Great idea. Maybe you could start with the committee hearings of any red state legislature.

Yes, it is a good idea. Will you pay the writers for their work?

That's a really good question: **Will you pay the writers?**

Sure there might be a few more people who will read something presented on this platform, than on most of the applicants own outlets. However, it doesn't matter if it's 100 X 0 or 1,000,000 X 0, the results are still the same.

And only the most naive of talent is still buying the oft-told lie, that, "... the exposure will be great."

Come on. Get real.

The only thing exposure will do is give you a sunburn, frostbite or legal troubles.

Along with at least .. uh, let's see .. 25,000 (conservative estimate) ... other, 'would love to make a living at writing' folks in the region you're interested in, I too would love the chance to get published... and paid.

Not just published, but published AND PAID.

Being appreciated for the talent I struggle to improve by receiving payment - in cash - would be a nice gesture. I'm sure he ads that will surround the efforts of those chosen, were NOT - given away free. Right?

Not just published.

The attempt at filling your desire for good writing, by dredging for talent with a so-called, "... hold a call for talent...", is disingenuous at best.

On top of it all, y'all have the pernicious gall to request participants to pay... YOU ...a 'processing fee'..????

Again: Get Real.

But hey, I _AM_ a realist. I know you'll get people to apply. You'll probably get a lot of them. But once again, you'll have only succeeded in the further depreciation of the value of talent.

Your callousness is especially devaluing toward those; who out of desperation, naivete, hope, ignorance... or a sad combination; will pay you their $10 fees. Some of them many times over.

This is what makes this 'offer' so offensive. Your tag, is that it is offering those who apply a 'chance'. The only chance they are getting is another round of disappointment.

If you're going to hold a true, 'call for talent', then do so. Do so under the following - or similiar - rules:

1) NO FEE

2) Publish every story you receive; there's plenty of room in the digital signature.

3) Let the public - your readership - judge the TOP, say 15, best of the best.

4) Pay those people:
- the going price for their work
- not as 'work for hire'
- purchase a one-time right to their work
- even if you're going to hire them as a regular contributors.

5) Make the platform you create - in this effort - a truly creative platform:
- for creative expression: writing now; w/ expansion potentials if you do it right.
- for anyone - wishing to display their writing about the region and the parameters you set
- as a gathering place for expression and mentoring; bringing new talent and experienced talent together - for learning, development and hopefully - for everyone - a potential for financial reward.

At-the-end-of-the-day, if none of us are making a living with our talents, we'll have to leave the talent behind and do something else that will bring an income home. No one wins when a talent is hidden.

I don't expect this to even make it past the 'review'. Even if it does, I have less than 'no hope' for it to make any difference. However, it is something that must be said.

If an artist wishes to give their work away, that is their right to do. But for companies to prey upon the need for recognition and hopes for financial opportunity, is just plain wrong.

This is wrong and someone needs to stand up and say it. So, I did.

Les Booth
net500.com

Publisher Note: At New West, we pay writers every single day to write for our site. It is, in fact, the single largest expense we (willingly) pay. In addition, we have reviewed (in support of writers) hundreds of books and essays written by Western writers and/or books about the West. We do this to help our readers find wonderful writers and our writers to sell books. We have often been asked to run fiction on the site and we are working out the best way(s) to do so. This "first call" for writers is to gauge the level of interest and the scope of talent looking for an outlet in our market.

It was just a simple question. Will you pay for the fiction you have called for. I don't agree with every point that Les Booth made in his comment. But I certainly understand his frustration. I know you pay journalists and you must pay them fairly well because you definitely have some of the best contributing to New West Magazine, but soliciting fiction is a different matter. Do your journalists, especially the free lancers, pay $10 for every query they send? Probably not. So why should fiction writers?

See, we fiction writers have been down this long, pot-holed road before. Musicians too get the same runaround. It gets old.

By the way, it troubles me, Lynn, that your response didn't really answer the question.

