I find this stuff fascinating. As a reader, I've always thought the LARB was pretty good. They did a very long 3 part essay on Knausgaard that I recently discovered (published 2015) and it's probably the best thing I've ever read about him. But as a writer and a business model...well, I see your point. The idea that you would write for them for free in the hopes of then parlaying that into getting paid at a different publication seems pretty draconian. I thought they were, ya know, up there at that top of the food chain! I thought that was the kind of place that paid people!
what gets me is -- they have the positioning + resources to publish a fancy lit mag, but can't be bothered. in theory, you'd stage these literary salons + award banquets to further the mission of your magazine, but...there isn't one! the magazine promotes the parties rather than vice versa.
it's more like a giant community bulletin board than a lit magazine, 300 different "editors" assigning and posting articles at random. naturally there's some good stuff, but there are torrents of random crap without any coherent voice or purpose. fine if that's your thing, but don't pretend you're the paris review! don't beg for donations! i'd love to hear what their leadership thinks LARB is + does, and what purpose it serves for writers.
It’s funny because I pitched an article a while back and the LARB was one of the few places (maybe the only one) that got back to me in a timely manner (if at all), so I was like, oh, they’re good! But I guess if you have 300 editors then you get lucky once in a while! Based off that I pitched another thing after and…crickets
Places like LARB have become a way for career academics to prove their "community engagement" and "public intellectual" cred, without actually having to do any real work. LOL, I could go on, but thank you for this. I'm writing a lot more about these structures and glad I came across your essay.
I've been writing about these problesm for a while. When I first began, writers were furious with me (the then LARB editor took it up publicly), so it's interesting to see the newer critiques.
i've always worked a day job, so i'm guilty in the sense that i can take a flier on an assignment that doesn't recoup. (here i am publishing essays on substack, ffs.) then again, i've never felt i had a choice except to treat writing as a hobby. the "market rate" is the lowest a writer will accept, which (thanks to pubs like LARB) is $0.
there are infinite reasons to write for free -- everyone loves zines and co-ops and indie presses -- but if you're a freelance writer, a LARB byline does nothing for you. even supposing a LARB byline could help you level-up into the big leagues...so what? there are no staff jobs anymore, you'll still be writing on nights + weekends, may as well do it on your terms.
Yes to all this. And there's also the history of people writing for free, one that's linked to the internet. When I began what many contemptuously call "blogging" now (really, all Substacks are blogs, no offence, lol), we were all doing it for free and site admins were doing it all for free as well, clocking many hours swatting down trolls and managing a hundred different comment threads, etc. And we writers were genuinely interested in the communities we were building.
All of that is so different now, for a million different reasons, and I also don't want to be nostalgic for that time. Writing the history of it all is going to be a long endeavour (Jacob Silverman's book _Terms of Service_ writes about some of this), but overall: now, that particular culture and ethos is gone, and we now have entities like LARB vomiting up stuff that might fill up people's CVs but read like warmed over papers from the MLA. And people who genuinely think that we should be happy to be exploited are in charge. Like Lisa Lucas, who ran Guernica, and scoffed at the idea of paying writers when I brought it up. When asked about her stance by a reporter, she chided us all.
Sorry to post again, but I write about her and other outlets in this:
yea, it's tempting to romanticize the innocence of the early blog era, but there's something to be said for the democratic, counter-cultural roots of the nascent internet -- until it was weaponized by ISPs and platforms, who realized the money to be made as leeching middlemen. we've all been conditioned to write, post, and create Content for free; corporations monetize it. through that lens LARB is a bottom-feeder: a reactive business model, D-list Buzzfeed, algorithmic chum, nibbling at margins.
i think there was another inflection point, when enough bloggers had parlayed their passion projects into paid writing gigs, and suddenly there was this broad expectation that your interests should be commodified. of course, there are material pressures -- if you can't make rent, you're not gonna pour yourself into a wordpress blog -- and now we're seeing the logical endpoint. you're a sucker if you pursue hobbies for the sake of hobbies; you'd only write for LARB with ulterior motives (ie, inflating bylines for your tenure committee). and that also sucks! everyone should have interests, and bandwidth to explore them.
thanks for reading! yeah, similar to the paris review, NYer, and others, i think there's a range (i've heard the "blog" doesn't pay as well, which figures). i also just read that LRB is many millions in debt to one of the founding editors, which, respect
Yes it's basically privately funded and I think always has been. You are no doubt right about the blog. I just know a few people who write for the print edition.
