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?CountAverage Acceptance%
Never Fees4,354 (72.35 %)7.43 %
Optional Fees102 (1.69 %)4.27 %
Some Fees222 (3.69 %)2.37 %
Always Fees1,340 (22.27 %)2.99 %
Total6,0185.56 %

Average fee paid: USD $7.13

Literary Contests

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

Fees?CountAverage Acceptance%
Never Fees117 (11.96 %)6.39 %
Optional Fees3 (0.31 %)n/a
Some Fees9 (0.92 %)n/a
Always Fees849 (86.81 %)2.21 %
Total9782.48 %

Average fee paid: USD $18.91

Literary Journals

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

Fees?CountAverage Acceptance%
Never Fees1,926 (78.58 %)6.99 %
Optional Fees86 (3.51 %)3.96 %
Some Fees181 (7.38 %)2.38 %
Always Fees258 (10.53 %)3.10 %
Total2,4515.32 %

Average fee paid: USD $3.60

Genre Contests

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

Fees?CountAverage Acceptance%
Never Fees41 (33.61 %)10.63 %
Optional Fees1 (0.82 %)n/a
Some Fees0 (0.00 %)n/a
Always Fees80 (65.57 %)3.75 %
Total1225.37 %

Average fee paid: USD $15.43

Genre Journals

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

Fees?CountAverage Acceptance%
Never Fees540 (90.15 %)9.14 %
Optional Fees14 (2.34 %)6.59 %
Some Fees20 (3.34 %)3.98 %
Always Fees25 (4.17 %)4.27 %
Total5998.24 %

Average fee paid: USD $4.31

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day. Last compiled: Friday, February 21, 2020 12:18:44 AM UTC.

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