A Long & Short on Stories for No Pay...

As a writer, of course I’m interested in money, but, as an experiment, I decided to put nine short stories of mine, each of which originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine, together as a “book”, under the title “BOYS who DO the BOP”, and make it easily and freely downloadable in e-form at http://www.anderbo.com/bop9.html — anyone, anywhere, anytime, can read it on a computer or smartphone without charge. Yes, there was a time when I was paid $2500+ by The New Yorker for my fictions, but, as an editor there at the time, Dan Menaker, said to me, “You can’t expect to make a living from short stories.” This, I think, is increasingly true, both for writers and for publishers. Lately, I’ve been giving my — and others’ — stories, poems and nonfiction away for no charge via the online journal I co-founded in 2005 at http://www.anderbo.com/ yet at the same time I strongly disapprove of making writers pay fees to submit their writings, unless it’s for a contest where the money would go toward paying the winners cash prizes. As for the Anderbo editorial staff, it's basically an unpaid one, and all work is voluntary; also, we aren't in a position to pay the writers, the only exception is work having to do with our literary contests — contest-entry readers, contest assistants, contest judges, and, of course, the contest-winners, are paid.