As many of you may know, in addition to writing and promoting my own fiction and poetry, I’m also the Editor-in-Chief of Bindweed Magazine, which celebrated its 1 year birthday anniversary on 3rd April this year. Bindweed Magazine is truly a labour of love; I receive no government/Arts council funding for my magazine. It’s entirely independent. I read submissions for free and with the help of my writer hubby, Joseph Robert, select poetry and fiction that we feel has literary merit to publish – online every 4 days and in a print anthology 4 times a year.

In a day and age of publishers charging writers ‘submission fees’ to enter work into competitions, or ‘reading fees’ to consider their writing, I am proud to read, select and publish writers without charging anything. I use Lulu to create the print anthologies, which costs me nothing, and set a token retail price for customers to buy copies. In the interests of full transparency, here is a summary of my costs for Bindweed’s first year:


What I paid:

Issue 1 proof copy = £6.33 

Issue 2 proof copy = £5.91

Issue 3 proof copy = £6.09

Issue 4 proof copy = £6.03


Net royalties received from sales (After deductions by Lulu and Amazon)

Issue 1 sales = £5.51

Issue 2 sales = £4.11

Issue 3 sales = £15.41

Issue 4 sales = Not yet known (current issue on sale)


Sub total: 

= 15.41 + 4.11 + 5.51 = 25.03 – 6.03 – 6.09 – 5.91 – 6.33

Net profit:

= 0.67

Time spent publishing the Ezine:

1 hour × 90 poets/ writers (including light editing, promotion on Facebook and Google+) = 90 hours.
Average 14 hours × 4 print anthologies  (including formatting work for the manuscript draft, designing the cover, uploading to Lulu) = 56 hours.


Estimated total time for publication on Ezine and print anthologies for Issues 1 to 4:

= 146 hours

So, £0.67 is how much I have earned for running Bindweed Magazine for 1 year, including a lower estimate of 146 hours of work. Why the heck do I do it then, I hear you say?!

Because I want to continue to provide a platform for writers and poets to market their work and create a product that contributors can be proud to be a part of! My glossy little A5 sized magazines certainly look a treat on a shelf and hopefully can give readers and writers a satisfaction that goes beyond the safe, boring, academically-churned-government-cauterised literary zines often spewed in the face of many austerity-starved and sadly dying Indie zines. Not Bindweed! This poverty-flower will keep creeping over the manicured-money-blooms regardless of spending cuts.

About Leilanie Stewart

Leilanie Stewart is an author and poet from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has written four novels, including award-winning ghost horror, The Blue Man, as well as three poetry collections. Her writing confronts the nature of self; her novels feature main characters on a dark psychological journey who have a crisis of identity and create a new sense of being. She began writing for publication while working as an English teacher in Japan, a career pathway that has influenced themes in her writing. Her former career as an Archaeologist has also inspired her writing and she has incorporated elements of archaeology and mythology into both her fiction and poetry. In addition to promoting her own work, Leilanie runs Bindweed Magazine, a creative writing literary journal with her writer husband, Joseph Robert. Aside from publishing pursuits, Leilanie enjoys spending time with her husband and their lively literary lad, a voracious reader of sea monster books. CONNECT WITH ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: https://mailchi.mp/75c5a1ad6956/leilanie-stewart-author-info

One response »

  1. […] platform for writers and poets to market their creative work. Read the full article here: https://leilaniestewart.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/why-bindweed-magazine-is-a-labour-of-love/ To support the magazine you can buy back issues at Amazon.com or […]

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