Recently, Matthew Salesses at Ploughshares wrote about an article he’d read regarding Flatmancrooked’s benefactor. I would like to correct a few errors in the source-article that inspired his post. Flatmancrooked does have a benefactress, but we are responsible for paying her back every penny she lends us, which really makes her more of an investor—or even a credit card with a very liberal repayment date that issues no penalties for default. She has nonetheless been a godsend, and I echo Ploughshares sentiment that the world needs more patrons of the literary arts. As the editors at Ploughshares know, the real literary patrons left in the world are the universities, and to operate independently of one puts the founder of a literary journal at a distinct disadvantage. If the Iowa Review doesn’t sell all the copies it prints, the University of Iowa will still furnish a check for the next issue, and a (meager) salary for the editorial staff. We, on the other hand, must sell our copies.

Writers, for all their general lack of discretionary money, are responsible for keeping in business those publications that print their work so that authors might, with a little luck, build interest around their collections of stories or poems. Literary journals are the trade publications of our industry, and if we don’t support them, we don’t have a place to publish our work. I heard John Updike speak last year in Sacramento (RIP, J Up!), and he mentioned that in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, you could make a living publishing short stories. Even Updike couldn’t swing that now, though his expenses have decreased recently.

There are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, the general population doesn’t consume short fiction the way it did in the mid-20th century. And Americans read even less poetry. Secondly, there is a glut of literary publications now (more than at any other time in the history of literary publications, a fact that you are well aware of if you peruse www.duotrope.com). The market is saturated with journals, and the current market can’t sustain the volume unless those journals garner a readership. Not every journal printed deserves to get read, but many do. Yet because a lot of worthy journals can’t attract sufficient subscriberships, most fail quickly.

The internet has conditioned most of us (myself included) to expect free information. I don’t subscribe to the New York Times, but I read stories on their website. That would be fine if I clicked on the ads they display, and purchased products from their sponsors, but I admit that I don’t. What this means is that the current system for monetizing the content produced in this country (and the rest of the world) is unsustainable. (Check out “Selling Paper” for a little more discussion on the hot topic of content monetization).

I hope I’m not being overly romantic—or naive, or obtuse—when I say that we have to start paying again for some of the content we consume. And I say this as a person who downloads the bulk of the music he listens to, and the bulk of the television he watches. We are effectively spending in a deficit, and if we continue to, we won’t have intelligent work to read (or watch or listen to).

No one is holding us accountable for our practices. But I want to start a conversation about this trend of free consumption. The New Yorker is experiencing its widest readership in the history of the magazine, due largely to its website, but last year it was something like ten million dollars in the red. And, damn me, I let my subscription lapse (though, I did re-up in January). I want Malcolm Gladwell to keep writing his articles, and I want Ploughshares to keep publishing the calibre of fiction it has been for years, and I want Flatmancrooked to exist next spring. So I’m asking that you patronize our company if you approve of our products (John Updike shirt, for instance), and I will try and do the same for you. Publishing is, of course, a meritocracy. Ideally it is the best work that receives the largest readership. But what good is that readership if it does not refill the coffers so that the editors can collect more work? This is the livelihood I’ve chosen, for better or for worse, because I’m dedicated to (and perhaps sentimental about) the proliferation of good work in print. But if all we do is submit stories to journals without ever buying them, we’re undermining our own rather noble cause.

By Kaelan Smith