Magazine and website stories, despite appearances, do not come cheap. Costs involved include gas, fancy meals with gas industry shills, haircuts to look your best at gas industry galas, miscellaneous snack foods to help with research, plane tickets to go on vacation because of the stress of writing a story, various crystals and gem stones for luck, and finally there is the unnameable cost of a bruised ego when the story comes out and everyone shits on it.

Below is a quiz featuring several stories from the last year or so, chosen at random, that likely carried hefty price tags. Please guess with us just how much they cost.

1. “Fear in a Handful of Dust: What Climate Change Is Doing to a Texas Cattle Ranch,” Ted Genoways, The New Republic, April 22, 2015

Hint: It costs a lot of money to make a story about a cattle ranch and climate change even moderately interesting.

a. $15,000

b. $4,000

c. $9,000

2. “Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Passage Through America,” Karl Ove Knausgaard, The New York Times Magazine, March 11, 2015

Hint: On the one hand, Karl Ove Knausgaard is a world-famous author; on the other, he mostly stayed in shitty hotels.

a. $34

b. $34,000

c. $340,000

3. “Carbon Capture: Has climate change made it harder for people to care about conservation?” Jonathan Franzen, The New Yorker, April 6, 2015

Hint: When Jonathan Franzen asks a rhetorical question, the New Yorker empties its pockets.

a. $2,000

b. $11,478

c. $20,202

4. “Is There Any Such Thing as a Career in Digital Journalism?” Felix Salmon, Fusion, April 21, 2015

Hint: Do not listen to anything Felix Salmon says.

a. An old boot

b. A ham sandwich

c. $250,000 or thereabouts, Salmon’s rumored compensation for his career in digital journalism

5. “Rain in Exactly 12 Minutes: How weather apps—yes, really—became the ultimate reality show,” Mary Mann, Matter, Oct. 21, 2014

Hint: You can also check the weather by looking outside.

a. $1,000

b. $5,000

c. $2,500

6. “I Followed My Stolen iPhone Across The World, Became a Celebrity in China, and Found a Friend for Life,” Matt Stopera, BuzzFeed, March 31, 2015

Hint: A plane ticket to China costs $2,000, a Chinese man’s dignity costs nothing.

a. who cares

b. kill me

c. why

7. “I Can Feel It Coming in the Air Tonight” (a dispatch from the Air Sex World Championships), Taffy Brodesser-Akner, GQ, May 2015

Hint: The privilege of writing for GQ should be payment enough.

a. $5,500

b. $7,888

c. $600 and two Fleshlights

8. “The Trials of White Boy Rick,” Evan Hughes, The Atavist, Sept 2014

Hint: A story of some interest about something that happened almost thirty years ago.

a. $white boy$

b. $2

c. $24

9. “This is How We Go to Mars,” Chris Jones, Esquire, Nov. 2014

Hint: Chris Jones will be a contributing editor for Esquire: Mars.

a. Money doesn’t

b. Matter because

c. Storytelling is LIFE

Do you actually know how much any of these stories cost? Email leah@gawker.com

Photo of a magazine in a museum box via AP