CONCLUSIONS
Looking back at last year’s conclusion, things really haven’t changed much. Mass-market titles continue to decline, while e-books seem to be taking their place - and we’re going to bite the bullet and start tracking e-books as best we can in 2013.
No new trends made themselves evident in 2012. Paranormal romances may have peaked: adult titles were down for the second year in a row, while YA titles saw only a small increase. And while it feels like the market is flooded with young-adult dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, we actually saw fewer titles described that way this year (58) than last (101). Zombies are still around, but their numbers are decreasing as well.
Once again the main complaints are ‘‘not enough hard science fiction’’ and the decline of brick-and-mortar stores. But there’s plenty of good reading out there, as our recommended reading list shows. And with the huge merger between Penguin and Random House in the offing, we can look forward to an interesting year to come.
–Carolyn Cushman
Return to In This Issue listing.
2012 MAGAZINE SUMMARY
Things have been relatively stable in the world of magazines, compared to the last few years’ rollercoaster of titles merging, shutting down, being sold and revived, etc. With RoF gone, there would have been fewer issues, but Black Static has really become a stable print periodical, so we’re counting it in with the professional magazines. Weird Tales did not come out with the expected issues, producing only one beyond the issue that was complete at the time of the ownership change.
As a result, the total number of issues for professional print magazines was 37, holding steady from last year. Smaller print magazines meted out their expected issue in some cases, and disappeared or went electronic in others. Online magazines, fiction websites, and podcasts have proven their mettle, continuing to improve in quality, pay rate, exposure, and influence, and we saw ‘‘Best of’’ anthologies from several magazines, both in print and as e-books.
It’s harder each year to accurately track numbers as publishing shifts to digital and online, since traditionally we use the Statement of Ownership to get subscriber numbers, and that only covers print copies. We have print plus digital circulation figures for Analog, Asimov’s, and Locus, and have included the figures in those sections. The Dell magazines’ total circulations have each gone up, although print circulation went down. The line charts (p. 47) show both the print alone and the total including digital numbers, which is why there is a split at the end. We did not receive digital circulation information from F&SF.
ANALOG
Analog had 17,841 print subscriptions and 6,662 digital subscriptions, for a total of 24,503 subscriptions up from last year’s 23,402 – print numbers dipped slightly but digital subscriptions more than offset the drop. Newsstand sales were 2,854 and there were 446 digital single units sold on average each month (almost three times last year’s digital sales). Paid circulation went up 4.9%. Sell-through was 31%. For the print circulation of both Analog and Asimov’s, we get corrected numbers from the Dell offices; they calculate the numbers on their printed statements of ownership differently than other magazines. We’re also including digital subscriptions as reported by the company in our total subscriber numbers.
Analog produced ten tall, digest-size issues with 112 pages for the regular issues and 192 for the doubles in January/February and July/August. The cover price held at $4.99 for single issues and $7.99 for doubles. There were four serials, six novellas, 24 novelettes, 34 short stories, and four ‘‘Probability Zero’’ pieces, for a total of 68 pieces of fiction (down from last year’s 74), plus two poems. Covers were consistently high quality, and included space stations, spaceships, an armored desert rover, a harpoon-toting astronaut, and a well-dressed striped-tail lemur. Longtime editor Stanley Schmidt retired in August after an editorial run starting in 1978, when he took over from Ben Bova. Said Schmidt, ‘‘I have now been editor of Analog for 34 years, tying or (depending on how you count) slightly exceeding the previous longest-tenure record of John W. Campbell. I still enjoy it thoroughly, but am leaving to pursue a wide range of other interests.’’ During his more than three decades as editor, Schmidt debuted many science fiction luminaries, and he continues to be available as a science advisor to Trevor Quachri, who took the magazine’s helm as editor (and since we are often asked, it’s CASH-ree). Quachri says, ‘‘There’s still a lot of work ahead, but we really hit the ground running. Hurricane Sandy took us offline for three weeks, but luckily we were spared any real long-term damage…. I’ve already come across some really great material from both pros and newcomers, and, combined with our growing digital sales, I couldn’t be more optimistic about the upcoming year.’’
