With great sadness and regret, I have to announce that Vitality is lowering its pay rates from semi-professional to token rates. The new rates will be $25 per short story over 1,000 words, $10 per piece of flash fiction under 1,000 words, and $10 per poem. Artist rates will be $25 for single images and $50 for complete story illustrations, with a $10 bonus for cover art.
Vitality was originally funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised thousands of dollars, allowing us to pay professional rates for our contributors. Our second Kickstarter fell short of its goal, but still would have raised almost $5,000 if Kickstarter wasn’t an “all or nothing” style of fundraising. We believed that if we switched to fundraising through traditional means – subscriptions, donations, and t-shirt and button sales – we would be able to reach the same levels of funds and be able to continue our professional rates of pay.
We lowered our rates in August, but didn’t lower them enough. We still believed if we did more promotions and reached out to our original Kickstarter backers, that we would be able to continue, and maybe even raise our rates back to what they were. But that just hasn’t been the case.
Over 75% of all funds raised by Vitality go directly to paying authors and artists. The rest pays for maintaining the website, paying for the use of programs like InDesign, and advertising the magazine. The staff of Vitality are unpaid volunteers running the project in our spare time. Please believe me when I say that this will be the last time we lower our rates. I believe strongly in paying contributors whatever we are able, and not paying them at all is not an option.
We completely understand if this decision causes some of you to withdraw your submissions, but sincerely hope that will not be the case.
Please note: this pay rate does not apply to anyone who currently had an agreement with us as of 09/08/15. Your rates remain unchanged.