Pay Writers for Their Work. There Is No Alternative.

This includes nonprofits.

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Art and Writing is Labor. Pay People. Full Stop.

I recently read a post by

Leigh Stein

called “can you share the rate?” It triggered quite a reaction in me, and I think we need to talk about it.

The primary intention of the article was to remind its readers, whom from the nature of the newsletter we can assume are primarily writers, of the fact that there are other reasons to publish besides money. Leigh gives a total of 6 reasons. Those fall into the following categories; prestige, clout, marketing, self-promotion, networking, and CV building.

"can you share the rate?"

None of these reasons are an acceptable form of payment for buying food or paying bills. Prestige, and let’s be honest, all of these “alternatives forms of payment” is a rain check that the majority of artists and authors can’t accept. The sad reality of the world we live in is that most of us can’t afford to invest or donate. We will return to the topic on donation a little later.

I also don’t think we can describe these reasons as opportunities unless everyone has equitable access to them. It’s more accurate to call these benefits since they are available to a selected few in our capitalist society. If it’s not monetary compensation, how then are these organizations making sure that what they are offering in return is accessible to all writers/artists?

Before diving deeper into this topic, I did want to share a resource I came across when writing this post. I came across an article from 2022 that provides a pretty good list of small online and print literary journals that pay their authors. I didn’t have the time to go through and confirm if all of these are nonprofits, but many of them are. The article is a bit out of date, but it still gives us an idea of the going rates from similar types of publications. The article is called, “Literary Magazines That Pay” by Aaron Gilbreath published in the Poets & Writers Magazine.

Okay. Let’s get back to business.

Published writers and literary magazines cannot continue to perpetuate this dangerous and undermining discourse, as Leigh writers, “there are some good reasons to publish aside from financial compensation.” Instead, everyone should be standing in solidarity with writers who are openly advocating for fair pay. The more of us who don’t tolerate or make excuses for the lack of monetary compensation there are, the greater the chance of change. We have to remember that we are significantly stronger together. Just image the power we could cultivate if people stopped believing and using this discourse.

This illusion that there are alternatives is only perpetuating the exploitation of artistic and intellectual labor. We have to collectively stop using this narrative.

Writers don’t need to be reminded of reasons to publish; they need to be supported in their fight for fair pay. And to not be the only ones advocating for change.

Writing is a skill and a craft. As is drawing, painting, sculpting, photographing, dancing, singing and all other arts. There are entire industries built around training and employing these skilled people/artists, from libraries to the film industry. The skills of these people are used in every industry. It is then insane to think that someone who writes should not be paid for their labor.

Each and every single one of us has a reason why we can’t exist without our need to create, communicate, analyze, or record. Yet, more practically, it is a person’s time + knowledge and they have bills to pay, food costs money and healthcare is expensive.

If we want art and criticism in the world, we need to pay people for their time so they can make these things.

Unfortunately, Leigh’s post and similar ones from other writers, academics, publishers, editors, support the idea that there are alternative forms of compensation for artistic and literary work. THERE ARE NOT. We all live under capitalism. Monetary payment is the only acceptable and equitable form of payment—at least at this time…

We have to pay everyone for their labor. Period. Full stop. This is a labor rights issue. This is an exploitation of labor. Pay people for the products that you and your business sells, THIS INCLUDES NONPROFITS.

Do nonprofits need to pay? YES!

Leigh’s article was inspired by a tweet from Carolyn Kellogg, previous editor and book critic at LA Times, who shared a call for submissions for the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB). The majority of comments responding to the post were asking Carolyn to share the publication’s rates.

Carolyn’s answer was some version of “LA Review of Books is a nonprofit that provides a modest honorarium.” I did 30 or so minutes of research, but could not find the exact number or even a range for this “modest honorarium”. Given the vague language it is safe to presume that the compensation would be low to possibly none at all.

I find it interesting that Carolyn only noted in her reply that LARB is a nonprofit, not in the tweet about the pitch itself. Is using the descriptor nonprofit supposed to somehow excuse or explain the low or to potential no compensation for the work? The designation of a nonprofit cannot and should never be an excuse for taking someone’s work.

Shouldn’t nonprofits be the ones leading the change in showing the world that humanities, writing, and intellectual work are equally deserving of monetary compensation and are not solely the domain of the wealthy elite?

Additionally, nonprofits should be showing the world that artists and their work need to be properly compensated. How are they supposed to change the world for the better when they are hiding behind their institutional classification and making excuses for their inaction? The line, “we can’t pay our staff a living wage, we are just a nonprofit” is more common than you think. It happens in nonprofit higher education, museum, cultural and research centers spaces all the time.

