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Duotrope®

Duotrope's Submission Fees Report

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Are submission fees worth it, or should you save your money?

There's been a lot of discussion lately about the state of submission fees in the literary world. We hope these figures shine some light on the situation. You can use the reports below to see the overall fee ratios, along with the average acceptance ratios by category, and compare "literary" versus "genre" publications.

All Active Publication Listings

Criteria: All active listings

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees4,475 (71.14%)7.96%
Optional Fees191 (3.04%)7.56%
Some Fees232 (3.69%)2.39%
Always Fees1,392 (22.13%)2.91%
Total6,2905.94%

Average fee paid: USD $6.91

Literary Contests

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Contest, Style: Literary, Genre: General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees142 (13.94%)3.34%
Optional Fees5 (0.49%)n/a
Some Fees17 (1.67%)2.68%
Always Fees855 (83.91%)2.24%
Total1,0192.34%

Average fee paid: USD $19.33

Literary Journals

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Journal, Style: Literary, Genre: General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees2,072 (76.63%)7.90%
Optional Fees149 (5.51%)6.72%
Some Fees187 (6.92%)2.42%
Always Fees296 (10.95%)2.92%
Total2,7045.82%

Average fee paid: USD $3.76

Genre Contests

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Contest, Style: Any, Genre: Any except General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees50 (34.25%)9.17%
Optional Fees1 (0.68%)n/a
Some Fees1 (0.68%)n/a
Always Fees94 (64.38%)6.50%
Total1467.27%

Average fee paid: USD $18.48

Genre Journals

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Journal, Style: Any, Genre: Any except General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees553 (84.95%)8.85%
Optional Fees38 (5.84%)7.42%
Some Fees21 (3.23%)3.80%
Always Fees39 (5.99%)3.84%
Total6517.84%

Average fee paid: USD $4.58

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 8 August 2022 12:22 PM UTC (9 hours, 33 minutes ago).

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve this report, please let us know.