by Jeff Reynolds

A game we authors enjoy is “discuss how the short story market used to pay so well you could make a living from it.” When the topic appeared again recently, I wondered: Is there any truth to this view? Did writers of the past make a living selling nothing but short fiction? If yes, was pay the root cause?

I’ll give you the answers up front: sort of; kind of; and not exactly.

You could make an excellent living selling shorts during the pulp era. But there’s a truckload of ifs tied to that could. If editors liked you; if you wrote decently; if you churned out work fast enough that your fingers bled; if you didn’t mind being hungry. Being a pulp writer during the Depression years was downright murderous.

I limited my research to pulp’s heyday, the mid-1920s through mid-1930s, and left out the type of magazines referred to as slicks in order to maintain a close comparison with modern genre writers who publish short stories. By 1934, there were as many as 250 monthly pulps operating, publishing stories on topics ranging from war, science fiction, romance, westerns, mysteries, and so on.

The majority of pulps paid one cent per word or less. A few paid two or three cents, and some paid even more for writer exclusivity. But to get to that level, you had to be talented and charming. You also had to write enormous quantities of stories.

Take Frank Gruber. From 1932 to 1934, Gruber wrote an extraordinary 174 pieces. He managed to sell 107 of them, for a total of $815 ($18,690 in 2024, adjusted for inflation). That works out to roughly nine grand a year. That’s below poverty wages in the United States today.

Moving to New York in July 1934, he stayed at a cheap hotel with weekly rents and lived off “tomato soup” (bowls of hot water mixed with ketchup, both free at the automat). He went from publisher to publisher, developing friendships with editors that led to writing opportunities, and, eventually, regular monthly sales.

In 1935, he wrote 57 stories and sold 55. His earnings? $10,000 ($229,325 today). Those stories were often novelette or novella length by modern standards, though. Gruber’s pace would burn most of us out.

Successful pulp writers often churned out work at brutal speeds. They wrote thousands of words daily. Erle Stanley Gardner tallied over a million words a year. Gardner wrote evenings, after his day job as a lawyer ended. He claimed he slept only three hours each night. He eventually earned enough to quit lawyering, and created lawyer Perry Mason.

There was a vast array of markets available, so writers diversified. Gruber called it “slanting.” Authors wrote about topics of which they knew nothing, inventing fictional pasts to sell the stories. One author’s litany of made-up careers tallied 84 years of experience.

The author was 26.

But was the pay higher than today?

Mostly yes. One cent per word in 1932 equals 23¢ today. Some markets paid that—others paid less. Hugo Gernsback, whose name graces the Hugo Awards, was a notorious skinflint, paying a quarter cent per word or less. Still, Gruber considered it good pay, so let’s use one cent for comparison.

Twenty-three cents is higher than SFWA writers earn from illustrious titles like Clarkesworld. But it’s not higher than magazines they might be less familiar with. For example, Gray’s Sporting Journal pays a $600 flat fee for an up-to 1,500-word fiction “yarn” (40¢ per word). How about The School Magazine? If you can write for Australian children, they pay 50¢ (Australian) per word. In other words, we might earn more if we write more broadly.

However, the market today is very different. Only a handful of monthly magazines remain. Fewer still can afford printing. Even if they manage to print, finding distribution channels is tough. Readership has long been in decline, and readers have grown used to receiving free stories online. Advertising, which once supported magazine sales, has dried up. The profit margins for most are too slim to pay staff, so the majority of markets offer only limited submission windows. In response, publishers can be far more selective in the stories they buy.

Personal economics are profoundly different, too. Gruber’s typewriter cost $8 ($176). A cheap laptop will set you back $300. Gruber’s apartment in 1935 cost $67 a month ($1,536), yet median rent in New York city reached $3,800 in June 2024. Inflation alone fails to account for increases in cost-of-living.

So, yes, pay-per-word was higher. But also, the cost of living was lower, the market was conducive to monthly work once you established yourself, and an ability to generate huge quantities of stories was as important as overall quality. Even if pay-per-word had kept pace, market and economic changes limit the ability of modern writers to survive off short fiction sales alone without other income.

Most importantly, thousands of writers in the pulp era failed. We don’t hear their stories (Gruber and Gardner mention them on occasion, Gardner with a slightly contemptuous I succeed because I work harder attitude). Humans tend to focus on a few successes while ignoring legions of failures. But success is rare: a combination of perseverance, right time and/or place, a dash of talent, and lots of luck.

The pulp era was as challenging as the modern one, but in contradistinct ways. A century of change has left us with a different market paradigm, for better or worse. Probably worse. Although, honestly, I’m not sure I’d have been able to keep up the brutal pace some successful pulp authors managed. Then again, with ready access to the Internet for research, I would not have had to invent dozens of careers to support story sales.

Chin up, though. This may not be the golden age of short story sales, but I honestly believe it is the golden age of speculative writing. Some of the best short fiction in history is being written right now. Pick up any current magazine and you’ll see.

Just don’t expect to make a living selling it.

Reference Sources:

1. Gruber, Frank. The Pulp Jungle. Sherbourne Press, Inc.  1967
2. Gardner, Erle Stanley. “Let’s Go!” The Author and Journalist. Oct. 1932. pp. 5-8
3. Smith, David C. Robert E. Howard: A Literary Biography. Pulp Hero Press. Oct. 3, 2018
4. For various pay and item costs: Writer’s Digest (1932-1934 volumes)

Jeff Reynolds is a writer from the foggy coast of Maine, which is a real state and not a fever dream of Stephen King. His works have appeared in Clarkesworld, Analog, Lightspeed, and Escape Pod, among other fine venues. He’s the creator of the Speculative Fiction Magazine Subscription website, a graduate of Viable Paradise writers’ workshop, and co-editor of Trollbreath Magazine. Find him at his website: https://www.trollbreath.com.