By their very definition, nonprofits need to be the ones to fairly compensate artists or contributors for their work. Isn’t the whole point of a nonprofit is to fight inequity? Otherwise, nonprofits are exploiting the economic inequities of art labor.

On the LARB about page, they write the following:

“The Los Angeles Review of Books is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, reader-supported organization that depends on public support and financing to exist. The Review depends on the generosity of its funders and readers to pay its staff and contributors, and to finance its ongoing work with schools, emerging writers, libraries, and more.”

So they do mention payment on their website. But they don’t provide specific rates for their modest honorarium. I did see that they charge a $3 reading fee for their submissions. Their sister online literary magazine, The Offing, pays its contributors between $25 and $100. I was at least able to find their rates on their Submission Guidelines page. They also state that they, “acquire first serial rights worldwide in English and non-exclusive anthology rights.” Remember, you are donating some of the licensing rights of your work to these literary magazines. Licensing is something that you traditionally get paid for in the world of publishing.

It is incredibly important that nonprofits make their rates accessible so that artists can evaluate if they are able to do this work as a donation. Ultimately, it is up to the artist if they want to donate their labor and work. But let’s use transparent language and call it what it is, a donation! And don’t forget to ask yourself, how many donations can an average writer/artist make?

I also want to encourage writers to be more selective with where they decide to donate their work. Not all nonprofits are created equally. Maybe a better place to donate your work/art/writing would be, borrowing Leigh’s words here, “scrappy, volunteer-run literary magazines” based in a local or global creative community. Not the 13 year old established literary magazine that is offering prestige in exchange for the use of your work.

Additionally, LARB is not a teeny-tiny volunteer-only run online/print zine. This is an online literary magazine that has a print journal, The LARB Quarterly, as well as sister magazines. They also run an annual summer LARB Publishing Workshop ($3,000 tuition), different types of writing workshops, and frequent ticketed events.

There are other, smaller, literary magazines that offer payment. Off Assignment, for example, is an online literary magazine that pays $300 for the majority of their essays or $100 for the “Witching Hour” essay. They include their rate in the submission guidelines. See other examples, here, in the Poets & Writers Magazine article from earlier.

It is also important to remember that nonprofits make money. Nonprofits have budgets and they make decisions about how they spend their funds. Let’s take a closer look at the LARB subscription fees. It’s not like they are selling a $2 subscription or selling a $2 zine.

Unfortunately, if they don’t have the money to pay their artists they don't have enough money to run a publication, especially a print one. The cost of making and printing a physical magazine is high especially in 2024 given the high production prices including paper, transportation, printing and bindery.

How can that money not go to the writers? At the end of the day, what this particular literary magazine is doing is exploiting a workforce, definitely not valuing or supporting them. They are also perpetuating a dangerous and elitist system of keeping humanities, writing, and intellectual work embedded in the prestige economy of traditional academic and artistic spaces.

Accountability and Solidarity

I was exploited by a nonprofit for over a decade. As was my partner. As were my colleagues. As are graduate students. These types of institutions need to be held accountable. There is no excuse for nonprofit institutions to not fairly compensate those who work for them for their labor. Low salaries and tiny rates are a huge problem in nonprofit organizations across creative and educational industries.

I can’t afford to donate, I need to be paid for my time and work. I don’t have a trust fund that can give me the ability to do things for prestige or for the love of “art, writing, history, etc.” Furthermore, the idea of doing something for the love of it is rooted in classicism, racism, patriarchy, social hierarchy, and colonialism.

This rhetoric is incredibly dangerous and worst of all it has the power to perpetuate broken systems. Furthermore, this line of reasoning often leads to other forms of toxic thinking such as the idea that making money off of intellectual or artistic pursuits is making the work inherently less intellectual or artistic.

This is just another example of control and form of shame that benefits the ruling elite. It perpetuates the idea that those who do it for the love of the art are more “civilized” or “cultured” or “good.” While those of us who have to sell our art and writing (aka connecting it with labor) are proletariat scum.

Last thing I want to say is this. The conversation about labor and fair wages has to be a part of every creative forum. Conversations about compensation and money need to be coming from all sorts of publishing institutions and the people who run them! This needs to be normalized and accepted as the new standard.

In graduate school when advocating for equitable pay, I was constantly reminded, “You aren’t doing this work for the money, are you?” Tell me, how are those two things related? How is asking the department, college, and university to fairly compensate us for our work as Teaching Assistants, Assistant Instructors, or Supplemental Instructors related to our decision to pursue intellectual and artistic work? These types of statements are meant to shame us into submission.

What they are really asking with that question is, do you belong here? In other words, if you can’t afford to be here (meaning be independently wealthy/rich) or be okay with being exploited by the current system of academia, you should probably leave. Or the alternative is to otherwise accept things as they are and pretend that you are here for the love of the discipline, art, fill in the blank and keep your mouth shut about fair pay.

