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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 Fees4,560 (71.90 %)8.07 %
Optional Fees157 (2.48 %)7.13 %
Some Fees256 (4.04 %)2.40 %
Always Fees1,369 (21.59 %)2.93 %
Total6,3426.07 %

Average fee paid: USD $7.13

Literary Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees147 (14.48 %)4.39 %
Optional Fees5 (0.49 %)n/a
Some Fees19 (1.87 %)1.86 %
Always Fees844 (83.15 %)2.52 %
Total1,0152.59 %

Average fee paid: USD $19.19

Literary Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees2,089 (77.20 %)7.87 %
Optional Fees127 (4.69 %)6.16 %
Some Fees195 (7.21 %)2.27 %
Always Fees295 (10.90 %)2.98 %
Total2,7065.87 %

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 (40.15 %)6.18 %
Optional Fees2 (1.46 %)n/a
Some Fees1 (0.73 %)n/a
Always Fees79 (57.66 %)5.90 %
Total1375.98 %

Average fee paid: USD $16.04

Genre Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees563 (87.69 %)8.31 %
Optional Fees21 (3.27 %)5.54 %
Some Fees27 (4.21 %)4.52 %
Always Fees31 (4.83 %)3.47 %
Total6427.47 %

Average fee paid: USD $4.35

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 11 April 2021 2:26 AM UTC (15 hours, 41 minutes ago).

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