Publisher Note: I am sorry if I seemed unclear. For this first call, we are not paying for the fiction submitted, and we certainly understand if that prohibits writers from submitting. We are paying to edit, curate and market the "call". We will be paying for fiction in the future if we find that there is sufficient interest by writers and by our readers.

Thank you for being more clear. With all due respect, I always thought that editing, curating, and marketing was paid for by advertising sales and subscription rates. But I guess times have changed since I last worked on a newspaper.

I'm very disappointed in this "call for fiction" and the reading charge --Oh-My!!!I guess I won't be giving you ten bucks. I do pay to enter contests but that's it! This is not a contest.

That modest $ 10 submission fee certainly separates the serious literary authors from the wannabees, doesn't it ?

Kinda reminds me of the ole Tom Sawyer whitewash fence project . I wonder if Mark Twain would pony up and send 5 grand in words and ten bucks in chits in this New West day and age...

Nooo, actually the "modest" ten dollar fee separates serious publishers of literary fiction from periodicals whose marketing department thinks up schemes to generate a one-way revenue stream by exploiting a vast population of aspiring writers. You can call them wannabes if you'd like, but everyone is a wannabe at one time or another. There are literary journals with websites who charge reading fees for story contests, but usually one or more of the stories submitted are eventually published and the authors paid. These journals, unlike news websites such as New West, are usually not supported by advertising revenue, although they do have subscription fees.

Incidentally, I love New West, I read it all the time and I think they publish some of the best journalism about the west I've read. I'll continue to be a subscriber as long as I can afford it. Maybe that's why I'm disappointed in this ill advised venture to attract revenue; I feel let down.

Tom Sawyer's whitewash fence project was a scam and it was portrayed that way. Mark Twain, on the other hand, wrote for money.

I find these comments about being paid for stories pretty fascinating. As someone who toiled for years before I ever got published, I can really relate to the frustration from the writers' side. That was a long, dry period, and it seemed that every rejection just rubbed against my confidence like sandpaper. I've now been on the other side of the fence, as fiction editor of two different online publications. Neither of these positions paid a dime. So whenever i got a letter from someone complaining that we didn't pay our writers, it left me baffled. We were putting these publications out for one reason only, to provide other writers the opportunity to get their work out there. It was a complete labor of love. I wasn't sure where they expected me to get the money to pay them, but it ultimately paid a large role in my decision to quit working on those publications. But now I gladly fork out twenty bucks to Narrative or Glimmer Train if I decide to submit a story. If we want to have places to showplace our work, we probably shouldn't complain about the people who are trying to find a way to provide that service.

I'm missing the parallel between those online gigs and this one, Russell. As I recall, you also didn't charge reading fees in those places, thus verifying your labor-of-love bonafides. In this case, though, folks are being asked to pony up for the pleasure of being read, with no chance of recouping that investment -- or, perhaps, a bigger windfall -- with publication.

Therein lies a considerable difference between this and Glimmer Train, which you also cite. I gladly shell out entry fees for contests there, but I also know that there's a potential financial reward at the other end and that the money helps keep the entire operation going. (And, if I'm not mistaken, Glimmer Train requires no fees during open submissions.)

Seems to me that folks here are simply raising a legitimate question about what they're getting for their ten clams.

first off, I would love to have a piece of my fiction published at new west, but pay a ten dollar reading fee with no contest format or even a per word payment? This is actually pretty crazy and it is enough to make me wonder about a publication that would propose such a lame system. If the goal of this endeavor is to attract quality writing, well, then, I think this little experiment is going to fail miserably. I have a hard time believing that anyone who actually values what they produce on the page would PAY someone to read it and "publish" it in a non-paying, online only publication. It boggles the mind. Put your story on your blog. Or send your story to one of the 10,000 online lit mags out there that WANT to read your work and aren't going to charge you a dime to do so, or, better yet, revise your work until it's impeccable and then send it to a publication that will actually print the thing on PAPER and pay you for it. hell, send it to Outside Bozeman or any one of the multitude of similiar outlets across the region.
This irritates me.
callan