ecosystem where our contributors and readers can thrive together.

The vast majority of our funding comes from submission fees, which we're very grateful to receive enough of to float almost all of our technology fees, contributor honorariums, philanthropic donations, and now offer a fee-free submission week. Sometimes people kindly donate to us as well. We do also have a Merch Store, but that pretty much doesn't factor into our funding in practice. All uncovered expenses are just paid by me. I'm hoping to start applying for grants in earnest soon, but funds are notoriously tight in the literary arts industry so future growth is a bit nebulous at the moment.

* Tip jar donations.
* Website merchandise sales.
* Direct from my pocket as founder and editor-in-chief of GossamerWight Literary Magazine and Press!
* We do not ask those submitting prose and / or poetry for a fee, but neither do we pay contributors, as we do not have the funds! We do, at least, provide each successful contributor with a complimentary copy of the anthology in which their work appears (PDF and ePub) and give them a 15% discount voucher for use in our online store... plus we advertise their work on our social media channels.
* And, our nominations are one of the most direct forms of advocacy we, as editors, can offer our writers.

Subscriptions and my day job. We are not profitable yet, but as an e-magazine, the cost isn't huge. I look forward to growing my subs to break even monthly.

Self-funded by me for as long as I am able. Everyone, always PDF your published works. Many lit mags are run without funding or substantive funding courtesy of the love of the editor/team, but it's a hard world out there. Protect yourself by ensuring you have proof your work was published.
Also, knowing this, we accept submissions of previously published pieces in magazines now defunct. We can't guarantee acceptance but we are happy to look at a piece you love and was published but the magazine no longer exists.

At this time we are reader supported. Readers can donate money to us directly or pay for a downloadable issue of RABBLE REVIEW. Our issue is free to read in browser, but downloads cost $8. But every single cent that has gone into RABBLE REVIEW has come from readers, or our own pockets.

It is very much a collective model. We are open access, and so I fund much of the journal personally (website, etc.). I consider it part of my academic service to the broader reading public.

A variety of channels including merchandise, private funding, and Substack. This is primarily a labor of love.

The poetry contest is funded by the submission fee for the contest. All else is funded by the editor.

We raised initial funds via a successful Kickstarter in 2025. We're primarily funded now via subscriptions on Patreon and elsewhere. We're also a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so we occasionally receive donations from generous readers who are excited about our mission!

Our project is editor-funded (which is why we keep costs low!) and volunteer-run.

The Quasar Review does not receive funding and is self-funded.

Independently.

Solely on submission fees at the present moment, but maybe through grants after we have met longevity requirements.

We have a generous donor who helps to keep us funded and we offset costs by charging a small submission fee.

We are proud to be supported by The deGroot Foundation for the cash prizes. Marketing and administrative costs are supported by reading fees. We have a long term partnership with Dreamers Writing magazine to publish the winner. They do an incredible job.

We are a privately funded company.

While we receive a small operating grant from Flagler College, we also rely on semi-annual fundraisers run by the college, and monies received via our Tip Jar on Submittable. Donations are especially appreciated, as printing costs have risen sharply over the past few years, and we are always operating on a shoestring budget.

As a charity micro-press, as well as the imprint of the International Human Rights Art Movement, we rely on external funding or profits from book sales!

Sugar daddies, tips from submitters, the editors' jobs.

We are fully independent with no external funding. We are a team of three and do everything ourselves.

Our journal is funded partly by the college that houses us and partly by the submission fees we collect via Submittable.

We have various income streams: competitions, workshops, paid-submissions windows, and the tip-jar feature on Submittable.

Litro is funded through a mix of subscriptions and reader support, sales of print and digital editions, advertising and partnerships, and occasional project-based grants and donations for specific programmes. We operate leanly, with a small editorial team and significant volunteer contribution, and we reinvest revenue back into publishing and commissioning.

Entry to the Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction is subject to a fee. The fee funds our cash prizes, allows us to pay our judges for their work, and covers the significant administrative costs of running the competition.
It’s a bit like organised sport - if you want to compete, you have to be prepared to contribute to the running costs.
Whether they win a prize or not, our entrants get their money’s worth through the our extensive post-comp podcasts, and the fun of taking part!

Our publication is funded by subscriptions, single-issue sales, and donations from individuals. On rare occasions, we receive a grant.

The editors and publisher finance the journal.

Books sales, donations, grants -- the usual suspects.

I launched our debut publication through a grant intended to bolster a creative business venture, and from there, we have been able to profit enough from the sale of our printed anthologies that we can fund our projects through previous sales.

We're a nonprofit organization supported by our donors, and we recently instituted a completely optional tip jar on Submittable.

