Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Stuart
Let's not forget that having poems published in the Speccie or the Oldie means that tens of thousands of people actually read them (assuming they don't just skip that bit of the magazine.)
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That's the heart of the matter, Rob, and, better, *The Spectator* appears to believe that our work is among the reasons some of those readers pay for *The Spectator*. It would be considerably less validating if *The Spectator* followed the more common modern business model and asked us to write content for free in exchange for the privilege of having it read by that audience.
Of course, I don't mean to knock lit journals that don't pay contributors. Most are in very different financial situations from *The Spectator*.
(I wrote this post before seeing that the Style Invitational had been mentioned in this thread, so I should add that it was not meant as a knock to the Invitational either, though the situation there is rather complicated, since the *Post*, a wonderful newspaper I'm pleased to support, is owned by the guy who owns Amazon.)