Here’s a wide variety of publishers that pay writers up to $500 or more per article.

If you’re interested in taking full advantage of these opportunities, you’ll need to learn how to write a good pitch. If you’re not sure how to do that, then I highly recommend taking this short course.

1. Adi Magazine is a literary magazine of global politics that is dedicated to rehumanizing policy. They publish fiction, poetry, nonfiction (essays, interviews, and reportage), and translated work alongside original illustrations. According to their guidelines, they pay $600 for essays, $250 for interviews, $150 per poem, $500 for short fiction (up to 5,000 words), and $200 for flash fiction (under 1,000 words). To learn more, refer to this page.
2. Balls & Strikes is “a site for critical, progressive, and bullshit-free commentary about courts, judges, and the legal system they uphold.” They’re always seeking new voices. Their coverage focuses on “the real-world consequences of what judges do, and not on parsing the precise jurisprudential philosophy they did or did not apply in order to arrive at a given result.” According to their pitch guide, rates are $500 for essays of around 1,000 words. If interested, send your pitches to pitches@ballsandstrikes.org. For more information, refer to this page.
3. Motley Bloom is “a curated collective focused on Neurodivergent First living.” They’re looking for short first-person narratives and articles (500 to 800 words) on “travel, beauty, home design, work and career, product reviews–anything that falls under the umbrella of Neurodivergent Living.” They’re also seeking longer first-person narratives (1,000+ words) that “showcase the diversity of opinion and experience with neurodivergence.” According to their submissions page, rates begin at $300 for short articles and $500 for longer pieces. If interested, email your pitches to pitch@motley-bloom.com. To learn more, refer to their submissions page.
4. Ruffwear is an outdoor dog gear brand based in Bend, Oregon. They are looking for personal stories that tell the tale of outdoor experiences you’ve shared with your dog(s) – anything from an epic adventure to those everyday moments when you seek fresh air with your canine sidekick. They only accept writers based in the US and Canada. They expect stories to be roughly 800-1000 words and to have 8-10 photos. According to their pitch guide, they pay a flat rate of $500 per story. To learn more, refer to this page.
5. The Cut publishes stories that address their readers’ lives head-on, with generous wit, honesty, and power. They are in a dynamic conversation with women about the issues that matter to them most — politics, feminism, work, money, relationships, mental health, fashion, and issues relating to equality — and they’re always looking for ideas that add to that conversation. They are looking smart, generous, funny writing for their four verticals: POWER, SELF, STYLE, and CULTURE. According to their guidelines, they pay $500 minimum for essays and columns (1,000–1,500 words) and $600 minimum for features (1,500–2,000) words. To learn more, refer to this page.
6. Up Here tells stories about the people, places and events in Canada’s three territories: the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It is published bimonthly. They welcome pitches for Dispatches: scene-based stories about life in the North; Travel: a 1,000-word column about a trip the writer has taken; and Features: detailed, reported stories ranging in length from 1,500 to 2,500 words. According to their pitch guide, they pay $500 for Travel columns and 50 cents to one dollar per word for features. To learn more, refer to this page.
7. Escapism is a travel print magazine published by twenty-two, a Canadian publishing house and creative agency. They pay for print-first travel guides, which are then repurposed online. Their travel features are also included in the company’s food magazine, Foodism. For those, features don’t have to have a food or beverage angle, but they do need a unique perspective. Escapism’s travel guides are less about first-person experiences in longform, and more about what to see, eat and do in a given destination. According to their pitch guide, they pay $600 for features of 1,200 – 1,500 words, and $0.40 per word for the travel guides, which should be 500 words and up. To learn more, refer to this page.
8. Foodism is a food print magazine published by twenty-two, a Canadian publishing house and creative agency. They pay for print-first features, which are then repurposed online, and are interested in original stories that explore Toronto’s diverse and layered food scene. They also accept travel features, which must have a unique perspective. According to their pitch guide, they pay $600 for 1,200 – 1,500 words and $0.40 per word for the travel guides, which should be 500 words and up. To learn more, refer to this page.
9. AFM is the magazine of Feeld, a dating app for the curious; those open to experiencing people and relationships in new ways. They are looking to publish new work from contributors of all kinds—whether that’s essays, art, fiction, poetry, photography, or any medium you can think of. According to their pitch guide, they pay $800USD for fiction, $500USD for poetry, and $1/word for essays, features, profiles, interviews, with a typical word count of 1500-2000 words. To learn more, refer to this page.
10. Aftermath is a worker-owned site focused on video games and internet culture. They accept pitches from both new and established writers: “Free from the pressures of SEO, traffic, and the latest big game, we want stories that highlight important, under-explored facets of gaming and technology, as well as stories that hold powerful figures to account.” According to their pirch guide, rates are $300 for shorter pieces, and $500 for pieces involving more in-depth reporting and analysis. Interested writers can send their pitches to mail@aftermath.site. To learn more, refer to their pitch guide.