We are funded by subscribers. Part of our foundational mission is to pay our authors without charging submission fees, and we're very fortunate that our paying subscribers make that possible.

I personally fund most of InterrobangLit right now, but our Patreon is helping to pay contributors.

We are funded exclusively through our book sales. But if you are millionaire who wants to invest in our press, give us a call.

No. The only income we receive is the sale of our hard copy anthology each year. We spend a couple of hundred dollars to register and publish our website, and sometimes the sale of our anthologies does not cover all of it. We are all volunteers at The Loch Raven Review.

By the sales of Once Upon A Queer Publishing's books, which are on the website onceuponaqueer.com/catalog for anyone interested in seeing them.

Passion and love and a lot of time.

We charge for submissions and host an annual contest to make paying our contributors possible. Recently, we have received grants here and there as well. Sometimes we recieve funding from a graduate student organization on campus here at FSU.

We are primarily self-funded. Pure in Heart is a labor of love! We also receive a small amount from selling print issues, which we use to help cover costs.

We have always paid the costs ourselves, however we have just incorporated as a Community Interest Company (CIC) or non-profit. We have a Patreon and Kofi and you can support us by donating to us, by listening to, sharing or reviewing the show and by advertising on the show or sponsoring us. We have just won a grant to help us produce an anthology which is very exciting.

100% by the Founder and editor-in-Chief.

Hot Flash Literary is a self-funded labor of love. We do not charge for submissions but gratefully accept donations on our website.

Our company was initially funded by investments from me and Joel Goldman... but has been self-sustaining since our third year in business. By that I mean, we're funded by the sales of our books. That's why we are so picky about what we publish.

We do not have outside funding. We sell issues, and, alas, must ask for a (nominal) submission fee. Our editors and readers are volunteers. We are grateful to the university for supporting student internships so students who work in our office and help with our workflow can learn while earning credit (and occasionally these are paid internships, too!)

Sales of the magazine and the occasional selling of family heirlooms. So buy a copy!

By three broke friends—no grants, no backing—just belief in the project and a desire to center more diverse voices in literature.

Doric Literary is almost entirely self-funded by the editor. We warmly welcome, but do not solicit, donations.

Earlier issues were all self funded. As of this writing, we are hoping to secure initial funding through a crowd funding event. If we were to do well, we may be able to be largely self reliant again.

In sweat and blood. There are only two of us, and it's a labour of love. We receive no outside funding. We did sell a few print copies of our third issue, but this left us with a loss. We do this for the love of great literature, and even if we never receive a penny for it, it's worth it to share talent and quality writing with the world.

I am the sole founder, editor and funder. I do not have any outside contributions, although it would be nice one day to have some sponsors or donors so I could offer more contests and prize money.

There is a tip jar that people very generously add to but other than that it's self financed.

I cover the website costs out of pocket, but the rest is all just me doing the work and teaching myself everything I might have to pay someone to do. Or, calling my friends, mostly for coding issues that are far above my basic level of CS knowledge. Once I've got a more stable income, I'm aiming to start paying writers. I'm really not huge on ever making anyone pay for submissions even if I begin paying-- I hate the barrier that cost provides and think that mags should be free to submit to, at least most of the time. I think optional editorial feedback or one-on-ones, or things like that make sense as they're kind of above what's expected for a mag, but charging for a base submission? What are you doing.

With dedication.

The Washington Writers' Publishing House is funded through a combination of book sales, grants, and donations to our nonprofit press.

We are funded entirely through sales and small donations. We are not owned by an institution.

By us. The two of us come out of pocket for the costs of running the mag. We've recently started publishing a yearly paperback anthology of our issues to recover some costs and push ourselves toward the goal of paying contributors.

Out of my own pocket :(

Day job.

We run a kickstarter every year, and we funnel whatever proceeds don't go to the authors back into the project for next year.

We have been sustainable through sales and grants but make our livings elsewhere.

We currently do not receive any outside funding beyond what our readers/contributors donate via our patreon: https://www.patreon.com/littleoldladycomedy.

My job. We do have manuscript reading fees, and we make a little money selling books and merch, and we get the random donation here and there. But we are still small and I have to work to pay the bills. We aren't a 501c3 so we don't get to apply for grants. So if anyone has any money lying around not doing anything, send it our way!

Larina's Lit Lounge is self-funded. I do have a tip jar option, and I use those funds to pay contributors.

We're a nonprofit, so we're funded by a mix of grants, fundraising, and sales.

Broad Ripple Review is funded through a combination of community support and private donations. We keep submissions free because we do not want cost to be a barrier for writers. Our funding comes from voluntary tip jar donations, our optional paid editorial feedback category, and private financial support from individuals who believe in our mission. All funds are used to pay contributors and sustain the publication. Our editors and readers volunteer their time because we believe writers deserve a space that treats their work with care.

