Running a digital literary zine is rewarding, fulfilling work. I’ve been doing it in one version or another since 2011.

It’s also quite difficult to finance.

Back in 2022, Lesley Conner and I elected to make a run at trying to build a subscriber base large enough to solely support the zine’s costs. We fell short and all of 2024 has been a scramble for the company to find enough money to pay everybody.

After plenty of discussion with Lesley and the Apex team, we decided to shift course. We did the math and determined that our 2023 shortfall was approximately $30,000 for six issues. Not wanting to ask our readers for that much, we elected to to set our funding goal to $15,000 and promise three issues if we hit that goal. Every additional $5,000 beyond will see the release of another issue (up to six).

The funding goal has been structured to account for a monthly stipend for Lesley, Becky, Marissa, Leah, and Arie. They’re an incredibly hardworking crew, one I’m proud to be associated with and want to make sure they receive a bit more for their contributions.

Naturally, we plan to continue to pay SFWA pro-rates to our authors and fair rates to our other contributors.

If you love dark genre fiction and have a few bucks to spare, then check out our Kickstarter. We’d love to bring you another year of Apex Magazine!