In Defence of Non-Commercial Publishing.

Small press publishers of short stories vary considerably in their payment practices. A few pay industry standard fees, many pay nothing at all, and the rest fall somewhere in between. Two of the better magazines which have published stories of mine recently have been non-paying markets: Black Matrix Publishing, who publish Encounters Magazine (among others,) and Misanthrope Press, who publish Title-Goes-Here (and who have now started paying a nominal fee.)

I had several exchanges with authors on the Black Matrix blog site over this issue. They were obviously people who saw their writing in commercial terms, and were outraged that a publisher should expect to use a story without payment. They accused the publisher of exploitation and profiteering. This is a narrow, impoverished point of view which I felt needed challenging.

For a start, there are no big bucks to be made in small press publishing. Even if a small presser were to be making some money out of the venture, it wouldn’t amount to very much. And if profit was their priority, they would have to be looking at commercial exigencies first and foremost, not at the deeper qualities of which literature is capable. They would have to be focussing primarily on entertainment value. I should stress that I have no objection to literature being entertaining, but when entertainment becomes the top priority, the medium gets lazy. It ties itself to tried and tested formulae; depth, experimentation and individuality largely go out of the window.

This is precisely where the small press should come into its own. By not paying its authors it keeps its costs down, and that means it can put out work that the commercial end of the business wouldn’t touch. It can fill the gap left by the modern obsession with profitability. It will mean fewer sales and more mixed quality, but at least some worthy stuff will get to see the light of day. And if they do manage to sell enough copy to be able to pay the authors a small fee, all well and good. For my own part, I would rather give my story free to a quality publication than be a tiny part of one arm of the entertainment industry.

If anyone wants to look at the publishers mentioned, links are here:

http://www.title-goes-here.com/

http://www.blackmatrixpub.com/