It's funded by the editor-in-chief and donations.

We are a 501c3 tax-exempt organization.

(cackles a little psychotically) Most of our funding is from our day jobs and our savings. We are still growing and our five-year goal is for the magazine to be entirely self-sustaining through subscriptions. We plan to do a one-time kickstarter early in 2026 as a form of subscription drive. We will also build out additional products over time, including anthologies, bookmarks and other merchandise, etc.

We're a very low-budget operation with virtually no overhead. All our income is from Substack subscriptions. On the (increasingly rare) occasions when a month's subscription revenues aren't enough to cover our minimum contributor payment, I make up the difference out of pocket.

However I can. Generally, I fund my publishing by working elsewhere 9 to 5. But money has come from alot of different sources: deployment overseas as a soldier (that was in the beginning of Dead Man Publishing), inheritances, employment, investments... but it is always a chunk out of me. I do this for the love of writing and publishing, not for money.

It's funded personally by us, although we do have a Ko-Fi page for those who'd like to help out.

We have a tip jar.

Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature (ISSN: 2690-7089) is a digital, Open Access journal of disability poetry, literature, and the arts. Submission and biannual publication are free. Authors and other contributors retain copyright to their work. Effective Volume 14, Issue 2 (June 2020), work is published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. This arrangement is made possible by generous support from the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach at the Burton Blatt Institute (housed in the College of Law at Syracuse University) and the Syracuse University Libraries.

It's not funded.

For the most part, we aren't. I cover expenses like domain name registration and hosting out of pocket. Submittable charges a small fee, which pays for Submittable and usually enough extra to cover cash prizes for our Spotlight Authors.

Apricity is a labor of love and is fully funded by me. Since its founding in 2015, I have owned all the operating costs for the magazine (website, submission manager, etc). Because of this, we aren't currently able to pay our artists or editors, but we hope to secure funding in the future to make that a reality!

trampset is funded through voluntary tip and quick reply submissions, and donations.

We are funded primarily through Australian government grants which, because we are such a small entity, are only 1 to 2 years in duration. We’re pretty much always applying for grants :) We also have a growing network of donators through our free Substack newsletter, which helps us with some of our ongoing costs!

We are self-funded, with the occasional contribution from friends of the magazine.

We receive support from Amherst College, the NEA, Amazon, and individual donors. We also run revenue-generating programs in addition to selling subscriptions.

Through our university.

Usually, Artists from Maryland is paid for specifically only with personal funds from the masthead (this is why we are usually unable to pay contributors, as the money goes to website maintenance). When we are able to pay contributors, it is usually because we've received a grant of money specifically for enhancing Artists from Maryland's goal of uplifting Maryland-based artists.

Self-funded! We currently have no funding. We do have a donation link on our site, but don't push donations. Because of this, we don't currently pay, but are working towards that goal.

It is self-funded with the help of donations on our PayPal - https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=62ZM68BKKATZS

When the Arkansas International was founded in 2016, it was primarily funded and staffed by the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. Since its inception, it has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Foundation, and numerous individual donors. In 2025 the University of Arkansas ended its affiliation with the magazine, and as a result the journal has recreated itself into an independent 501(c)(3) organization.

All members of the editorial team are graduates of the Goddard College MFA in Creative Writing program. The journal grew out of the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference (CWC), a nonprofit organization founded in 1997 that conducts conferences, readings, writing groups, and a retreat each summer for Goddard MFA-W alumni. The organization and conference fund the journal’s activities.
Everyone who works for this organization, from the Lead Steward to the Board of Stewards to the Editorial Director, Genre Leads, Editors, and Readers at the journal, is a volunteer and working from a place of mutual respect and community.
Even though Goddard College closed in 2024 (and is deeply missed), CWC and Clockhouse Journal continue to thrive because of the dedication and passion of this alumni group.

Patreon! Drop us a dollar at patreon.com/neondystopia if you would like to help us pay our writers!

I personally fund the project.

We are currently fully funded by the revenue we generate through magazine and event sales, subscriptions, and donations provided within our community.

We have not yet received any grants or investments, and so all the money we currently make is from whatever the business generates through magazine sales, events, subscriptions and donations. We are actively applying for grants so that we can grow this publishing business further and offer more opportunities.

We receive a very modest amount from the university, but much of the publishing company is self funded. We are fortunate to have enough readers to keep us in operation, and we believe this speaks to the quality of the literature we publish.

The monthly Collaborature contest is funded through donations and contributions from friends and writers. If you would like to donate, please visit our Submissions page.