Last night the Crossed Genres Magazine fundraising drive reached the halfway point of our goal! There have been over 200 subscriptions or renewals in the past month!! Huge thanks to everyone who’s helped us get this far!

With only about 15 days left to the year, it’s fairly obvious that the goal of 600 subscriptions by 12/31 is pretty unlikely. Since we knew this was a possibility, we’ve been discussing contingency plans and have decided how to proceed from here. Since we’ve reached half of 2014’s funding, we’ve decided to commit to keeping CG Magazine open through June 2014 (issue 18)!

Please don’t mistake this as the end of our fundraising drive – we still need at least 600 subscriptions for CG Magazine to reach proper sustainability! All this means is that we have a bit more time to reach that goal… some breathing room. So if you, or someone you know, loves quality, diverse short fiction, please subscribe now! If you need a last-minute holiday gift, a gift subscription is perfect for book-loving friends and family! =)

A Note on CG Magazine’s SFWA Qualification

Some of you have undoubtedly heard SFWA’s announcement regarding SFWA qualifications. The short version: As of July 1, 2014, SFWA is raising its qualifying pay rates for markets from $0.05 per word to $0.06 per word.

We spoke with SFWA regarding this. The current qualification standards apply through June 30, which means CG Magazine’s pay rate since January 2013 still qualifies. We still intend to apply for SFWA status on January 1. What this means is, CG Magazine will have to raise its rates to at least $0.06 per word by July 1, or lose qualification by that date.

While we are currently considering the best way to address this, this change does not eliminate CG Magazine from SFWA qualifying status moving forward. We have a number of options which would allow us to reach and maintain SFWA status and we’re deciding which of these options makes the most sense for us, for our writers, and for our readers.

We believe that if anything, this change makes it more important for CG Magazine to become a SFWA qualified market. While SFWA claims the change is “to urge markets to pay writers more” (a result we’d be in favor of), the truth is the raised rate may well eliminate as many as one third of markets from qualifying. Fewer markets means fewer qualified stories published, and fewer opportunities for unestablished authors. Moreover, the markets that are eliminated will be the smaller independent markets – in other words, the markets most likely to take less “typical” stories, the markets more likely to publish stories with PoC or QUILTBAG main characters. Because of this very real possibility, we believe that the intent of markets like CG Magazine to be SFWA markets that encourage and promote diversity have become even more crucial than ever. We will do everything we can not only to keep CG Magazine open but to reach and maintain SFWA qualifying status.

Thanks for your support as we move forward!