How Crowdfunding Is Shaping Avant-Garde Literary Journals

At The Guardian, Allison Flood reports on a fast-growing trend that is catching on with avant-garde literary journals: crowdfunding. Flood roots her analysis in the White Review's recent fundraising efforts and extends reportage to Guernica, BOMB Magazine, McSweeney's and others, to access how the funds are procured and how they are ultimately used by each periodical. From The Guardian:

Fancy a 90-minute walk around London with Will Self, “writer and psychogeographer”, or dinner with the Booker-longlisted writer Ned Beauman in London’s “best Indian restaurant”? Either would set you back £500, but would also support the quarterly arts journal The White Review, the latest in a line of high-end literary endeavours which are going direct to their readers for funding, rather than struggling for space in a crowded market.

And readers are lining up to support them. “My own hunch is that people are sick of passively consuming – that they don’t want to be told what to buy,” says Dan Kieran, chief executive of crowdfunding publisher Unbound, which is preparing to release its 50th title, a memoir from Rose Bretécher called Pure. “Sites like Kickstarter and Unbound are not about saying here is this thing someone has selected for you to buy, but rather, if you want in, you need to step forward and say so, contribute money, tell your network about it. And it becomes a movement. That’s how this community feels.”

Established in 2011, the London-based The White Review has published fiction by major writers including China Miéville, Nicola Barker and Lydia Davis, as well as interviews, poetry, long-form essays and art. Last week it launched its first Kickstarter, looking for £15,000 to help print the next three issues and set up more free events around the UK (it puts on around 20 a year). The Self and Beauman offerings are incentives for backers; “pretty much all the people we’ve asked so far have agreed to donate something”, says founder Jacques Testard.

“We’re not in financial trouble – it’s about expansion and carrying on what we’re doing,” he adds. “We’ve seen the success McSweeney’s, BOMB Magazine and Guernica have had with these crowdfunders, and we thought we could try this and see what comes of it.” [...]

This and more at The Guardian.