Difficult Times For SF Magazines

Lawrence Person writes "Another speculative fiction magazine folds: Realms of Fantasy is ceasing publication. This comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the venerable Fantasy and Science Fiction will be moving from a monthly to a bimonthly schedule, and underscores what a tough environment this is for science fiction and fantasy magazines, all of which have suffered declining circulation for quite some time. This is a real problem, since short fiction is generally where new writers cut their teeth, appearing in print alongside their more famous peers. Given that a one-year subscription costs less than the average video game, those with an interest in science fiction might want to consider buying subscriptions to Asimov's, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Analog. (Those in the UK might want to add Interzone and/or Black Static and Postscripts as well.)"

Comments

A REAL problem?

[icebike]

> This is a real problem, since short fiction is generally where new writers cut their teeth,

Hello! This is the future calling. You know, the one the SIFI writers have been writing about all this time...?!?

The writers have the web. They can make more selling google ads on any blog site than they ever could have getting published in a low-volume sifi rag.

I don't see this as a "Problem" for anyone except the publisher, and even they were clearly not in it for profit. It's just another example of people rationally abandoning their failed business model for a more high-tech one.

Do this: Grab last year's copies of any of these rags and google some of the authors you find in there. You will find they are not dead, merely transported to another reality.

science fiction vs fantasy

[Xolom]

SF ceased to be SF long ago. walk into a bookstore, and you'll see books with a cover of a giant muscular thor-looking dude with a huge sword fighting a dragon. that is NOT SF. that is fantasy. that killed true SF (such as heinlein)

Re:Not just Science Fiction magazines

[halcyon1234]

Having not read much amateur writing myself, I think you make an interesting point. I wonder if a magazine like F&SF could have any success by having a website on which anyone could submit stories, and their editors read through, find the good ones and publish them. All the stories could be available for users to browse through and rate, but the prospect of being put into print might attract more authors and make the site a success.

Probably not. The sticking point is-- how do you pay the editor? Editors (of the good/reputable magazines, at least) tend to be educated, and have a knack for the language, and are in tune with the "art" of writing. In short, they're talented, and this is their livleyhood. Given that:

1) You pay for these editors

2) You use free editors.

With #1, you need a website making money to pay them for making the content of the website good enough to pay money for. I wonder if ouroboros.com is available?

With #2, you're hoping for the best. You might get good editors, you might not. Would you want to read fiction controlled by Wikipedia editors?

The last thing is the sheer volume of entries you'll get. Just ask any editor about the slush pile. Buy them a drink first. F&SF has a turn-around time of about 2-3 weeks-- and that is a phenomenal feat. Most magazines will take 1-2 months for a submission to make it through the queue. That's a lot of submissions, given that people (in most cases) still need to snail mail it. Can you imagine what will happen when you open it up electronically, and everyone including every Harry Potter/Picard fanfic writer submits? That is a lot of slush.

I'm not saying it's not possible, but it would be quite the challenge to find a working, profitable sweet spot between amature free-for-all and professional tightly-run-ship

Re:New Writers

[tlhIngan]

As an unpublished writer myself, I think what this means is that writers are going to have to get their starts by posting their stories on the Internet. If they write well, perhaps they will build a following, and that will make it easier for them to get published by more regular means (which pay better, but beginners never made that much money anyway).

The problem is, it's like indie music. First, publishing on the Internet doesn't mean you'll get noticed. You may have written mankind's best SF story, but if it sits in some dark corner of the Internet that no one ends up going to, well, it sits, stagnant. You can get a few hits by using blogs and what not, but driving traffic that way gets difficult, fast. If you're lucky you'll get hit with some article in a newspaper or popular website.

That's why the magazines got people discovered - you had the usual brand-name authors beside the more obscure ones. Flipping through the mag trying to get to a story, you may stop by the obscure author's few closing words, get intrigued, and read from the beginning. Others do the same, and some obscure author gets boosted. Or heck, being stuck with the mag and having nothing else to do, you may read some of the other stories to pass time.

A website trying to emulate this behavior won't have the same effect - if you stick with the standard Table Of Contents model, people reading a certain author will just click straight to that author's story and stop. Then they'd go off for their next distraction (another website), while the more obscure authors go unclicked.

While the mag's story has a few lines to possibly hook a reader, a website only has the title/subtitle to do so (leading to the "Short Catchy Title - Long explanatory subtitle" titling format we see today).

But I suppose the demise of the mags comes from the fact that quality is going down - good authors don't need mags - they'll just post it online and get other blogs to generate traffic for them. The so-so kind either try to submit into a mag and hope, or expect to post it on the Internet and have it magically generate publicity to them. Unfortunately, getting noticed on the Internet is difficult, because with literally everyone publishing, there's way too much content out there.

The difference between Sci-Fi and Fantasy

[jmorris42]

> But there's a difference between fantasy and science fiction: scifi tries to "explore the human
> condition", while fantasy tries to entertain.

You couldn't be more wrong. The line between Sci-Fi and Fantasy is simply that Sci-Fi makes an attempt to ask "what if" while constrained by the limit that what is proposed COULD possibly be while Fantasy disposes of that limitation. Both should 'explore the human condition' AND 'entertain' if they hope to find success. Lord of the Rings is most certainly fantasy yet asks quite a few questions about the larger moral issues concerning duty, loyalty, power and it's abuse, etc. Meanwhile lots of Sci-Fi doesn't, getting too lost in the tech to remember to relate it back to people and how it might impact US. And then there is the stuff that calls itself Sci-Fi and is just fantasy tarted up with spaceships and rayguns. (I'm looking at you Mr. Lucas.)

Note that you have to give a historical qualifier with my rather strict Sci-Fi definition. If it COULD be when written it counts even if we later learn it couldn't. And it helps to be rather generous and even allow a few things in teh name of artistic license. If the story is ABOUT FTL travel the author is obliged to be exploring a new proposal in that area and talk a bit about the science. But if that isn't what the story is about ya have to let em get away with the usual handwaving about warp|hyperspace|wormholes|etc so they can get on with their story. Because it is still a little early to say FTL is 100% impossible and without it a while bunch of stories aren't possible to tell.