There are a small handful of magazines that are heads and shoulders above others in both sales and payment. As you might imagine, the competition for a slot there is fierce. Perhaps my writing is not up to that level, perhaps my chosen subjects are inappropriate. For one or the other reason, I haven't yet broke into those magazines, and I rarely submit to them these days. The two big names:
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine pay $.05-.08 per word.
Not bad payment for a 5,000 word story. But these are the outliers, by a wide margin. Other examples, markets more appropriate for my writing, (I've appeared in some of these):
Pulp Modern: $10 per story
Big Pulp: $25 per story
The Razor's Edge: No payment
Hyperpulp: No payment
The Savage Kick: $35 per story
Dark City Mystery Magazine: $25 per story
Suspense Magazine:No payment
Manslaughter Review: No payment
Mystery Weekly: $25 per story
Dead Guns Press: $25 per story
Black Denim Lit: No payment
Switchblade Magazine: $15 per story
Down & Out Magazine: $25 per story
Tough Magazine: $25 per story
Don't take this as a screed against the industry. Most of the second-tier magazines are labors of love of people who are determined to make room for crime fiction. They make very little money, and I suspect most of what they do pay for stories comes out of their pockets, not their profits.
The lesson here? For writers like me, the joy must come from the writing, from sharing the work with others. Writing for the money? Consider getting a gig at McDonald's instead. At least you'll get some free fries.
