(((Or do they?)))
Link: » Science fiction magazines don’t have to die » Velcro City Tourist Board » Blog Archive .
Don’t misunderstand me - I’d love to see genre mags not just survive, but proliferate. But that’s unlikely to happen without some significant changes.
There are bastions, of course - such as the venerable and esteemed Interzone, the British sf magazine which celebrates a 25 year lifespan with the issue that should be arriving in letterboxes some time this week, and a market I am immensely proud to be a reviewer for*. Over the pond, you have Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF and a few others. But as loyally as they hold on, the figures show that readership just isn’t what it used to be. And the problems are far wider than our own little neck of the woods.
Small press mags seem to come and go, and it’s a sure sign that the genre itself is still alive and well when people are willing to start up these projects for the love of the genre, with little or no hope of profit, and that good writers are willing to sell their art to them so cheaply. And if the Long Tail hypothesis holds as much water as I’m inclined to think it does, then smaller niche magazines may, counterintuitively, have a better chance of long term survival.
But even they run up against the enemies of the bottom line, namely logistics and economics.....
