Literary magazines are almost never profitable

The New York Times reports on the sudden closure of a once-promising literary magazine:

In the United States, none of the five large publishing houses currently fund these outlets. The infrastructure supporting national literary magazines is crumbling, too: There are fewer newsstands, fewer bookstores that stock niche magazines, fewer advertisers willing to spend on print, and — in a world where information is increasingly siloed online — fewer people willing to subscribe.

Many literary magazines, like The Paris Review and The Drift, operate as nonprofits. With backing from a foundation and a private donor, The Dial announced itself as a new, nonprofit literary magazine last week. And, as their names suggest, publications like The Yale Review, The Hopkins Review, and The Kenyon Review are backed by universities or tied to university presses.