Question Regarding a Submission Fee

[Steerpike]

As some of you may know, I've been working on an idea to put out a call for submissions for an anthology. More than one, over time, with varying themes. The kinds of stories I'd like to read, and hopefully others will as well. My plan is to hire a cover artist out-of-pocket and have a nice cover made for each one, as that is important to sale.

I can spring for good covers for the anthologies, but some of the really high-quality artists I'd like to use are more costly than what I can put into the project. A friend of mine, who also writer, suggest I charge a small submission fee ($10 or so), with the understanding that the money from the fees goes to making a cover, marketing the anthology, and so on. Any amount that exceeds those costs goes into the royalty pool which will go back to the authors (the payment to the authors will be a royalty-sharing arrangement). The idea is that if I did one or two that way, and if the books sell at all, I could probably drop the fee for subsequent anthologies and still hire high-quality talent for the covers.

I'm not in favor of submission fees, and I think they rightly raise a red flag. Usually the fee goes into some black hole (presumably the publisher's pocket), never to be seen again. So my gut instinct is to say no, I'll just go with the lower-quality, but still nice, covers. I thought I'd throw it out to the forum, though. If the use of the entry fee was allocated specifically to the success of the work, and therefore the success of the authors contributing to it, would it put you off?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Normally, if I see the term "submission fee" or "reading fee", that offer is off the consideration table immediately without further investigation.

There will be some people who will either say "it's only $10" or actually take the time to read the uses of submission money. However, within that group of writers you may well have a contingent arise that will question your use of that submission money. For this reason alone, I'd steer away from the use of fees. Combined with the strong possibility of scaring off potential submitters, I'd definitely not recommend this as a course of action.

The standard model of using available capital, followed by an investment of profits, has more merit here. Just my opinion.

 

[Steerpike]

Thanks, T.Allen.Smith. That's the way I'm leaning, because I have the same reaction to fees. In fact, I won't submit a story to a publication that has a fee. If I knew for a fact it was going to something like a cover or to promote the book, I might do it, but I might never read far enough to learn that.

So that's one vote for staying with my initial plan. I can afford to have a nice cover made for it, but not a top-tier cover, where the art might run close to $1000, or even exceed that depending on the artist. I can have a nice cover made for a lot less.

 

[BWFoster78]

I'd vote with going with the nice, but not top tier, cover as well. I haven't really done this sort of thing, but a fee would turn me off. It seems that getting quality stories is probably more important that a good cover.

 

[Xaysai]

I don't know anything about how all of this works, but what if you put out a call within the art community to submit covers, too? One wins and gets to be the cover. The top 5 get published as the last pages of the book (or between stories), and potentially partake in the royalty sharing from the novel as well.

Would Kickstarter be an option? Raise $1k? All you need is 200 ppl to give $5 : )

 

[Steerpike]

I'd vote with going with the nice, but not top tier, cover as well. I haven't really done this sort of thing, but a fee would turn me off. It seems that getting quality stories is probably more important that a good cover.

Thanks, Brian. I agree with you.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't know anything about how all of this works, but what if you put out a call within the art community to submit covers, too? One wins and gets to be the cover. The top 5 get published as the last pages of the book (or between stories), and potentially partake in the royalty sharing from the novel as well.

That's a damn good idea, Xaysai. Writing it down. I'll have to figure how that will work with royalties and so on. I want to make sure any project I pursue actually pays out a percentage of the royalties earned to the contributors.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

Kickstarter IS a good alternative here, because it sounds like that's really what you are looking for anyway.

For myself, knowing who was running the anthology - I'd consider it, based on my experience of you here. But as a rule, a submission fee means I don't even bother checking into the deal.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Would Kickstarter be an option? Raise $1k? All you need is 200 ppl to give $5 : )

An outstanding suggestion.

A friend of mine used kickstarter to fund a graphic novel. I believe he & his partner raised over $15k for the project.

They offered different levels if donation from the basic $20 donation which gave the contributor digitally sent copies of the graphic novel, all the way up to more major contributors who had streets, locations, characters, named after them (the artist drew these characters to look like them also). It was extremely varied and well received.

 

[Chilari]

The other option is to be very open about the money you recieve and spend. Put on the website the amount received in submission fees, the cost of the cover and marketing, and the balance, to make it clear it's not gone into a black hole.

 

[Kevin O. McLaughlin]

The functional difference between a Kickstarter and a submission fee is important. With Kickstarter, everyone who donated gets something back. With a submission fee, people are donating in exchange for a *chance* to get something back (publication).

