What Happens When You Mail 30 Writers Free Lit Mags?

Here’s the happening astir indie lit: it’s afloat of problems everyone complains astir and astir cipher has the time, money, oregon spreadsheet stamina to solve. How tin lit mags get much subscribers? How bash they get submissions that really acceptable what they publish? Good editors suffer slumber implicit worldly similar that. With the remainder of the Chill Subs team, we decided to tally a weird experimentation and spot if it helped lick the intractable problems facing the industry. We are thing if not ambitious.

So we got successful interaction with The Georgia Review.

We had a conception of a plan. Honestly, we conscionable figured if you tin sanction 5 lit mags disconnected the apical of your head, The Georgia Review is astir apt 1 of them. They were funny successful the aforesaid challenges we were: widening their reach. Plus they were close up the road, and they had a closet afloat of backmost issues conscionable sitting there.

Together we landed connected an elaborate strategy built astir those gorgeous, coffee-table-worthy books. Yes, books. The benignant you clasp successful your manus to beryllium reminded that a lit mag tin beryllium a happening of quality and not conscionable different unfastened nexus successful your browser.

So we thought, what if we gave distant copies for free? Mail these backlist issues to writers, fto them spot for themselves however stunning and important they are, and maybe—maybe—a fewer of them subscribe.

And since we were sending these to writers, the GR editors wrote long, craft-focused letters to brace with each issue: wherefore they chose it, what they look for successful a manuscript, however they really work a submission. Surely that was the happening that would crook a funny scholar into a amended submitter.

We really pulled it off. It besides didn’t enactment arsenic expected.

Here’s everything we learned.

The experiment
The program was simple, which is usually however occupation starts. Thirty writers, 10 per genre. Three mailings, each with an honest-to-god letter tucked inside. Ninety backlist issues successful all, with a discount waiting astatine the extremity for anyone who wanted to subscribe. Chill Subs announced the experimentation successful our newsletter—22,000 readers astatine the time—and the spots filled successful under 3 minutes. Another 1,527 people joined the waitlist.

The receipts
First, the full ledger—shared with The Georgia Review‘s permission—because transparency lone counts if you amusement your ain work. If you tally a lit mag and you’re wondering what it would instrumentality to effort this yourself, this is simply a decent ballpark.

What it cost:

The currency outlay was modest—the existent outgo was time. Those letters didn’t constitute themselves, and immoderate lit mag considering this should fund for the editors’ hours arsenic the main enactment item.

What it returned:

So: if the extremity was “mail beauteous magazines, person subscribers,” the experimentation flopped. Spectacularly. Zero of the 30 participants subscribed during the campaign.

But if the extremity was “make a batch of writers abruptly attraction astir The Georgia Review,” the communicative gets much interesting. The giveaway produced a 1,500-person waitlist, a 5% newsletter bump, a bully Instagram spike, and a fewer submissions.

The experimentation was large astatine making noise, not truthful large astatine making money. Indie lit successful a nutshell.

The acquisition worked. The inquire didn’t.
When we surveyed participants aft the experiment, the powerfulness of the acquisition came done large and clear. Lily Kelting enactment her issues connected display: “Now they are retired connected my java table, truthful astatine slightest a fistful of radical successful Pune, India volition cognize it’s a well-designed and prime mag!”

The subscription offer? That got lost. The discount went arsenic a postcard, and aft 3 months of thoughtful, idiosyncratic messages, it hardly registered. “Was I expected to subscribe?” Chris Clemens asked. “I don’t person clip to work what I’ve got.” Paulina Pinsky pointed retired a timing problem: “If determination had been follow-up from the archetypal copy, oregon if I’d been reminded, I would person submitted.”

The goodwill was there. The nudge was conscionable excessively subtle. We could person built an easier way to subscription—anything much than a azygous postcard aft 3 months of idiosyncratic letters. Next time, we’d plan the connection to beryllium arsenic thoughtful arsenic the gift. We’d tally the full happening again to beryllium it out.

Writers loved the exertion letters
If thing overdelivered, it was the GR editor letters. So galore writers told america the letters changed however they deliberation astir submitting work—which, honestly, is not a condemnation we expected to constitute astir a giveaway.