I find this stuff fascinating. As a reader, I've always thought the LARB was pretty good. They did a very long 3 part essay on Knausgaard that I recently discovered (published 2015) and it's probably the best thing I've ever read about him. But as a writer and a business model...well, I see your point. The idea that you would write for them for free in the hopes of then parlaying that into getting paid at a different publication seems pretty draconian. I thought they were, ya know, up there at that top of the food chain! I thought that was the kind of place that paid people!
what gets me is -- they have the positioning + resources to publish a fancy lit mag, but can't be bothered. in theory, you'd stage these literary salons + award banquets to further the mission of your magazine, but...there isn't one! the magazine promotes the parties rather than vice versa.
it's more like a giant community bulletin board than a lit magazine, 300 different "editors" assigning and posting articles at random. naturally there's some good stuff, but there are torrents of random crap without any coherent voice or purpose. fine if that's your thing, but don't pretend you're the paris review! don't beg for donations! i'd love to hear what their leadership thinks LARB is + does, and what purpose it serves for writers.
It’s funny because I pitched an article a while back and the LARB was one of the few places (maybe the only one) that got back to me in a timely manner (if at all), so I was like, oh, they’re good! But I guess if you have 300 editors then you get lucky once in a while! Based off that I pitched another thing after and…crickets
Also, this part is key, and I'm glad you made the point:
"Instead, it became a sort of résumé-building platform for career academics."
Places like LARB have become a way for career academics to prove their "community engagement" and "public intellectual" cred, without actually having to do any real work. LOL, I could go on, but thank you for this. I'm writing a lot more about these structures and glad I came across your essay.
thanks for reading, solidarity!
Very interesting. I thought LARB was much older. Their ploy worked on me!
similar to Guernica (est. 2004), the whole idea was that people would confuse/conflate it with Granta
I’ve made that mistake once or twice
I've been writing about these problesm for a while. When I first began, writers were furious with me (the then LARB editor took it up publicly), so it's interesting to see the newer critiques.
https://yasminnair.com/is-your-reading-material-ethically-sourced/
i've always worked a day job, so i'm guilty in the sense that i can take a flier on an assignment that doesn't recoup. (here i am publishing essays on substack, ffs.) then again, i've never felt i had a choice except to treat writing as a hobby. the "market rate" is the lowest a writer will accept, which (thanks to pubs like LARB) is $0.
there are infinite reasons to write for free -- everyone loves zines and co-ops and indie presses -- but if you're a freelance writer, a LARB byline does nothing for you. even supposing a LARB byline could help you level-up into the big leagues...so what? there are no staff jobs anymore, you'll still be writing on nights + weekends, may as well do it on your terms.
Yes to all this. And there's also the history of people writing for free, one that's linked to the internet. When I began what many contemptuously call "blogging" now (really, all Substacks are blogs, no offence, lol), we were all doing it for free and site admins were doing it all for free as well, clocking many hours swatting down trolls and managing a hundred different comment threads, etc. And we writers were genuinely interested in the communities we were building.
All of that is so different now, for a million different reasons, and I also don't want to be nostalgic for that time. Writing the history of it all is going to be a long endeavour (Jacob Silverman's book _Terms of Service_ writes about some of this), but overall: now, that particular culture and ethos is gone, and we now have entities like LARB vomiting up stuff that might fill up people's CVs but read like warmed over papers from the MLA. And people who genuinely think that we should be happy to be exploited are in charge. Like Lisa Lucas, who ran Guernica, and scoffed at the idea of paying writers when I brought it up. When asked about her stance by a reporter, she chided us all.
Sorry to post again, but I write about her and other outlets in this:
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/26/11106006/writing-for-free
Genuinely glad you've got this new analysis of LARB, with all those facts and figures. I will be citing you when I write more (soon-ish).
yea, it's tempting to romanticize the innocence of the early blog era, but there's something to be said for the democratic, counter-cultural roots of the nascent internet -- until it was weaponized by ISPs and platforms, who realized the money to be made as leeching middlemen. we've all been conditioned to write, post, and create Content for free; corporations monetize it. through that lens LARB is a bottom-feeder: a reactive business model, D-list Buzzfeed, algorithmic chum, nibbling at margins.
i think there was another inflection point, when enough bloggers had parlayed their passion projects into paid writing gigs, and suddenly there was this broad expectation that your interests should be commodified. of course, there are material pressures -- if you can't make rent, you're not gonna pour yourself into a wordpress blog -- and now we're seeing the logical endpoint. you're a sucker if you pursue hobbies for the sake of hobbies; you'd only write for LARB with ulterior motives (ie, inflating bylines for your tenure committee). and that also sucks! everyone should have interests, and bandwidth to explore them.
Oh, and thank you for pointing me/us to the Stein piece. Grist for the mill! I'm just boiling.
Great piece! Though the LRB actually does pay pretty well, the best I've heard of anyway. Good for them!
thanks for reading! yeah, similar to the paris review, NYer, and others, i think there's a range (i've heard the "blog" doesn't pay as well, which figures). i also just read that LRB is many millions in debt to one of the founding editors, which, respect
Yes it's basically privately funded and I think always has been. You are no doubt right about the blog. I just know a few people who write for the print edition.