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Duotrope®

Duotrope's Submission Fees Report

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 Fees4,567 (71.81%)8.05%
Optional Fees162 (2.55%)7.95%
Some Fees259 (4.07%)2.58%
Always Fees1,372 (21.57%)2.93%
Total6,3606.19%

Average fee paid: USD $7.19

Literary Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees154 (15.07%)4.26%
Optional Fees6 (0.59%)n/a
Some Fees19 (1.86%)1.66%
Always Fees843 (82.49%)2.54%
Total1,0222.61%

Average fee paid: USD $19.26

Literary Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees2,081 (76.99%)7.94%
Optional Fees130 (4.81%)6.84%
Some Fees199 (7.36%)2.45%
Always Fees293 (10.84%)2.93%
Total2,7036.02%

Average fee paid: USD $3.77

Genre Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees55 (38.46%)6.82%
Optional Fees2 (1.40%)n/a
Some Fees1 (0.70%)n/a
Always Fees85 (59.44%)9.52%
Total1438.57%

Average fee paid: USD $16.72

Genre Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees566 (87.75%)8.04%
Optional Fees23 (3.57%)7.07%
Some Fees26 (4.03%)4.62%
Always Fees30 (4.65%)3.17%
Total6457.37%

Average fee paid: USD $4.39

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 19 June 2021 5:59 PM UTC (less than a second ago).

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