open
Upgrade to a better browser, please.

Worlds Without End Blog

Subscribe to SF Magazines – Become a Patron of an Art Posted at 8:00 AM by James Wallace Harris

jwharris28

How do you make money on a product given away for free? That’s a problem all websites face, but I’m particularly worried about those that publish science fiction short stories. Let’s say you pay 10-cents a word to writers and offer 100,000 words of quality fiction to your readers each month. That’s $10,000 of overhead just for stories. Advertising won’t cover that. And even generous Patreon donors will tire quickly. What’s a publisher to do? Neil Clarke over at Clarkesworld brought this conundrum up on Twitter the other day and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

I love reading science fiction short stories and would hate to see their publishers go out of business. Traditionally, short science fiction was distributed in printed magazines supported by subscriptions. After the internet websites began publishing short SF for free, which competed with the magazines. Their success has steadily grown as more and more awards are given to stories that are first published on the web, as well as seeing a greater percentage of these stories anthologized in the best-of-the-year volumes. It’s now a disadvantage to be published in print.

Magazines have declining revenues while websites struggle for any revenue. This can’t go on. A new monetizing model needs to be discovered.

Free-to-read stories help authors find fans and win awards, but at what cost? Making a profit from selling fiction has always been hard, but it is impossible when the price is free. If I was writing a science fiction story, I wouldn’t picture this in the future. Nor would I predict internet publishing failing and print publishing reviving.

Subscribing to the digital editions of the SF/F magazines seems to be the main hope at the moment. But too many readers still expect SF stories for free. A suggestion was made in the twitter thread that online publishers retain part of their content for exclusive eBook editions, but Clarke replied he doesn’t want to penalize those writers by hiding their stories. What’s needed is for readers to buy subscriptions and let all the stories be published on the net for free. A Zen koan. If a story is published on the net, readers who love it share it with friends. Being free helps a story find readers. But, can publishers find enough paying subscribers to support all the freeloaders?

There are two kinds of readers — casual ones who read short stories rarely, and dedicated ones who cherish short science fiction as a distinct art form. Subscribers will be the patrons of this art. The question is: Are there enough patrons out there to support SF magazines? Could original anthologies completely replace the periodicals? I hope short science fiction doesn’t become like the world of classical music where local symphonies must constantly beg for money from a dwindling patron base. There are really two problems here: declining readership and declining subscriptions.

Rocket Stack Rank regularly reviews 11 SF/F magazines, as well as a significant number of anthologies and other publishers of short SF. There are even more SF/F magazines out there that they don’t cover, just look at WWEnd’s list of over 60+ magazines that cover the SF/F/H genres. Magazines come and go, and whether or not they get to stay depends on making money. For example, Amazing Stories is publishing again. Steve Davidson is doing everything he can to resurrect that legendary title that’s gone out of business many times.

Magazines and websites need income to stay in existence, but finding a revenue stream in an era where everyone expects everything online for free is a big burden. I’m not sure the market can support 11+ magazines. I expect a big shake-out in the near future. Would more magazines be profitable if there was less competition?

I subscribe to 4 magazines (Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, and Lightspeed) because I get them for $2.99 a month each through Amazon. I do it this way because it’s so damn convenient. I can read these magazines on my phone or tablet. I can unsubscribe at any time so there’s no real commitment. I consider the $12 I spend each month as my way of supporting short science fiction. Most people think of patrons of the arts as rich folks who give thousands to their favorite orchestra or museum. $12 a month is my way of being a penny-ante patron of an obscure art form.

I would also subscribe to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction if it offered a $2.99 a month subscription. I’d subscribe to other magazines if they offered $1.99 or $2.99 subs through Amazon. Some magazines offer individual issues for sale at Amazon, like Interzone for $4.99 each, and I’ll buy those when Rocket Stack Rank rates one of their stories highly.

For folks who don’t like Amazon, eBook editions of these magazines are available elsewhere.

