If you’ve missed this announcement, here is the link. This is definitely unhappy news, since Talebones had a stellar reputation and had recently come onto my radar as a magazine to target my stories at.
I think we might as well face the music that the print magazine is dead. However, the online webzine is thriving (EDF regularly gets thousands of hits each day). If I were starting a new magazine, guess what kind I’d start?
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22 Comments(+Add)
I was really sorry to see this — and, as chance would have it, I had just finished writing a long blog post about the subject of closing print markets a few days ago and just put it up on my site today (afraid there’d be no markets left in my ‘survivors’ column if I waited any longer).
I sincerely hope that print fiction magazines aren’t dead, but I don’t hold out all that much hope for any kind of resurgence. It seems anthologies are making some headway in this department, especially with POD, and even some magazines are really more or less bi-annual anthologies.
I certainly think viable print magazines need to move with the times, something like Murky Depths is a great example as it is very slick and graphic-heavy. Put it next to a dinosaur like Analog in a store and I’ve no doubt which would attract more attention — though, of course, these days you don’t see ANY fiction periodicals in stores, not even in specialized news stand outlets.
Bill,
I read your blog posting, and as usual, it was awesome. I aspire to post as thoroughly as you, but unfortunately, I’m far too lazy, so this sorry excuse of a blog is all there is
I’m not sure the anthology format works either. Anthologies sell poorly, especially anthologies with no “name” authors. Without the magazine to draw attention to the anthology, how are they going to get exposure? I wouldn’t buy an antho I’d never heard of filled with no-name authors, and I’m more sympathetic than the next guy.
Also, I’m not sure about magazines like Murky Depths either. Do get me wrong, it’s a beautiful looking mag, and I’d love to have it publish my work, but I’m not sure about the long-term business model. Look at an extreme example: “Heavy Metal”. That magazine is gorgeous and has the advantage of being quasi-pornographic, and yet its numbers are declining as well.
As a counterpoint, Baen’s, Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, and Fantasy are all doing swimmingly. It seems pretty clear to me that the web is the way to go.
I’m probably very wrong in saying this, but it seemed to me that Talebones never wanted to embrace the digital age, mostly when it came to submissions. They were very strict about no e-subs, which always seemed odd because e-subs would be easier and faster for all parties involved. I’m sure that had absolutely nothing to do with their reasons for closing, but maybe they didn’t receive as many submissions as they would have because of it, and maybe because of that not many people cared to submit, and because of that no many people subscribed or bought the magazine … pure speculation, of course.
In terms of magazine vs. anthology, Postscripts started out as a magazine and then became a quarterly anthology … seems to have made better sense for them, as Postscripts was just another way to help promote PS Publishing in the first place.
Robert,
The subs problem I think only applies if you want to sell to writers, and it should be the goal of every magazine to sell to non-writers.
Postscripts is a notable exception, but maybe it’s just an exception? We’ll have to see. Far more magazines-turned-anthologies die than flourish, I think.
You bring up a good point about the writer-readers and non-writer-readers. Most small press magazines and anthologies are read exclusively by writer-readers, it seems, and how to bring in the non-writer-readers … well, that’s a tough question, just like how to then KEEP those non-writer-readers.
EDF is pretty good about non-writer readers. We got a lot of them through stumble upon, but also because of author pimpage. Authors pimp their work, link to us, and we get a shot at their readers.
You keep them by giving them what they want.. great fiction targeted at them. We get literally tons of stories about writers and the writing experience, and we almost always reject them. Writers are not our target and non-writing readers rarely get the inside jokes.
Right. But I meant more in terms of actual print magazines. Authors can try to pimp them as much as possible, but it’s not like those non-writer-readers can just click a link. Takes a lot more for them to seek the magazine out.
Good point. Advertising in other magazines seems like a good (if costly) way to spread the word. Maybe a reciprocal arrangement might lessen the blow.
If only I actually liked reading off a screen . . .
EDF really has a nice niche — every element works well with the internet, the brevity of the stories, the frequency, the synergy of the comments-backlinks (if only you had that author page working
), but I just don’t like reading for extended periods off a screen. Even if I enjoy what I’m reading, the experience feels less authentic.
Getting into print, to me, feels more like solid proof that my work is worth something. Of course, the problem is, no one seems to be reading print mags.
This whole thing, coupled with a bout of writers block, is making me seriously question if I want to continue with my current approach to short stories. Seems like the only people having real success with shorts these days are successful novelists.
By the way, are you at Clarion right now, Jordan?
We got some fair traffic thanks to a post at a forum for RPG gamers. That and Locus et al.
You’ve got to think outside the usual suspects a bit. Which reminds me, I should go say hi to the gamer’s forum again.
This one is actually surprising to me. I thought Talebones was pretty safe, but I suppose this is just what is to be expected in a recession. The ease of printing produced a lot of avenues, and now things are going to be consolidated into a smaller collection of markets.
My concern with online publishing for short stories is that the pay is particularly low in most avenues because they operate on donations (and not a lot of people donate). Some places are doing well, but others not so much and unfortunately even with “professional” magazines writers are being paid pennies on the word, even though they deserve dollars. I think it will get worse too. I predict that the quality of the short market will rapidly decline if the money doesn’t start flowing in. I love writing shorts, but I’m with Harlan Ellison: I want to get paid.