ASIMOV’S
Asimov’s had 11,274 print subscriptions (down slightly) and 10,106 digital subscriptions (up noticeably) for a total of 21,380, compared to 19,969 subscriptions last year. Newsstand sales were 3,207, plus 438 digital copies sold on average each month in 2012, for a jump of about 10.8% in total paid circulation. Sell-through was 42%.
Asimov’s produced ten tall, digest-size issues, with 112 pages for regular issues and 192 for the doubles in April/May and October/November. There were eight novellas, 19 novelettes, and 47 short stories, for 74 pieces of fiction, plus 32 poems. Covers were excellent and included astronauts, tigers, playful aliens, a biomechanical spaceship, and a lute-playing maiden. Editor Sheila Williams said, ‘‘We’re still excited about the growth in digital sales. With… sales up, we were able to raise fiction payment rates to 7-9 cents per word. Authors continue to amaze me with their imagination and artistry. We published excellent work by Megan Arkenberg, Dale Bailey, Elizabeth Bear, Indrapramit Das, Theodora Goss, Sandra McDonald, Robert Reed, Gord Sellar, Rick Wilber, and others.’’
F&SF
F&SF’s paid print circulation dropped 20.4% with 3,210 copies sold on newsstands and subscriber numbers down to 8,300. Sell-through was up slightly to 39%. In addition to the print editions, F&SF has been available electronically for a few years, though as of this year is distributed exclusively by Amazon. Figures for these sales are not available, so we are probably underreporting total paid circulation; publisher and editor Gordon Van Gelder said, ‘‘Our electronic numbers are not available, but I’m given to believe they’re healthy… Our bottom line in 2012 was good.’’ The cover price held steady at $7.50 in 2012.
F&SF produced six digest-size double issues with 258 pages. The year saw three novellas, 27 novelettes, and 32 short stories for a total of 62 pieces of fiction (same as last year’s), plus two poems. Covers were good quality and included scenes such as a flying saucer hovering over a rural locale, a cobweb-coated skull with a spaceship in the background, and a horror scene with dark raven and crystal ball.
INTERZONE & BLACK STATIC
Interzone from TTA Press in the UK had six full-size bimonthly issues. We have no way of knowing if it, or sister magazine Black Static, would fall into professional or semiprofessional categories, but since it has traditionally been listed here, we continue to do so. With issue #242 (September-October) the magazine made a transition from the old 7 3/4’’x 10 3/4’’ saddle-stitched semi-gloss color cover 64-page format, to a 6 1/2’’ x 9 1/4’’ perfect bound glossy color cover 96-page format; interiors are in color and the print quality is good. There were 31 pieces of fiction, up from last year’s 28, plus news, book and film reviews, and author interviews. Covers were stunning, with a robotic version of the Hanging Man tarot card, an aged astronaut, and various alien, and spacescapes. Andy Cox and Andy Hedgecock are listed as fiction editors from issue #238-241. In issues #242 and #243, Andy Cox is listed as editor, and Andy Hedgecock is listed as assistant fiction editor. We assume circulation remains around 2,000, but we haven’t seen real numbers about the magazine since Dave Pringle was publisher.
There were five full-size issues of Black Static also from TTA Press, compared to six issues put out last year, with the schedule shifted back
a month (replacing the usual June/July issue with a July/August issue). In July the magazine transitioned from the old 7 3/4’’ x 10 3/4’’ saddle-stitched semi-gloss color cover 64-page format, to a 6 1/2’’ x 9 1/4’’ perfect bound glossy color cover 96-page format, with b&w interiors. There were 27 total pieces of fiction.
Covers were handsome, with bold typographical elements and distressed images of monsters and faces; interiors were full-color and handsomely laid out. Andy Cox was editor, with a steady line-up of contributing editors including Peter Tennant, Tony Lee, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Volk, and Mike O’Driscoll.
LOCUS
Locus’s paid circulation dropped 5.9% with a 48% newsstand sell-through rate. Our decline in subscriptions is plateauing, which we’d attribute to the addition of the digital formats – we see more digital subscribers every month – but we continue to see more and more specialty bookstores closing down which negatively impacts our print sales.