It doesn’t bother me that two of the magazines I subscribe to offer their stories for free online. It’s easier to read them on my phone, but I like that the stories are there for free. When I find an outstanding tale, I enjoy telling my friends or blog about them, and having that link means there’s a greater chance of folks giving the story a try. I also want internet browsing to always be free.

The science fiction magazines will need several thousand subscribers to keep them going. Is this the ultimate solution to the problem? Can each genre magazine find at least 10,000 patrons? The other day Apple launched AppleNews+ which provides 300+ magazines for $10 a month. If it succeeds it might draw tens of millions of subscribers.

Unfortunately, none of those 300+ magazines are fiction magazines. The reason why I love subscribing to Spotify is it provides for all my music needs in one source. What if AppleNews+ provided for all my periodical needs? I have no idea if these 300 magazines will make money from AppleNews+ but they are still offering their print, web, and eBook editions too. Maybe the solution is having multiple revenue streams.

Can the new Netflix model for magazines work? Would hundreds of magazines sharing a tiny bit from millions of subscribers pay better than thousands of subscribers paying larger chunks of change?

AppleNews+ offers several categories of magazines (Business + Finance, Cars, Entertainment, Food, Health, etc.). Wouldn’t it be interesting if they included a category for Literature? They could offer various genre magazines, literary journals, poetry magazines, and maybe even Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and Poets & Writers. That way all the would-be writers of the world would want to subscribe.

Over the last decade, I’ve tried Zinio, Texture, and other e-magazine services. I subscribed to Texture for a couple of years and then canceled. I went back to paper magazines. I didn’t feel I was using Texture enough. I thought if I had magazines lying around the house again I’d do more reading. But I haven’t. I signed up for AppleNews+ because, at $10 a month, it’s far cheaper, and I won’t have those piles of magazines around the house making me feel guilty. It’s a cheap enough way to have magazines when I do want them.

I’ve come to realize that I have to pay if I want certain things in this world to exist, even if I don’t use them.

I subscribe to four SF magazines that I seldom read. I read when I can, or when I see a story recommended, or when a friend tells me about a story. I subscribe because I want them to exist. I subscribe because I want a place for new SF writers to get published. I subscribe because one day if I can ever get back into writing fiction I’ll have a place to submit my stories.

We have to realize that free content on the internet isn’t free. We’ve got to come up with revenue systems that work. I think the internet needs to remain free, so we can always have instant access to content, but we need to find ways to pay publishers who present free content on the web.

The rising costs of printing and postage are making publishing the old way impractical. I love printed magazines. Last year I subscribed to Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF because I thought I wanted to collect them again. But they all ruined that desire by putting mailing labels on their beautiful covers. If they had shipped their magazines in protective wrappers I would still be subscribing to the print editions. I have a nostalgia for that. But I feel the age of printed magazines is nearly over. It’s actually much easier to read AppleNews+ than the paper magazines. Many of the essays I read from AppleNews+ are free to read on the web or through Flipboard, but AppleNews+ formats the content for eye-friendlier reading. That’s also worth $10 a month.

I’d love if AppleNews+ included fiction magazines. Or if all the fiction magazine publishers allied together and created a monthly subscription service like AppleNews+. I’d be willing to pay another $10 a month for it.

JWH

 

 

 

Table of Contents: HelloHorror – The Halloween Issue Posted at 8:00 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

HelloHorror Magazine

HelloHorror

HelloHorror
Table of Contents
Volume 6, Issue 25
Autumn 2018,
The Halloween Issue


