SciFi Mags Struggling? November 19, 2008
Posted by showmescifi in scifi.Tags: Analog, asimov, asimovs science fiction magazine, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sci Fi, science fiction, sciencefiction, scifi
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There is a really interesting article up on the PBS.org site now about the current state of the Science Fiction magazine market. At this point there are only three left: Analog, Asimov’s and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Personally speaking, we still buy Asimov’s regularly – though we don’t have a subscription.
The latest circulation numbers for the print mags aren’t great:
Analog, the best performing of the three, had fallen to a paid circulation of 27,399, while Asimov’s dropped 5.2% to 17,581. But the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction saw the sharpest decline — 11.2% from the previous year — to a paid circulation of 16,489.
PBS want to lay some of the blame on the Web – but that’s nonsense. The people that buy those mags aren’t going online to read fiction the same kind of fiction. Those mags have a tactile feel that is still different.
We read lots online – but the scifi mags are still a very different animal. Often we’ve found that not all book stores carry the mags and if they do they’re not as easy to find as they once were. Actually trying to get a subscription to these mag is a difficult thing too.
Buying a subscription should include some kind of benefit – at least a reduced cost over buying at the newstand – but that doensn’t seem to be the case. For us it’s still cheaper to buy Asimov’s issue by issue.
Show Me SciFi 
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