We need to hold all institutions accountable for their labor practices and evaluate how each type of institution can participate in the labor and fair wage fight.

Let’s be real. It’s not paying artists and poets that is killing “scrappy, volunteer-run literary magazines.” It’s the systemic problems that the educated and wealthy elite continue to ignore.

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Epigraphy

On a lighter note, let’s have some fun with inscriptions. Inscriptions are like puzzles to me, waiting to be solved. I can’t believe I used to do this for a living, by this, I mean decoding and translating Roman funerary inscriptions, aka epigraphy. I took a Latin epigraphy seminar in graduate school, it fueled my interest in Roman funerary inscriptions and tombstones.

My partner knows I love inscriptions and he sent me a reddit post of a Roman funerary inscription that he came across on the ancientrome subreddit. It has become a hyperfixation of mine. The person who made the post, discovered the inscription in their garden wall in Andalusia 3 years ago, their name is Sofia Talvik.

The most recent photo of the inscription is the one with the painted red letters. (Photo Fig. 1) I believe this was done by the local archaeologists and curators. After examining the inscription, their interpretation of the inscription doesn’t seem entirely correct. So I had to investigate further. I wanted to see the original inscription in order to analyze the letters myself.

Photo credit to Sofia Talvik (they originally posted the photo on the Ancient Rome subreddit). Fig. 1.

Turns out the same person posted about the inscription when they first found it 3 years ago. (Photo Fig. 2) See the original post for more photos.

Photo credit to Sofia Talvik. Fig. 2.

I don't believe this inscription has been officially published or cataloged by a museum yet, but I am not 100% sure. Roman funerary inscriptions for children across the Roman Empire would commonly have the years, months, and even days inscribed on their tombstones. Hence why I think the fourth line of the inscription includes both years (A) and months (M).

After doing some research; (looking through examples of similar funerary inscriptions across Hispania Ulterior), running word searches, and examining the several images of the inscription, this is what I think the inscription says:

D(is) M(anibus) S(acrum)

G(aius) Iunius?

Optandus

(Vixit) A(nnis) X M(ensibus)

III P(ius) I(n) S(uis) H(ic) S(itus) E(st)

S(it) (Tibi) T(erra) L(evis)

Translation:

"To the spirits of the dead

and to Gaius Iunius?

Optandus.

(He lived) ten years and three months. He was dutiful, here he lies,

may the earth rest lightly upon you."

There are many unresolved issues, and I am probably super wrong about most of it, but I gave it my best. Here are the three major issues I’m struggling with.

1. The name in the second line.

Looking at the inscription without the paint, to me it looks like it might be Iunius instead of the originally suggested Iulius. There are a lot more instances of the name Iulius in funerary inscriptions so in terms of probability Iulius is likely.

But it could also be any of the following: Iulius (attested) or Iutius (unattested so highly unlikely) or Lutius (attested) or Iunius (attested). Going from the photos, in order for the name to be Iulius, the third letter on line 2 has to be l, but the lines and spacing doesn't look quite like an L.

2. The 6th line.

So my issue with the last line is that the word SIT. In the majority of inscriptions that we have from this area and period, the word SIT is abbreviated as just S. You can see the full list here: https://www.trismegistos.org/abb/abbreflist.php?combin_id=66230 there 4,078 instances where S is abbreviated to mean sit, but few examples of SIT or S IT in the inscriptions. With the help of lutetiensis I was able to find a handful of examples of the word SIT written out, see example here and photo here. SIT on the other hand is a more common abbreviation for SIT(US), 89 examples, or SIT(A), 30 examples.

But looking at the spacing of S IT in the painted photo, I don't believe that to be correct. If you look at the unpainted photo, what I think the six line actually says is S T T L. The most common abbreviation is usually S T L = s(it) t(erra) l(evis) but S T T L = s(it) t(ibi) t(erra) l(evis) is also common. It could also be SIT T L (attested).

3. The end of the 5th line:

To me it looks like there are two letters missing at the end of line 5, (Hic) S(itus) (Est) is my guess. If you look at the Latin abbreviations at this link https://www.trismegistos.org/abb/abbreflist.php?combin_id=66373 you can find a lot of inscriptions from Spain that have a very similar abbreviation pattern that includes some version of H S E. There is also a frequent use of S as suis. I’m not super confident about this line. I do think this interpretation makes a pretty strong case especially given the frequency of this formulaic language convention and many very similar attested examples from funerary inscriptions in the area.

Here is a helpful list of Latin inscription databases if someone wants to do some more research on this: https://www.catacombsociety.org/epigraphic-databases/.

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