  • THE POE TOASTER – Short Story by David Dean
  • SIGHTING – Poem by Erric Emerson
  • BENEATH THE PEW – Short Story by Lisa Napolitan
  • WISHING FOR ANTS – Micro by Michael Riera-Smith
  • GHOST TOOTH – Poem by Stephen Jackson
  • THE BURNED CLUMPS OF KEW GARDENS HILLS – Short Story by John Oliver Hodges
  • THE WATCHER – Micro by Steppen Sawicki
  • HUNGER AND MEMORY –  Short Story by John Thomas Allen
  • RESONANCE – Poem by Erik Bergholm
  • THE SPECIAL WINE – Short Story by Lance Dean
  • GRASS ROOTS – Prose Poem by James Finan
  • THE BODY FARM – Short Story by Amanda Crum
  • WALKING ACROSS OTTER CREEK BRIDGE – Poem by Lyn Lifshin
  • INTERIORS – Short Story by Alexei Kalinchuk
  • WATERSHED – Novel Excerpt by Colin Dodds
  • LOOKING FOR MR. CARL – Short Story by Jeff Barker
  • DIRTY LAUNDRY – Poem by Faye S. Brontide
  • DINNER IS SERVED – Micro by Jackie Valacich
  • CASUALTIES – Short Story by John J. Zelenski
  • FADING GIRLS – Poem by Kim Mannix
  • ROAD KILL – Micro by Madeline Mora Summonte
  • MY JOURNAL – Poem by J. Davies
  • YOU FROM YOU – Short Story by Mark Judge
  • NEW DARK AGE – Poem by Anonymous

The artwork featured on the Halloween 2018 cover is “Raven” by Édouard Manet.
Halloween 2018 cover by Ignacio Carrión.

Science Fiction Book & Magazine News – 5/16/16 Posted at 2:28 PM by James Wallace Harris

jwharris28

SFBooksMags_05162016

Two science fiction books grabbed my attention in the last couple of days while reading News360 and FlipBoard:

Too Like the Lightning – Ada Palmer

Central Station – Lavie Tidhar

Hundreds of science fiction books are published each year, but only a few jump out like this.

One of the odd side-effects of reading my news off of curated news apps is being directed to publications I’ve never heard of before. Take this piece from Intellectual Takeout, “Science Fiction: Why So Many Intellectuals Despise It.” This essay seems out of time, like maybe the 1950s. It defends science fiction, by reminding us of the prejudice against it. But do modern intellectuals still feel SF is worthless? But then I also saw this, “Harry Potter Causes Brain Damage, Says English Headmaster Who Is Clearly Voldemort In Disguise.”

I am reminded of an article I read decades ago that claimed librarians in the 1950s banned the Oz books by L. Frank Baum because they felt young readers picked up unrealistic attitudes towards life by reading them. I know I read the Oz books when I was a kid, and I’ve always had unrealistic attitudes toward life. Could these people be right? Then I read, “’There is just no such thing as God’: A physicist searches for meaning in the natural world,” a review of Sean Carroll’s new book, The Big Picture: On the Origin of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. Are all of these folks just saying that lovers of science fiction, fantasy and religion are ignoring reality? There could be some truth in that. I know I do. But I am trying to break that habit.

Another critical examination of our genre came via The Guardian, a paper I like very much. “Sci-fi media coverage dominated by men, survey shows.” The article is based on the VIDA: Women in Literary Arts’s 2015 VIDA count. This is a gigantic demographic effort that examines race and ethnicity, sexual identity and ability in the top tier of periodical publications. Within the science fiction field they reviewed 18 publications and counted the number of books reviewed, and then did identity statistics on the authors of books reviewed and the reviewers to show how many were written by women, non-binary people and people of color.

This is an excellent article to read, but I’m not sure how they are going to solve their problem. I’m an old white male, writing about science fiction, which is their problem. My demographic traits are too common. I would assume Dave would be happy to find more writers for Worlds Without End that weren’t white and male. I used to work in computers, and we were always trying to get more female programmers. For a few years the number of women going into computer science grew, but then it dropped off. There should be more diversity everywhere, and I think everywhere is getting more diverse, but to administratively create it is difficult.

By the way, I recommend reading that article to see what are the top publications reviewing science fiction. If you aren’t a white guy, go write for them. I feel bad folks of my gender and color hog all the jobs, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I do try to read and review books by people not like me. I hope that helps.