This is the portion wherever our “give radical escaped magazines” program turned into a tiny trade class.

Across the 3 mailings, GR‘s editors—Amy Bonnaffons (fiction), C.J. Bartunek (nonfiction), and Noah Baldino (poetry)—wrote what amounts to a free, profoundly idiosyncratic seminar connected however editors really read. Submission guidelines are usually generalizations. These letters were existent trade talk, grounded successful circumstantial examples and addressed straight to writers successful the Chill Subs community.

Baldino, connected wherefore an emerging poet’s restraint caught his eye:

“What’s kept connected a poem’s borderline speaks, I think, to discernment—a prime important to some a writer and editor.”

Bonnaffons, connected what makes her propulsion a communicative retired of a queue of 10,000 yearly submissions:

“About 25% of the stories I’ve advocated for successful acquisition meetings person been debuts, respective of those by writers without MFAs. … So portion we bash privation your champion and astir polished work, we’re particularly excited by enactment that takes large swings, that feels live and afloat of potential.”

And Bartunek, opening the precise archetypal mailing with the thesis of the full experiment:

” ‘The champion mode to get published successful a diary is to familiarize yourself with the diary first.’ The Georgia Review‘s Winter 2001 / Spring 2002 is an accidental to REALLY familiarize yourself with GR‘s bequest of publishing compelling nonfiction—the contented is simply a retrospective of essays spanning 1947 to 1996.”

We’re not the lone ones who noticed. The letters stuck with participants adjacent though they didn’t determination anyone to subscribe.

“Their reflections made maine recognize I had to go adjacent much cognizant of the attraction that submitters enactment into their work… I’ve go a batch much unfastened to risks; I’ve been sending retired weirder poems to much journals. Weird is ever fun.” —a participating poet

“The last missive connected crafting poem packets helped maine recognize however to work my ain submissions the mode I work for the mag I run—which sounds simple, but I cognize I’m not the lone 1 to place my ain penning that way.” —Elaine Braunshweiger

With GR‘s blessing, we’re sharing those letters successful full—a illustration of what landed successful participants’ mailboxes, worthy your clip whether oregon not you ever taxable there:

Fiction: Amy Bonnaffons connected the Spring 2024 issue
Nonfiction: C.J. Bartunek connected the Winter 2001/Spring 2002 retrospective
Poetry: Noah Baldino connected the Spring 2024 issue

Read each three. Somewhere successful determination is the reply to the question submissions guidelines ever conflict to answer.

What the experimentation revealed
Thirty escaped spots gone successful nether 3 minutes, a waitlist 50 times the capacity. The appetite for people is there—what we’re each inactive trying to lick is the portion wherever readers go subscribers.

Shipping extracurricular the US ran 3 times the home measure for a fraction of the issues; we could person tripled the giveaway by staying home. We didn’t, connected principle—writers overseas shouldn’t beryllium connected the hook for postage erstwhile cipher other is—but there’s nary honorable mentation of “print for everyone” that survives interaction with an planetary shipping invoice.

In trying to springiness distant a constricted fig of magazines, we built a database of 15 100 writers who wanted the nonstop happening we were offering. And past we ne'er wrote to them again. The radical who didn’t get successful were the existent prize, and we near them hanging. Oops.

Sometimes results lone amusement up aft the fact: zero subscriptions during the experiment, 3 successful the six months after. Judged connected a emblematic three-month clock, this was a level failure. Generosity, it turns out, keeps worse clip than a selling calendar.

The ledger
We acceptable retired to lick a subscription problem, but alternatively we rediscovered what indie lit really runs on: attention, goodwill, and editors consenting to instrumentality clip to speech astir however they read. Thirty writers got beauteous magazines. Fifteen 100 much signed up for The Georgia Review’s newsletter. The happening that stuck with radical wasn’t the discount—it was 3 editors treating strangers similar writers worthy talking to. The subscription mathematics inactive doesn’t work. Nobody seems to person cracked it yet. But if the acquisition is what radical remember, possibly that’s the portion of the ledger worthy protecting. Assuming we tin fig retired however to support those editors fed.