Just look back. Used to be that making 5-8 cents a word was a heck of a lot of money. $1000 for a short story could go a long way. Now? You might be lucky if you can pay half your rent with a short, even though it took you three weeks to get it in shape.
It’s sad.
@Bill, You raise a lot of good points. I don’t like reading longer works off the screen, but I’m okay with flash. I think once super phones really take off, online markets will do even better. I was in a Midas reading EDF slush on my iPhone while I was waiting for my car to be serviced.
Getting into print does seem like an accomplishment, I suppose, but really, which would do more for your career? Staffs & Starships or Strange Horizons?
I see the short stories vs novel argument a lot. The learning curve for short stories is a lot sharper than the one for novels, I personally feel that every beginning other should start short.
@Silvia, Locus might be nice, but again, EDF is not strictly a genre magazine, which probably hurts us. I’ll ask Charles about it when I (hopefully) meet him at the WotF workshop.
@SMD, The three top paying markets are all online, in order, Baen’s, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons. Now what was that you were saying?
The rates, I agreed aren’t particularly good, but they’re not good anywhere in fiction. The average advance for a first novel is $5000. If I win the WotF grand prize (odds are slim), I’ll make $6500, for my short story. Baen’s pays up to 25c a word, which can also pay as much as a novel advance.
Honestly, I’m disinclined to think either one will make much difference to a career. I understand exactly what you are driving at, but I still don’t see the popularity of some online venues translating into people actually reading them rather than just looking at them.
I think a higher percentage of people actually read the magazines they purchase, then those who check out an ezine with the best intentions. Add in other factors to the comparison between those two markets — the higher prestige value of print for one — and things start to look closer.
But what it really comes down to is, since I don’t really think one is really going to ‘help’ me all that much more than the other, which one publishes what I write? So far, Staffs & Starships is the only one of the two that shows any interest in publishing my style of story — therefore, it is of more value to my career.
I also agree every beginning writer should start short — unfortunately, if they want to segue into a successful career as a novelist, it seems like they shouldn’t linger in the world of shorts for too long because the big target markets don’t tend to publish the kind of fiction that makes for a bestseller. The audiences just don’t overlap — which I think is the main value of the little magazines, more of their editors are free from the elitist aesthetic of the big print mags.
And, furthermore, when we are talking about shorts for beginners, I think print outweighs online for one tremendous reason — sell your first awkward story to a print fanzine and it won’t come back to haunt you with a single google search. With the profusion of online venues and the shrinking of print, beginning writers’ ‘field of play’ is curtailed, as is their freedom to experiment and make mistakes.
Anyway, the whole thing is making me rethink my approach (again). Shorts are hard work to sustain and the reward is miniscule — better to write a novel and burn it, you’ll get the same effect and at least you’d be practicing a form of fiction that is remunerative.
Besides, if you really want to sell short fiction to the pros, it seems to me the way to do it to sell a novel first.
Bill,
You’re echoing a lot of the zeitgeist in short fiction, but I don’t believe it.
1) There is overlap. 27K people subscribe to Asimov’s (which, you argued earlier) means 27K read them. If even a quarter of them buy your book, it would be considered a successful first novel (these days).
2) Winning WotF means you get a promotional “boost” every time you sell a novel because they promote you (ie, look, this person won WotF and now they’ve written a novel). There are a few other contests that do the same thing.
3) Agents do care about these credits.
4) Getting into the majors mean you can get a Hugo or Nebula. These DO add to your sales numbers (for new authors), or at the very least influences how well your publisher will push your novel.
5) One of the most important skills beginning writers need is to write fiction with a beginning, middle, and end. They just don’t learn this skill writing novels. They say the average number of novels written before publication is 5. I’m betting the number among successful short story writers is far lower.
Also, not to single out Staffs&Starships, because Boone is an excellent editor, but getting into a micro-press doesn’t help your career. Do you remember Daniel Blackston saying that when he helmed Flashing Swords, some of the stories were getting fewer than 20 hits. And those were probably the author and family. I don’t even submit to smaller (and newer) magazines these days, because, really, what’s the point?
I don’t disagree with any of that — but the comparison you initially made was between a print minor and a electronic major — but you’ve sort of reversed that with talk of Asimov’s and the old FS.
My point was that, all things being equal, print better serves my needs — and I’d much rather have Asimov’s 27k readers than three times the amount from an ezine, because I really don’t think ezine hits translate into the kind of reading that wins fans and influences buyers. I’m not against ezines, I just prefer print for the most part, and I like to have both as an option.
You mention Hugos and WoTF, etc. but none of that stuff really factors into my thinking. Yes, it is all related to shorts, but to me the primary value of shorts is in the writing of them, not in their promotional value which is greatly diminished in this day and age. I agree that those other things can be a boost, and agents do care, etc. — I just don’t think that *for me* any of that is realistic, or even something I should have in the back of my head as I write.
