Lesson 3: The Business Side of Things
Getting Paid
I have to be honest with you. It’s hard to make a living as a poet. You might get paid something, but it’s unlikely that you’ll make a lot of money.
Smaller magazines and literary journals don’t pay very well. In fact, some don’t really pay at all. Usually they will give you one or more free copies of the issue in which your work appears, and some may offer you a free subscription. For example, Poet Lore pays two contributor’s copies, while Other Voices offers four copies.
Remember that the publication credits you earn are still valuable, even if you don’t get paid cash for your work.
Larger publications may pay fairly well, though. Some pay by the poem, others by the page or number of lines. For example, Northwest Florida Review pays $5 per poem, while Hayden’s Ferry Review pays up to $100, and Boulevard pays $250 or more. The Meridian pays $15 per page, and The Georgia Review pays $3 per line.
Some publications pay on acceptance, which means you get paid when they agree to take your work. Most pay on publication, which means you get paid when your work actually appears in print. If you don’t receive a payment when you were told to expect it, contact the editor and inquire about it. If that doesn’t work, call the publication’s accounting department if there is one (some very small publications won’t have a separate department for this).
Some writers send an invoice to the accounting department after a piece has been accepted for publication. If you send an invoice, it should include the name of the poem, the name of the publication in which it will appear, the date it was accepted for publication (use the date on the letter you received telling you that your work was accepted), and the issue in which it is scheduled to appear. Of course, you’ll also want to make sure you include your address so they’ll know where to send the check.
A few publications charge a "reading fee." This means they want you to pay them to read and consider publishing your work. For example, Northwoods Journal charges a $1 reading fee for each poem. If they publish your work, they’ll pay you $0.10 per line, which means that you’ll break even with a ten-line poem. I recommend you save your money and submit your poems elsewhere.
It works differently if you publish a book, of course. If a publisher purchases your book, you’ll receive a percentage of each sale after the book comes out in print. Windstorm Creative, for instance, publishes a number of poetry books each year, and pays 15% royalties to authors. Larger book publishers may offer an advance to authors before a book is actually printed.
If you self-publish a book, you won’t earn any money until you go out and sell some copies. You will, however, have to pay in advance to have your book printed. If you hope to make money by self-publishing, you’ll need to develop a good marketing plan to sell your book.