 

[Devor]

Maybe try a "suggested" fee like they do at the museums.

((edit))

Really, the reality is that if you want it to work, you either need to put up money or find someone to invest in the project. There's not a good way around it.

 

[boboratory]

The eyebrow raising piece here is the idea of "Settling" for a lower quality cover at all. If this is an Anthology, and presumably not populated by bestselling authors, you're going to need every advantage to entice a potential buyer, and that means the cover.

 

[Chime85]

It would be wise to steer (see what i did!) clear of any agent/publishers demanding an up front fee. As you rightly pointed out, Steerpike, this tosses the red flag high in the air. Any publisher or agent worth their salt would not require an up front fee. They would seek to gather their income from the sales of your work. That is their job, it is also their bread and butter.

By asking for an upfront fee for any portion of your work, be it editing fee, cover design or simply an "administration" cost, they show themselves as either incompetent or as con artists. Either way, it's wise to keep away from these awful companies.

If you're looking for a cover artist, continue looking. There are people out there who can do marvelous work, while also allowing you to keep the design rights for your work. But, as I said earlier, any publishing company worth their salt will do this for free. It is in their interest to help you succeed.

Give yourself the credit you deserve and seek your publishing services elsewhere.

 

[Steerpike]

Thanks for the continued comments, guys. I've ditched the submission fee idea. Never liked it much to being with. I'll concentrate on finding a quality cover at a price I can afford, or on getting people who want to invest in the project as Devor suggests.

 

[JadedSidhe]

Does asking for donations rank up there with submission fees? Maybe the ones who do donate get a mention somewhere that their support helped make the book possible?

 

[Devor]

Does asking for donations rank up there with submission fees? Maybe the ones who do donate get a mention somewhere that their support helped make the book possible?

You can always take donations. And kickstarter can be viable for some projects. But people follow success, and it takes a little money to look like a success. I would say that for an anthology, most likely you need a few people to toss their dollars into a cap and call them partners. A few hundred a person isn't that much money (well, it would be too much for me), and the risks/rewards are obvious enough. If you're really that serious - and it's okay not to be - then believe in it enough to sell people on it.

 

[Nihal]

While I frow upon submission fees the idea of a contest gives me shivers.

They are dangeours, dangeours things and the most professionals artists already know they must avoid this kind of thing. I'm going to break down some points against it, the reasons that leads professionals to not join contests. (TL;DR coming!)

- First of all, many contests sound as a "we want your work, we may or not pay for the time you spent creating it and probably it's going to be a bonus that isn't worthy your work" contest type. Unless it's someone deeply involved with the project there is no reason for a professional to get involved in such gambling. Why would s/he? For the love for stories? This love unfortunately doesn't pay their food and sheltering, the guy at the supermarket doesn't give a damn if you're a kickass artist or not.

- Contestants often lose the rights of their work and unless you're a Wizards of the Coast the "we're going to promote you" factor isn't worthy since it's a shady and untargeted type of promotion. You're going to get frowned upon if you promise this to a professional.

- Even for starters it's not really good, the artist is going to be promoted as the guy/girl who works almost for free and it would be better for him/her to create a DA and join some groups than entering such murky waters.

- There are some kind of "payment" modes of the art world.
You can be a company, hire an artist and have him to work in-house, paying for the hours he work, not for the work itself. It's the most stable but usually the less rewarding scenario for an artist.

You can hire a freelancer. He's going to give his quote for the work and it can be a full unique payment, a % only based payment (unlikely) or the mix of the two, the (sometimes cheaper) payment for the job + %. This happens because you don't sell the work itself, but the time/effort you took to create it + royalty over time. It's literally selling the right to use the work to sell things, the right to display the work, it's not a bonus of any kind.

Often the artist determine where or not the work can be displayed. The licensing is agreed upfront and it can be expanded later if needed.

In a % only scenario you're disregarding the work involved on creating the image, what can be a big turn-off, specially since it's not guaranteed that it's going to sell well so you get a reasonable amount through the royalties.


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I would go with a kickstarter if possible or a crazy term of agreement stating that the subscriber is going to help with the costs of the cover and such if selected.

If you're going to hold a contest you must hope for a young skilled artist who really loves the project to come by. If you hold the contest and no entries are good enough you're going to find yourself in a thight spot because if you pick none you're going to offend the contestants and lose some credibility, but if you pick one because you must to you're going to find yourself stuck with a bad piece.