The Fin(e) Print

Receipts and Looking Ahead

by Meg Frank

We’re four issues into this aquatic adventure and we are deeply pleased to have been able to share with you over 40 different pieces of mermaid magic. So far we’ve published 10 poems, 8 short stories, 6 Each to Each collaborations, 2 comics, and 2 essays. We’ve also commissioned two original pieces of art for covers, licensed two more, and published about a dozen aquatic illustrations. This is more than we were planning to publish, but we were blown away by the outstanding submissions that we received and we’ve decided to think just a little bit bigger. 

To make all of this happen we’ve spent about half ($13,361 of $26,150)of our overall budget. We’ve used about half of our art budget and just under a third of our written work budget. We’re working on plans to raise a little bit more money this summer so that we can set free some of the white whales we found in our submission net.

The first four issues cost $5863 to produce – the least expensive costing $835 and the most expensive costing $2271. We’ve also purchased another $712 of material for future issues bringing the total spent on content to $6575. 

We’ve paid our team $4200 in total, which is less than we were planning for, but Julia and I decided to redirect some of our pay to buying more material and covering administrative costs. 

We’ve spent $2586 on administrative and logistical costs. We spent $1000 more in this area than planned – we hired an accountant to do our tax paperwork and that was very worth it. 

Finally, while our plan for Mermaids Monthly was one year of mermaid magic, it’s become clear that there is a lot more material out there. We’ve decided to pass the ship to a new crew. If you’d like to steer this ship, or know someone who could, check out the Wanted page and start organizing your ideas for adventure!

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Meg Frank (they/them) is a Hugo-nominated artist based in New York. In the before times they traveled a lot and spent a lot of time looking up in museums. Currently they are keeping themselves busy with art school, two cats, knitting for their family, and being co-Publisher of this magazine. They’re @peripateticmeg on Twitter.

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