66 Genre Fiction Magazines for Your Consideration Posted at 1:43 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

We recently added 3 new magazines to our list of 66 genre magazines and since they are new to us we thought perhaps you haven’t heard of them either. Take a look at the new ones below and be sure to peruse the whole list. If you find something you like you should consider subscribing!


Betwixt

Betwixt
A Magazine of Fantasy, Science Fiction & Everything in Between

Betwixt is a quarterly magazine of eclectic speculative fiction published in January, April, July, and October. Betwixt publishes speculative fiction of all sorts—fantasy, science fiction, speculative horror, slipstream, weird fiction, steam/diesel/cyber/etc.punk, you name it. Issues are free to read online and are also available for purchase in electronic and print-on-demand formats.

Forever

Forever
A Science Fiction Reprint Magazine Edited by Neil Clarke

Forever is a digital-only reprint science fiction magazine published monthly by Wyrm Publishing and edited by Neil Clarke. Each issue will feature a novella, two stories, an editorial, and a short interview with the author of the novella. Subscriptions are available direct from Wyrm and through Amazon and Weightless Books. Individual issues can be purchased from Amazon, Apple, B&N, Weightless Books, and Kobo.

Shoreline of Infinity

Shoreline of Infinity
A Science Fiction Mmgazine Printed in Scotland for the World.

At Shoreline of Infinity we want stories that explore the uncertain future. We want to play around with the big ideas and the little ones. We want writers to tell us stories to inspire us, give us hope, provide some laughs. Or to scare the stuffing out of us. We want good stories: we want to be entertained, here on the Shoreline.

Clarkesworld: Chinese Science Fiction Translation Project Posted at 9:18 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

There’s a whole world of great science fiction published in other languages. Help us translate and publish them in Clarkesworld!

I heard about the Clarkesworld KickStarter project on The Coode Street Podcast and was reminded of it by SF Signal this morning.  Clarkesworld is seeking funding to make translated fiction a part of every issue going forward.  Thev’re reached their initial goal already so the Chinese fiction is a go.  Now they’re stretching out to add fiction from other countries as well so they still need more funds.  Check out their Kickstarter page for full details and to pledge!

 

The Entire SF Masterworks Series Reviewed Posted at 12:11 PM by Val

valashain

Fanzine Big Sky cover issue 3We do love our lists on Worlds Without End and I think it is fair to say that the Gollancz SF Masterworks series stands out among the ones we’ve added so far. You can argue with the selection of course, and many of us probably have, but it is a remarkable series of books, with numerous award winning novels and books that changed the direction of Science Fiction.

In honour of LonCon 3, which was held last month, Peter Young, editor of the electronic fanzine Big Sky launched a project to get reviews, in the widest sense of the word, on each individual title and collect them in a special edition. Well, two special editions. The list was simply too long to contain in one volume.

These books are among the most discussed novels in the genre and this gave him plenty of material to choose from. In fact, I don’t really want to think about how much material he had to wade through to make his selection. What he was looking for, in his own words, was this:

Plenty of words have been written about all the titles on the SF Masterworks list. In compiling this fanzine, I probably read thousands of reviews, in magazines, fanzines, websites and blogs. Quickly, a form of mental shorthand was set in place for the kind of reviews I wanted to showcase here. I knew instinctively what I particularly didn’t want: the kind of nonanalytical review that fills almost every corner of Goodreads; similarly, at the other extreme, when a reviewer takes pains to come across as exceedingly academic, I just kinda… zoned out.

What I was looking for can be summed up as well-written ‘opinion / context / commentary’ as opposed to something resembling a ‘formal review’ template, and something akin to a ‘four star’ rating rather than a gushing ‘five’. And of course, the more original, the better.

