I recently submitted a piece to Fantasy Magazine, an online publication. I found myself wondering...how do they make money? They don't have ads, and as near as I can tell they don't charge for access to the content. Yet, they pay 3 cents a word.
I know some online mags run adds, or charge to access the content and stuff. And I know some are either non paying to authors, or just offer token payments. But as for the others...how do they make money?
Posted by InarticulateBabbler (Member # 4849) on :
Obviously some make money through ads and subscriptions, but they can make money from anthologies and through amazon.com, too.
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
Ohh yea I forgot that a lot of em do publish like annual print anthologies. Although I doubt most of them make a whole lot off them. Many of the ones I've been submitting too I had never heard of previously.
And some do have subscriptions, but in the case of online-only mags where you can just go to the site and see everything they have to offer, I'm not sure how that works.
I don't see how it makes money either. I thought it was a loss-leader for the publisher, but only a half dozen books are listed and there's no obvious link to a publisher's website.
Then I thought it was a loss-leader for the authors, but although some of their bios point to websites and mention being editors of this or that, others don't.
There's no indication of who the editorial staff are aside from their names and some e-mail addresses.
And there are no ads, aside from mentions of their few books and links to their pages on Amazon--could those sales be enough to fund it? I doubt it.
Maybe it's still under construction and it's too early for all the money-making stuff?
Or maybe the whole thing is a fantasy and it's not really there;-)
Cheers, Pat
Posted by Merlion-Emrys (Member # 7912) on :
Well I've communicated with one of the editors, so it is there.
Its not the only one like thatI've seen though.
whats a "loss leader"?
Posted by TaleSpinner (Member # 5638) on :
A loss-leader is where a store gives stuff away or sells it cheap in order to entice us to buy more.
So I thought perhaps they were giving the stories away to whet our appetites enough to purchase books. But there doesn't seem to be enough more to purchase.