We produced 12 monthly issues ranging from 64-88 pages, with a glossy cover over book print and an occasional color section in the center. The cover price remained $6.95 for print; $5.50 for digital. Issues included reviews, news, listings, commentary, international reports, and interviews.
We changed cover designers in late 2011, with Francesca Myman taking over from Arnie Fenner on covers and interview layouts. In 2012 we ‘‘broke the red box,’’ incorporating a new cover design with every issue, but maintaining the Locus logo. As well as the Year-in-Review survey issue; we did an art issue in April, featuring commentary and art by 19 top-name SF/F artists, and a young-adult issue in July. We ran over 450 reviews of SF, fantasy, horror, and YA fiction works, including 134 reviews on short fiction venues; additionally there were 34 reviews of notable audiobooks. We also ran convention coverage including World Horror, World SF, World Fantasy, Readercon, Nebula Awards Weekend, Wiscon, Locus Awards, ICFA, etc.
Liza Groen Trombi is editor-in-chief and Kirsten Gong-Wong is managing editor. Locus Online, edited by Mark Kelly, includes some excerpted content from the magazine (news, interview excerpts, and several reviews per month) as well as its own autonomous content; the Roundtable Blog is edited by Karen Burnham.
SEMIPROFESSIONAL PRINT MAGAZINES
Semiprofessional print magazine are defined here as fiction magazines with bookstore sales but no national newsstand distribution; circulation is under 10,000 but they look professional; pay at least two cents per word on acceptance; and appear at least quarterly (this is the kicker; we often see quarterlies that only manage one or two issues). We saw no print magazines that met the qualifications last year, but this year we saw two. Note that this still does not follow the Hugo requirements for semiprozine, less so now that the Hugo rules changed to base semiprozine on staff income (a very opaque standard).
We saw four issues of Canadian quarterly digest On Spec. The semi-gloss covers range from a hallucinogenic portrait of a woman to a science fiction ship with a winged warrior. Issues were perfect-bound with 104 to 132 pages containing a total of 29 pieces of prose fiction and four poems. There was one special apocalypse-themed issue, #90. Cover price remained CA$6.95. Print runs were between 920 and 1,000, with approximately 400 print subscribers and 40 digital subs, an average of 135 per issue in newsstand sales with convention sales raising sell-through for certain issues. Print subs were slightly lower, but digital distributor Zinio sold more digital issues this year to compensate. Diane L. Walton was managing editor, and The Copper Pig Writers’ Society was publisher. Pay rates run from 3-5 cents/word, depending on the length of the piece.
Cemetery Dance put out four issues in 2012, ranging from 104 to 144 pages, with 29 stories total and many reviews, interviews, and features. Print run was 10,000, with 5,000 subscribers; price was $6.00. Managing Editor Brian Freeman mentions, ‘‘Of special note to Stephen King fans, we reprinted ‘The Glass Floor’ by Stephen King in CD #68. This story was originally published in Startling Mystery Stories in 1967 and was his first professional sale. It has never appeared in any of his collections.’’ He plans to make Cemetery Dance magazine available in electronic formats for the first time in 2013. Pay rate is around 5 cents/word.
ALMOSTS
The following magazines failed to meet one of the above requirements, generally short of the four issues or under the pay scale.
Weird Tales put out only two issues in 2012. Issue #359 (Winter) was Ann VanderMeer’s last issue as editor-in-chief, running 84 pages, at a cover price of $7.95, with a handsome color cover of a dark robotic toy. Issue #360 (Fall) was Marvin Kaye’s inaugural issue as editor, running 112 pages, in a ‘‘Ace double’’ style with a special 18-page section devoted to remembering Ray Bradbury; cover price was $6.99. There were 20 short stories and seven poems; interiors were b&w. We didn’t see a Statement of Ownership for the magazine, and can only assume the numbers are around last year’s 1,600 subscribers. John Harlacher remains publisher, and Marvin Kaye is editor-in-chief. Said Harlacher, ‘‘In 2012 Weird Tales won the Chesley Award, increased our subscriber base, and relaunched our web presence. With 360, we launched a new format, with half of each issue devoted to weird takes on a theme, and half devoted to more eclectic explorations of Weird Fiction. In 2013, we will celebrate our 90th Anniversary by coming out with four issues, including an issue devoted to this milestone, re-opening for submissions, and making WT more widely available in stores and on e-readers.’’ Closed to submissions as of June 2012.