And the point to subbing to smaller and newer magazines is to publish. I’ve got fifty stories in my arsenal and I didn’t write them to fill up space on my hard drive, I wrote them to be read– and if I sat around waiting for pro mags to suddenly decide they liked my brand of fiction I’d have no publication credits whatsoever.
I disagree that micropress doesn’t help your career — I would just say that it should not be a goal but a stepping stone –yes, it doesn’t impress agents or gain a large audience, but neither does short fiction in general in the absence of what really matters, novels. It does however have networking value — for example the reason you and I know each other has everything to do with the both of us trying to sell fiction, or me having sold you fiction — so the editors and other writers one meets can have an impact. Micropress publication means getting out in the world in a way that matters more than just a forum or blog post. And writing to completion, which you mention in your fifth point — also means publishing — that’s real completion — so having that story in black and white where people can review it is the final step in the process, and micropresses grant that opportunity to a lot of stories that otherwise would collect dust. I don’t really buy this writing for the trunk stuff — work needs to get out there or the writer is wasting their time.
In my opinion, the real comparison to make is not the value of having something in the pros vs in the semi-pros or micros, it’s having something in the semi-pros vs. not having something published at all. If the semis and micros only published bad or weaker stories it would be a different argument — but I don’t see a strict corollary between money paid and quality in all instances.
I’m not putting down the value of the short, I’m just frustrated that there are so few print venues publishing and accepting the sort of thing I like. The big three, as a rule, don’t — and many of the other pubs that pattern themselves after them don’t either. The ones that did are the print semipros and micros like Black Gate, Paradox, Apex, Murky Depths, and Talebones.
And I agree whole-heartedly with your point number five, but if ‘successful short story’ writers means only those who have sold to the pros, then I have to strongly disagree. I truly think the style and conventions you see in the majority of pro markets is one antithetical to commercial novels, and getting into them — like with any publication — isn’t strictly about good and bad, it’s about editorial taste.
Wow, I should be blogging this stuff, instead of giving you all this free content
Lol! Free content? Don’t worry, I don’t think the comments are google searchable.
But I agree that it would make a good blog post.
Don’t kid yourself though, I’ve been jealous of some of your prose. You’re as good a writer as I am (if not better), and I won, so I don’t doubt you could do the same.
Writers have to realize that short fiction CAN be a different medium. Often you need to “say something” with your work–it can’t be mindless fluff. And just because it’s okay to write mindless fluff in novel format, should you?
I have nothing against semi-pros. I do have something against micro-presses. I mean, no pay and no exposure makes Jordan a dull boy. It’s pointless to sub to a magazine that won’t get read.
And I think you’re really discounting the pro-mags too much. Have you tried reading the annual Best-Of magazines? I’ve often found some mind blowing fiction in those books. Sure, not EVERY story appeals to me, but then you just skip the ones that don’t. That’s the beauty (and the point) of short fiction magazines. Do you like everything in the fantasy shelf at the bookstore? Of course not. So then why should you like every story in a magazine??
As for networking, you and I know each other through SFReader, but really, how many times have you shared a ToC with someone you’ve never heard of and then tracked them down? Sure it happens, but not frequently.
Micro presses don’t serve any purpose. They’re for beginning writers and the fiction is usually terrible, so no one reads them. There fore, you don’t get people “reviewing” you. Once again, I’m talking strictly about micro-presses and not semi-pros.
As for the 50 stories you have on your hard drive, well, part of being a great writer is learning to write to markets. You’ll get that even as a novelist (ever heard of “tie-ins”?) It’s gonna happen, why not make it happen in short fiction?
Finally, editors’ tastes are notoriously elastic. Write a mix of what they want and what you like, and it’ll probably stand a good chance of getting in. Alex Irvine’s “Wizard’s Six” was straight up S&S, wizards, dragons, knights, everything. And yet it was published in the majors. If more people wrote pieces like that, more of it would get published.
I may in fact be too hard on the pros, I’ll admit that, and I’ll also admit that I’ve enjoyed fiction found in them — just not as consistently as some of the better semiprozines out there.
And thanks for the compliments — it’s reminded me that I haven’t actually read anything of yours, but I notice you’re in the last FS, which I haven’t read yet. I will check it out.
And how do you define micropress? I would have thought FS fit that description.Or are you specifically thinking of freezines?
Do you know where I can find “Wizard’s Six” ?
When I subbed to FS, it was getting multiple reviews, not the least of which was at the Fix. CW looked like she was getting things together. Now, it’s a different story, but such is publishing.
The tale in FS is, honestly, not anywhere close to my best stuff. I challenged myself to write heroic fantasy… and I’m just not that good at it (or at least I wasn’t two years ago when I wrote it. I have no idea if I could pen a decent tale now—but I intend to try at Clarion).
If you want to read my best stuff (or at least the best I could do a year ago), read my WotF winning tale. Available in November.
I read Wizard’s Six in Jonathan Strahan’s “The Best SF and Fantasy of the Year II”. The anthology itself was extremely uneven but Irvine’s tale was wicked awesome.
I was wondering when the WoTF antho came out — what number are they up to, by the way?
This will be number 25. I’m lucky enough to attend their 25th anniversary gala!