TL;DR: We’re raising writer payments by 175% and we need your help. Thanks to a matching gift from EL board member Nicole Cliffe, any contribution you make before May 13 will be tripled. Yes, you heard me. TRIPLED.
At Electric Literature, we make everything we publish available for free to our readers and pay all of our writers—but, if we’re being honest, we can’t pay them what they’re worth. And we do want to be honest. We see being transparent about our finances as part of our mission to make literature more inclusive. Being upfront about what we are able to pay—and what we want to pay—will hopefully encourage other publications to do the same. It also levels the playing field for writers to know what their peers earn. Though we have continued to raise our writer fees over the years, we still pay our writers less than we would like. Our standard 2018 rates were $40 for interviews, $50 for lists, and $60 for essays.
We see being transparent about our finances as part of our mission to make literature more inclusive.
As our 2019 resolution, we decided to raise the minimum payment to $100 for essays and $75 for interviews and lists. These are modest goals, but they represent a large expense to our small non-profit. A longer term goal is to pay $300 for longform essays, which, because of earmarked grant support, is what are able pay for original fiction. We’ve wanted to do this for a while, but there is always some expense that is more urgent, or some small crisis that unexpectedly diverts funds. But we’re sick of putting it off! So we’re just going to do it. No matter what. Even it if means publishing less, we believe in paying our writers more.
With your help, we see a path to raising writer payments while still publishing the same amount—three pieces per weekday.
Our board member Nicole Cliffe has generously agreed to match contributions 2:1, up to $10,000. That means if you give $25, your gift will be worth $75. We’re setting a goal to raise $5,000 from our readers by 11:59PM on Monday, May 13, 2019, which will mean a total gift of $15,000 to Electric Literature with Nicole’s contribution.
All of those funds will go towards increasing writer payments. Can you pay for a $75 writer payment by contributing $25 right now?
or donate another amount here.
If there’s one thing we know about Electric Literature readers, it’s that you understand that writing has value. That value is more than monetary, of course, but it’s monetary too; writing shouldn’t have to be a labor of love alone. If we could, we’d pay our writers and interviewers the best rates in town. With your help, we can take this tiny step towards giving them what they deserve.
Electric Lit, Inc. is a 501c3 nonprofit and all contributions are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.
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