The result is a collection of opinion form authors, editors, critics and bloggers in a wide variety of styles. The list of names in the table of content is impressive and among them are several Worlds Without Ends regulars. Peter put in a lot of effort to collect some of the most interesting stuff that is out there. The result is something I highly encourage you to check out.

Both issues (numbers 3 and 4) are available for free download here.

Weird Tales Magazine – Issue No.2 (or 361) Posted at 2:13 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

Weird Tales #361Weird Tales magazine are publishing their 2nd issue since their recent re-launch this Friday. The publisher, film maker and director John Harlacher and editor in chief Marvin Kaye, playwright, author and anthologist, are taking the magazine back to its roots. Each new issue has a mixture of themed and non-themed fiction.  This newest issue has “Fairy Tales” as it’s theme with fiction by Peter S. Beagle and Tanith Lee and non-fiction by Darrell Schweitzer.  Check out the full table of contents for details.

You can pick up issue No.1 (or 360) as an ebook for only $2.99 from their website to get a taste for cheap or you can subscribe for a full year for only $20 which is 30% off the instore cover price.  Not bad at all.  It’s very cool to see an old respected title like this coming back into circulation and it looks like they mean to do things right with this re-launch and are going all out to bring in big name writers so go ahead and take a look and tell your friends too.

Thanks to Doug Draa for the heads-up.

While we’re talking about magazines, be sure to take a look at our extensive list of genre literary magazines.  With 80 titles to choose from, you’re sure to find something of interest.

Horror Magazines Posted at 1:28 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

I’ve been hearing for years that genre magazines are going the way of the Dodo. From where I’m standing, it looks like a pretty healthy market. On our Magazines page we have listed over 70 genre magazines for you to choose from and we keep finding more new ones to add all the time.

For our Month of Horrors I wanted to point out some of the Horror magazines from out list. If you’re looking for something creepy and scary these magazines will get the job done. Check ’em out and if you find something you like show your support by subscribing!

 

Apex Magazine

Apex Magazine

Apex Publications started as a tingle in the mind of Jason Sizemore during the month of November in the year 2004. Having been a fan of the small press scene for several years, he noticed a lack of a certain type of fiction: Science-Horror.

Black Static

Black Static

Black Static is a horror magazine that has earned much praise for its style, bravery, editorial and fiction content. Its stories are innovative and daring, never afraid to shock or disturb yet never forget to entertain.

Murky Depths

Murky Depths

Murky Depths is a quarterly anthology with a difference. It features top quality speculative fiction with sprinklings of horror and fantasy that push the boundaries of science fiction. Each story is complimented with its own unique artwork.

Mythic Delirium

Mythic Delirium

Mythic Delirium is a biannual journal that publishes science fiction, fantasy, horror, surreal and cross-genre poetry.

Nightmare Magazine

Nightmare Magazine

Nightmare is an online horror and dark fantasy magazine. In Nightmare’s pages, you will find all kinds of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales, to visceral psychological horror. No subject is off-limits, and we will be encouraging our writers to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope.

Nightmare is brand new on the market – their first issue was released October 1st.

Shock Totem

Shock Totem

Shock Totem is a bi-annual dark fantasy and horror publication. Our first issue was published in July of 2009. We focus on the one thing that matters most: the story. Back to basics. Each issue features fiction that we, as readers, enjoy. Within our pages, new and established authors are equals.

Something Wicked

Something Wicked

Something Wicked is a monthly online and electronic-download science fiction and horror magazine. Published monthly, we feature some of the best new voices in horror and science fiction from around the world.

Tales of the Unanticipated

Tales of the Unanticipated

Tales of the Unanticipated is a journal of speculative fiction, fantasy, horror, and stories that you just wouldn’t anticipate. Tales of the Unanticipated is currently published annually.

Weird Tales

Weird Tales

Weird Tales was launched to showcase writers trying to publish stories so bizarre and far out, no one else would publish them — stories of unearthly dimensions and dark possibilities, gothic seductresses and cosmic monstrosities.