Now as to whether I read them or not…. well, that’s another matter. Oh for the days when I could read six novels a week!

Mainly short term magazines may be help full but they are not up to the mark. The concepts are not too awfully difficult to understand and not nearly as complex which are available in the market. You can’t make a sale if people don’t know your magazine exist.

I started reading Asimov’s when I was about 14. How would your typical 14 year old today know about magazines even if they were already reading sf novels? They wouldn’t. I’d bet even many adults who read sf fairly regularly wouldn’t know. Obviously, this is not the only factor. Remember that anthologies almost never do as well as a novel, so there must be less willingness to read short stories. But even with this, you can’t make a sale if people don’t know you (the magazines) exist.

Nice conversation. It got me to renew my Analog subscription.

I’m happy to hear that you’re not going to be begging on the street any time soon. :-) Still, speaking personally, I would be so much happier if the circulation for F&SF stabilized or rose.

Also, regarding differences in the magazines. I hope that most of the ideas I’ve laid out are general enough that they could be adapted for any of you successfully. Maybe I’m wrong about that, and maybe everything looks like a nail to me because all I’ve got is a hammer, but I think most of what I’ve written up could be used.

Re: the internet. I’ve deliberately stayed away from suggesting changes in the magazines’ publication models (put everything online today! everything should be FREE!, etc., etc.), and tried to focus only on ways to use various tools to help your current model grow.

And finally, I’m always happy to provide free advice and completely unsolicited advice, and to generally kibbitz from the sidelines. It’s soooo much easier than actually implementing something.

Yes, that is still true, but it’s getting less and less true all the time. Due to mail service problems here in Malaysia (my Analog subscription kept getting lost!) I now subscribe via Fictionwise, and read it on my cell phone using a program a student of mine did for his Final Year Project http://foe.mmu.edu.my/software/ebook/ebook_reader_v2/

I must admit that at this point in time, I still wish I had the hardcopy. But I can see in the near future how this wish might go away.

(As for product placement in films or TV, that would cost a fortune.)

What about product placement in films and television programs?

I don’t want to see these publications go away. I want hardcopy, and I want them to keep coming every month (or thereabouts–the “double issues” etc). Hardcopy is best for reading in bed and bathroom :-)

The cover for the Jan/Feb 2008 Analog is marvelous. Same for the most recent F&SF cover that arrived in the mail last week (was that December or January?). Pretty covers help. Placement of product in the stores would also help. I often have trouble finding the big 3 among the magazines at the usual big-name book stores… what if they were instead placed in the F&SF section with the ‘latest releases’ novels and anthologies? What if they were also placed with the graphic novels and the movie/television spin-off novels (eg Star Trek)?

Just got home from World Fantasy Con, started catching up on online stuff, and found your posts. Lots of good stuff here—thanks. I haven’t read it all closely, but I recognize many of your comments from discussions we’ve had in the past.

This subject came up a lot at WFC, it was the online subject d’jour. A few points worth noting:

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.

3) All the discussion I’ve read online has presupposed that online and internet publication is the way of the future. There is no feedback in this conversation from people who don’t care for electronic media. (Anthony Grafton has an interesting and relevant article in the latest NEW YORKER about why Google’s attempt to digitalize libraries won’t do away with books.) At WFC I made this point about internet users telling other internet users that the internet is _the_ way of the future and two different people said to me, “The teens I know don’t even use the internet. They text each other.” I have no idea if that’s truly a trend these days.

Might post more after I get some sleep and I get caught up from the weekend away. Regardless, thanks (again) for the free marketing advice.

The email newsletter thing, absolutely.

The two best are Pyr and Subterranean, and Baen has a forum and updates/RSS too.

Other major publishers range from ‘we are big fat losers and don’t have one or a website’ (DAW), through to cut and paste crappy marketing blurbs, in general.

So, even as an advertising resister, when you get stuff you like and find useful, it works, as the former three have been the ones whose books I have been buying and/or reading recently.

And on the magazine thing – the reason I subscribed to the ones of which you speak was a Fictionwise special offer, too, in part.