So, to recap: Warren Ellis posts the
SF Magazine Sales for 2006, asking how (and if) the speculative fiction magazines can be saved. "Someone recently said to me, 'Well, what could you do to save them?' And I said, well, no-one’s asking, but there’s probably about twelve things that could be done. And they said, 'Well, maybe, but what I really meant was — why try? Why not just bury them and start anew?'
Cory Doctorow responds with
SF magazines' circulation numbers in sad decline, in which he says: "If I were running the mags, I'd pick a bunch of sfnal bloggers and offer them advance looks at the mag, get them to vote on a favorite story to blog and put it online the week before the issue hits the stands. I'd podcast a second story, and run excerpts from the remaining stories in podcast. I'd get Evo Terra to interview the author of a third story for
The Dragon Page. I'd make every issue of every magazine into an
event that thousands of people talked about, sending them to the bookstores to demand copies -- and I'd offer commissions, bonuses, and recognition to bloggers who sold super-cheap-ass subscriptions to the print editions."
Then John Scalzi's "
The Big Three" comes along to suggest it may not matter. "The big three
can still be relevant, mind you; I suspect
Asimov’s was essential in bootstrapping Charles Stross into being the decade’s pre-eminent SF writer when it published the short stories that would eventually become the Hugo-nominated novel
Accelerando. Likewise, Tim Pratt’s Hugo win this year is going to do great things for him moving forward. That said, I can think of more prominent SF writers published since 2000 who have gotten along without the benefit of exposure in the 'Big Three' than who have been helped by them."
All of which prompts Paolo Bacigalupi to weigh in with five posts:
Science Fiction Magazines Part I - Why are the "Big Three" Dying?Science Fiction Magazines Part II - Marketing in MeatspaceScience Fiction Magazines Part III - Online MarketingScience Fiction Magazines Part IV - Starting from ScratchSF Mags V - An SF Magazine for Girls?Along the way, Paolo proclaims, "It says something about the state of the written sf market when we sf writers have a hard time connecting with the users of something as wildly popular as
Halo. Technically, these users should be our bread and butter — and don’t tell me they don’t read. YA is doing just fine, and manga, too." Which leads him to propose a new magazine aimed at young male readers.
Then Homeless Moon offers "
An Open-Source Speculative Fiction Magazine Model," which shifts the focus from marketing alone to online marketing which builds community. "What the Big Three have done effectively, and what constitutes a tribute to their longevity (which, in the big scope, is noteworthy), is build community. That is ultimately what online marketing exists to do, and represents a shift in the technology and approach to marketing as a whole. Saturation advertising has a provable low turnaround;
high precision viral marketing is exponentially more effective (and I strongly believe that anyone running a small business today really needs to read that book I just linked). Get the viral going and use it to carefully cultivate a
sustainable growing community and you generate an engine that feeds itself, markets for you, and brings in both business and revenue. The Big Three have lasted this long because of that construction of brand identity and community, to which subscribers develop loyalty and emotional attachment."
And then Homeless Moon lays out a very interesting plan for building a magazine from scratch, several excellent suggestions of which I'll consider further to see if they have any relevant applications for me and mine.
Meanwhile SpecLit weighs in with "
Digest Blues: The Lament of the Big Three," which takes us back to the start a little bit when they argue that the digests have lost their relevance and make a case for a need to update their design. "What were once vital and important arbiters of taste in speculative fiction have descended into myopia. They are no longer the touchstones of the genre community. Instead, they are read by a decreasing number of entrenched fans."
While not as indepth as the discussions on Windupstories.com and Homeless Moon, the follow up post,
Digest Blues, Part Two," is very interesting, in that SpecLit has done actual mock-ups of three alternatives to current
Asimov's, Analog, and
F&SF covers. The results, though hastily done and not meant as anything but examples, certainly demonstrate how effortlessly the look and feel of the Big Three could be brought forward without sacrificing their sfnal elements or going to great expense.
Of course, as all of this discussion is raging across the blogosphere the way things do, I can't help but feeling a little bit like everyone at the party is talking about someone who is
standing right there in the middle of the room and didn't ask for the advice, thank you very much. Maybe the Big Three are fine with the way they are running things. (In fairness, two of the above discussions, again Windupstories and Homeless Moon, either shift focus to or focus exclusively on new models for
new magazines, rather than strategies for the Big Three.) And
F&SF publisher Gordon Van Gelder does pop up in Paolo's comment sections to make these points: "1) As far as I can tell, in all the discussions predicated upon the assumption that the SF digests are doomed, no one has actually addressed the question of whether the magazines are
profitable. Everyone simply seems to have assumed that if circulation decreases, profits decrease. Not necessarily so. 2) I note also that everyone has lumped all three digests together, even though all three of us have differing markets and differing approaches. Some of the problems facing
F&SF are different from the problems facing
Analog. Naturally, the marketing approach for one digest might not work for another."
Which, interestingly, makes me think of this
Newsweek article on Amazon's newly-unveiled Kindle, "
The Future of Reading," in which Steven Levy makes the following point:
"Talk to people who have thought about the future of books and there's a phrase you hear again and again.
Readers will read in public. Writers will write in public. Readers, of course, are already enjoying a more prominent role in the literary community, taking star turns in blogs, online forums and Amazon reviews. This will only increase in the era of connected reading devices. 'Book clubs could meet inside of a book,' says Bob Stein, a pioneer of digital media who now heads the Institute for the Future of the Book... Eventually, the idea goes, the community becomes part of the process itself."
Which, at the very least, means the party is going to go on talking. If Homeless Moon is correct, the Big Three are even enjoying a great deal of Viral Marketing right now, just by standing there amidst all this discussion pointed back at them. After all, as Mae West says, “It is better to be looked over than overlooked.”
as the # 1 title of the year. He says:.jpg)
"Holy wow. Once I started reading Brasyl, I knew I would never see the world quite the same way again... Brasyl shows that Pyr has serious chops in acquiring new material in addition to picking up previously published gems. Read the review if you want more, but my first recommendation is this: Close your browser, put your computer to sleep, go to the bookstore, buy Brasyl, take off the dust jacket without reading it, and clear your calendar. You’re in for a treat. Along with McDonald’s River of Gods,
it is easily one of the best books of the last 10 years."
and Killswitch,
tie for # 5..jpg)
"There’s not a lot about these books that I haven’t already said in my pair of breathless reviews, and while one probably would have made the list on its own merits, having two of these tomes in the span of a year really takes the cake. Pyr books has been knocking down doors in both publishing original fiction and bringing foreign work to North America, and Shepherd's Cassandra Kresnov series demonstrates the second half of this equation wonderfully. Why weren’t these books brought over sooner? How many other authors and ideas are just waiting to get picked up, gussied up with holy-cow-amazing cover art by the likes of Stephan Martiniere, and unleashed upon the unsuspecting North American public? More, I hope."
Needless to say, I'm thrilled to death with my first 
on the list (with Justina Robson's 
getting an honorable mention). Paul ranks the book at number five and says it is "...
and its two sequels to Piper via the 
I surprised myself by saying yes. It surprised my wife even more. And what really surprised me was how affected by the photographs I was when the book arrived.
and continued in a series of stories published in various venues (Chris aggregates their appearances here on a 
in mass-market. Me, I can't wait.
Aaron begins by rounding up some recent notable anthologies, and then says that