Pay Quality is Literarium's measure of whether a Market pays Token, Semi-Pro or Professional rates for a given type of work. Because Literarium records actual pay rates by currency, it is possible to standardise payment quality across currency rates. This means that a professional rate of (for example) 40 Euro cents/line can be compared to 6c/word USD using day-by-day international currency exchange rates to determine whether any market falls into a particular pay quality range.


When you search for Markets in the Market Search screen without specifying Manuscript Category (eg. Poetry, Non-Fiction), Literarium returns the HIGHEST pay quality for a given market. As you narrow down results, it will adapt to display the pay quality for your specific search criteria.

Additional Information

Pay Quality is calculated and standardised for:

  • Fiction (by word)
  • Non-Fiction (by word)
  • Poetry (by line)
  • Visual Art (by piece)

Pay Rates (as of 24 May, 2016)

Category Token
 Semi-Pro
 Professional
Fiction, Non-Fiction
 USD 1-3c/word
USD ?/piece
 USD 3-6c/word
USD ?/piece
 USD 6+ c/word
USD ?/piece
Poetry
 USD ?/line
USD ?/piece
 USD ?/line
USD ?/piece
 USD ?/line
USD ?/piece
Visual Art
 /piece
 /piece
 /piece
Royalties - All
 ?%
 ?%
 ?%

Conversions (as of 24 May, 2016)

  • For Fiction and Non-Fiction we convert words/lines/pages in the ratio of 10 words per line, 35 lines per page (ie. 350 words per page)
  • For Poetry we convert lines/pages in the ratio of 35 lines per page.