The Big Roundtable publishes personal essays. They also have an unusual business model; they pay each published author $100, then Authors earn more money from reader donations on the website.

Some authors have earned thousands of dollars per article via donation. All of the articles on the website are accompanied by a “donate” button that allows readers to easily send the writer money.

They have been around for over a year, and seem to be doing well.

According to their submission guidelines:

“The Big Roundtable publishes narrative nonfiction and connects passionate nonfiction writers with readers who will support their work. We do this through experimental methods of gathering, selecting, editing, and distributing ambitious narrative stories, and, eventually, researching the reading and sharing behavior around those stories.

The inspiration for The Big Roundtable came from the Algonquin Round Table, a group of New York City writers who called themselves “The Vicious Circle” and who’d meet at the Algonquin Hotel in the early 20th century. They were vicious; we are not.”

To learn more, and to submit your writing, visit their website.