FutureTense

3 Responses to “Locus: 2003 Year in Review”

1. Matt Cheney Says:
   March 20th, 2004 at 1:00 am

   I had a similar reaction to the magazine data when I read it, Alan. Then I
   started noticing similar stories in the mainstream press about every kind
   of periodical imaginable. A combination of factors causes it, I think —
   two which immediately come to mind are that more people use the
   internet to get what they used to get in magazines and newspapers, and
   there are far fewer newsstands out there in these days of mergers and
   megastores.

   Within the SF/fantasy/horror genres I think there’s less agreement than
   there used to be on what the magazines should be. Whenever I find
   myself frustrated by, for instance, Dozois’s limited definition of what is
   appropriate for Asimov’s and what isn’t, I head over to the
   Asimov’s message boards and read the comments and discover
   that lots of readers think he’s too liberal, that he’s contributing to the
   destruction of Science Fiction as a sacred institution, etc. I’m glad I’m
   not having a conversation with these people in person, because I think
   I’d just have to hit my head on floor over and over again. (Actually, I
   don’t even have a conversation with them in the virtual world of the
   forums, since I just lurk.) I’m sure there are plenty of readers who are
   like me but less willing to keep shelling out for a subscription, just as
   I’m sure there are others who are frustrated that Asimov’s isn’t
   more like Analog. For years, Analog has been the
   bestselling magazine, despite the fact that it consistently publishes the
   highest percentage of bad fiction, because it caters to a very specific
   audience and it gives them what they expect to get. The other
   magazines are mostly aimed at a somewhat broader audience, but that
   audience seems a lot less patient than was, say, the audience for
   Amazing or Fantastic when Cele Goldsmith was editing
   them and publishing clunky space opera right beside Leiber, Bunch,
   Disch, etc.

   But then, of course, some of the responsibility has to fall on the editors
   and publishers, too, because if they work enough on having a
   consistently diverse table of contents, then they will build their own
   audience. I think Asimov’s and F&SF, the magazines
   I’m most familiar with, are behaving kind of like the Democrats: slowly
   drowning in the stinky mud of the wishy-washy middle, afraid to go in
   one direction or another. They could choose to narrow themselves to a
   more devoted audience (the Analog strategy, which has kept
   circulation marginally higher than that of any of the other magazines), or
   they could deliberately choose to broaden their approach, specifically
   soliciting certain authors at the beginning, and try to reach more of the
   folks who are not as interested in any one specific approach to
   imaginative literature. That we’re not seeing Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Link,
   Jeffrey Ford, etc. etc. etc. in the supposedly major magazines of the field
   is utterly and completely ridiculous. (Actually, Ford’s been in F&SF some
   and Scifiction, but Jeff V hasn’t been in Asimov’s in years, F&SF rejected
   the story he won a World Fantasy Award for, Kelly Link hasn’t been in
   Asimov’s (not sure about F&SF) —
   and I haven’t even gotten to Rhys Hughes, Steve Aylett, K.J. Bishop —
   well, you could make as long a list as I can.

   Anyway, I’m ranting and barely coherent. I don’t know if any of this
   makes any sense at all, but there it is…

2. Alan Lattimore Says:
   March 21st, 2004 at 7:49 pm

   I didn’t notice any rambling. Rather clear all through.

   I know that Gardner has set a lot of responsiblity on the consolidation among distributors. I understand there wree about 30 as recently as five years ago. Now there are about 5 major ones. If they can’t turn a good profit, they won’t carry you.

   He’s also mentioned that turnover is about 50%. I have no idea whether that’s high for the magazine industry as a whole but it has to be distressing to know that you need to find two subscriptions just to get ahead one, and that one will drop out after about a year.

   It just gets harder with distribution–both the distributors and the outlets like drug stores–more of an obstcle than a help to getting the magazines into the hands of potential new subscribers. The first time I heard Garnder talk about distribution as an issue, he was comparing Asimov’s to Playboy. I know there are some peripheral similarities, but I would be surprised to find they have a lot in common. For example, I would expect the bulk of Playboy sales to come from newstand. So when newstand takes a hit, Playboy crumples.

   As a contrary point, I understand that several of Playboy’s more hardcore competitors are doing well, if not better than they were a decade ago. The suggestion is Playboy’s “product”–relatively restrained–doesn’t meet the needs of the modern marketplace.

   I find the idea consumer desire for what Asimov’s provides can be met through other outlets–effectively reducing their market–to be seductive. But I, at least, haven’t been able to find an equivalent outlet on the Internet with the exception of SciFi.com. The quality is too variable and I have to work too hard to find it.

   Instead, I will offer forth the “Chinatown” hypothesis. The problem with SF magazines is not that there’s too much competition for a small market–that happens to be true–its that there aren’t enough magazines to generate a critical level of interest. Most economic theories would say that a Chinese restraunt will do better in isolation: reduces competition. Instead, it seems they will do as well when co-located as they will do in isolation, except in times of stress, where they do much better in a “Chinatown.” Just an alternative thought on building resiliency into the system.

   The point about F&SF and Asimov’s taking flack for killing the field is a good one. Personally, although Analog seems more skiffy on the surface–it’s got all the great gadgets we’ve come to love in SF–I don’t think it’s much more pro-future, pro-technology than F&SF or Asimov’s. I’m about as likely to judge a story in Analog as anti-future or anti-technology as one in F&SF or Asimov’s.

   I know there are a number of factors that affect subscribers to all of these magazines. I just get twitchy in my seat when a panelist says that its not content and everyone I know–myself included–has dropped subscriptions for that reason and no other. I’m also not convinced that distribution issues can account for the almost two decade slide.

   I really liked your insight about the magazines that have (or rather hanven’t) carried the newly emerging cutting edge artists. That’s disturbing.

   I worry about marginal returns. When a magazine has a lot of money, they can afford to experiment and fail. There’s a point beyond which a magazine probably can’t commit the resources to making changes: they can’t afford surveys; they can’t afford to try out a different format, print quality or change in artwok. So they are stuck, counting on blind luck to see them thtrough. I have to wonder how close they are to that point of no return. Lets see– annual sub is $35, 25,000 circ = $875,000. Hm. I have no way of approximating costs–delivery, salaries, stories, printing, ads, etc. But I’d say less than a million dollars doesn’t sound like much of a revenue stream.

   Thanks for your well thought out comments.

   Best regards,
   
   Alan Lattimore

3. Matt Cheney Says:
   March 23rd, 2004 at 2:00 pm

   It would be nice if there were only one factor to blame, wouldn’t it? I
   looked at the Locus numbers again, and it’s just heartwrenching. From
   1990-2003, Asimov’s lost about 45,000 subscribers.

   I liked your Chinatown idea — reminded me of something a friend once
   told me about antiques shops. There’s an area here in New Hampshire
   that during the summer is so crowded with cars it’s difficult to drive
   through, called Antique Row, and I asked my friend why this made any
   economic sense at all, since they seemed to be in immediate
   competition with each other. "Everything they have is slightly different,
   and once you get somebody passionate about antiques here, they’re
   going to want to go into every store." No-one, he said, wants to start an
   antiques shop in a place where there aren’t any other for miles and
   miles, because they know it will be much harder to attract customers.

   I agree about online options — I wasn’t suggesting it was a major reason
   the SF magazines are having trouble, but that others are, for instance
   weekly news magazines, magazines of political commentary, gossip,
   etc., for which the internet is a faster medium.

   Dozois has pointed out one good thing in all this: sell-through rates for
   newsstand copies are quite high — around 60% — which means not a
   lot of copies are going to waste. The less waste there is, the healthier
   the finances are going to be overall.

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