Australian Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine produced four perfect-bound issues each with color covers featuring playful science fiction illustrations, b&w interiors, and between 168-176 pages, for a total of 68 stories and five poems. The price held steady at AU$12.95. Editor changes each issue; editor-in-chief remains Robbie Matthews. Pay rate is 1.25 cents/word.
Tales of the Talisman published four issues, perfect-bound with glossy color covers and b&w interiors with illustrations, from 92-102 pages, with a total of 48 short stories and 48 poems. The print run averaged 150 and subscriber base was 100. Editor David Lee Summers notes that he sold twice as many copies as usual of Volume VII, Issue #3, a special steampunk issue, and believes that ‘‘reflects an interest in this speculative subgenre.’’ An e-zine edition of the magazine was introduced late in 2012, and is available on Amazon. Pay rate is $10 per published story.
OTHERS
Quarterly Space and Time Magazine produced two 48-page, full-size issues in 2012, b&w with color covers. Issues were $5.00; they published 12 short stories and 15 poems. Publisher Hildy Silverman says they send about 2,500 to 3,000 copies out to newsstands and stores, with sell through at 80-85%. The magazine is available electronically through Weightless Books as of late 2011. Planned changes in 2013 include a website usability/design upgrade. Pay rate is 1 cent/word.
Shimmer produced one issue, with a glossy color cover and perfect binding, 84 pages, with 7 stories in total. The print run was 200 copies, with another 300-400 sales in eeditions. Editor Beth Wodzinski notes that the pay rate was raised twice: first to 3 cents, then to 5 cents a word, ‘‘through the gracious underwriting of our former art director, Mary Robinette Kowal… We continue to see electronic sales increase and print sales slightly decline.’’ Wodzinski plans to release three issues in 2013, as well as a Best of Shimmer anthology. Pay rate is 5 cents/word.
Science Fiction Trails, ‘‘where science fiction meets the Wild West,’’ published two 8.5’’ x 11’’ perfect bound issues, at 84 and 87 pages with color glossy covers, one of a robot doffing a cowboy hat and the other, an ‘‘all Martian spectacular.’’ Price was $8.00, and they ran 19 stories. Managing editor David B. Riley notes a decrease in slush submissions and speculates that the magazine may be competing with the year’s fresh crop of steampunk anthologies. Circulation is about 225 copies, half e-books and half print, with some limited newsstand distribution and most sales through online retailers. Pay rate is $20 per story.
UK publication Jupiter produced four chapbook-size, b&w issues w
ith 23 pieces of fiction and one poem, 56 pages each. Editor Ian Redman updated the website to sell e-book versions of the magazine. Jupiter is entering its tenth year of publication; it does not currently pay contributors.
Dark Discoveries produced two issues in 2012, at 64 and 71 pages. There were 12 pieces of fiction. Circulation was 1,000-2,000 per issue. Christopher C. Payne and his company JournalStone purchased Dark Discoveries in August; James R. Beach remains as editor-in-chief. They changed to a perfect bound format, and there are now digital editions available.
Nameless,
We saw two issues of Neo-Opsis edited by Karl Johanson. The Neo-Opsis total print run was 1,000, with a bookstore distribution of 500, a 52% sell-through, and 170 subscribers. Issues were digest-sized with semi-gloss covers and smooth book print inside. Covers feature a spacescape and a city (San Francisco?) disintegrating into a rift. Pay rate is C2.5 cents/word, capping at $125.
There was one issue of Bull Spec this year, #7, with 61 pages including six illustrated stories and eight poems, glossy b&w interiors, and a dark and gritty clockpunk giraffes cover. According to publisher Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, the print run was in the 500-600 range, with PDF readership (available through Weightless Books) of around 500. Issue #8 in early 2013 will be Montgomery-Blinn’s last issue as fiction editor. New fiction editors Natania Barron and Eric Gregory are taking over, with stories from Ken Liu (the magazine’s first original novelette), Lavie Tidhar, and An Owomoyela planned for issue #9. Pay rate is 5 cents/word.
Locus, February 2013 Page 15