Ninety pages, no advertising, and we print exactly as many as are paid for.

Print runs are small — Between six and nine hundred, set by the subscription list plus a margin. When an issue is gone it is genuinely gone
Nothing gets reprinted — Not as scarcity marketing — a second run of four hundred costs nearly what nine hundred did the first time. The arithmetic simply doesn't work
Sold-out issues go to libraries — A copy of everything goes somewhere that will keep it. That is the archive, it is free to read, and it is the reason nothing is truly lost
A PDF of everything exists — Including the sold-out issues, for whatever you want to pay, including nothing at all. Ask and it is sent
Postage at cost — Which is worth saying plainly: international postage on a ninety-page magazine costs more than the magazine does
Nothing is bought on this page — Every one of those links leaves for the shop. This page sells nothing and stores nothing

Four issues, paid up front — Which is the honest description of it. You are lending us the printer's bill and being repaid in magazines over about a year
Cheaper, but that isn't the reason — A subscription saves you roughly the price of one issue. The real reason to do it is that it sets the print run, and the print run is the entire thing
Buying one issue is fine — Genuinely fine. Somebody who buys one issue a year is a reader, and nobody is going to be guilted about the other three
It never renews itself — No automatic renewal, ever. You get one email when it runs out, and ignoring that email is a complete and respected answer
Cancel whenever — Refund for the issues not yet posted, within a week, at what you paid. No form to fill in and no phone call to sit through
Gift subscriptions — Start at whichever issue you like. The first one arrives with a card in it rather than an invoice

The money is held separately — Subscription income sits in its own account and is drawn down issue by issue as each one is posted. It is not working capital and it is not spent early
If we stop, you're refunded — Everything not yet posted, in full, within a month, and before anybody here is paid anything at all
You'd hear it from us first — An email, with the actual reason in it. Not a final issue that quietly never arrives and a website that stops being updated
Why say any of this — Because you are being asked for a year's money up front by people you have never met. Anybody asking for that should be willing to write down what happens when it goes wrong
What this does not promise — That we won't fold. Nobody can promise that, and a magazine that says otherwise is not reading its own accounts
It isn't a guarantee scheme — There is no third party standing behind this and no protection you could claim from. It is a stated intention and an account that is kept separate, which is all it can honestly be

We pay, on acceptance — Per word, at the rate printed here, within thirty days of yes rather than on publication. Nobody is offered exposure and nobody works here for nothing
What we take — Reportage, essays and short fiction. Nothing over five thousand words, and nothing about writing — a magazine about writing is a magazine for writers
Six weeks, and a real no — Rather than silence. If six weeks goes by, chase us: it means something went astray, which happens more often than anybody admits
Rights — First publication, print and web, for six months. Then everything reverts to you and it is yours to do whatever you like with
Simultaneous submissions are fine — And expected. Withdrawing something because somebody else took it is good news, not an inconvenience, and it is never held against you
Everything is read by a person — To the end of the first page at the absolute minimum, and most of the way through in nearly every case. There is no filter before that

About forty shops — Independent bookshops, a couple of galleries, two record shops. The list lives here and it changes more often than you'd think
Not in the chains — National distribution takes around half the cover price, which would mean printing three times as many to sell the same number to the same people
Ask your local shop — They can order directly, in fours, on ordinary trade terms. It costs them almost nothing to try, and it is how most of the forty started
Libraries, free — Anywhere, on request, no justification needed. Send an address and it goes in the post
Abroad — Two stockists overseas and everywhere else is post. The postage really is more than the magazine and there is no clever way round it
A list, not a map — The stockists are a plain list of names and towns. Nobody has ever wanted a searchable map for forty shops

Printing and paper — About half of it. Uncoated stock, litho, printed forty miles away because a courier across a county costs less than a lorry across a continent
Postage and envelopes — More than anybody expects, and the line that has risen fastest three years running. It is also the one nobody can negotiate
Writers and photographers — Paid on acceptance at the published rate. This is the line that gets protected when something has to give, and something usually has to give
Everything else — The website, the accountant, the bank charges nobody warns you about, the box of envelopes. Small, dull and relentless
What's left over — Not much, and on two of the last four issues, nothing. Nobody here has taken a wage from it yet, and that is said outright rather than implied by silence
Why print this at all — Because a magazine asking for a year's money up front should be willing to show where it goes. This is where ours goes