Ever wonder what it costs to run a magazine? How much we earn and spend? I do – every year when I have to explain to my accountant spouse which figures are which. So, after a long day and night of combining data from a host of sources, here’s the thumbnail: in 2021, we lost $4,000 more than we made.
A quick table:
| Item | Amount |
| Creators | ($4,913.28) |
| Infrastructure | ($2,163.64) |
| Miscellaneous | ($288.21) |
| Donation | $851.39 |
| Sales | $2,372.67 |
| Grand Total | ($4,141.07) |
Now, 2021 was a somewhat unusual year – we had more income from a Nebula-nominated novella, and we had some unusual expenses (e.g., three years of web hosting), but the result is still pretty much where we always come out – with a substantial loss.
Some explanatory notes:
- This is from all Metaphorosis publishing endeavours, not just the magazine. It wraps in my own income from story sales (to other magazines and anthologies) and my expenses (mostly just proofs).
- Creators – art and stories for the magazine and anthologies.
- Infrastructure – web hosting, domain registration, submission manager, etc.
- Miscellaneous – just what it sounds like: charges for proofs, etc.
- Donation – mostly from the fine people who support us via Patreon, but also the occasional one-off donation.
- Sales – sales of e and print books (and my own stories).
If you’re more of a big picture person – since we started in 2015 (first issue Jan 2016), we’ve had a net loss of about $29,000. So 2021 was pretty much in line with the history.
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