I Told You So

This isn't exactly breaking news.  I've known about it for a couple of days but had other things I wanted to discuss; I have no idea how long the announcement was been out there.  What am I talking about?  John Joseph Adams' announcement that Lightspeed and Fantasy were going to merge into a single magazine.  I think the way he's going about it is smart.  It also falls right in line with what I suggested recently about what should happen if anyone decides to resurrect Realms of Fantasy again.

Specifically, my suggestion to cut back on the nonfiction in the magazine and focus more on the fiction.  If you read his announcement, that's what Adams is doing with the two magazines.  He's cut the nonfiction back considerably, while leaving the amount of fiction the same.   Actually that's only true if you read the magazine online.  If you subscribe, there's an exclusive novella with each issue.

In other words, here's a publisher who realizes people read his magazine primarily for the fiction, and furthermore he's taking steps to ensure they get what they want.  I said this was the smart way to run a fiction magazine when I reviewed the last issue of RoF.  Now that someone with the credentials of John Joseph Adams thinks the same thing and is willing to act on that idea, I'm going to say "I told you so."

I wish Mr. Adams and his magazine the greatest success.  Oh, and I told you so.

John Joseph Adams Buys Lightspeed and Fantasy Magazines

John Joseph Adams

Prime Books announced today that it is selling both Lightspeed and Fantasy magazines to current editor John Joseph Adams.  The sale is part of the expansion of Prime Books.  Publisher Sean Wallace stated that the book publishing side of his job was taking more and more time.  Adams is a highly respected editor not only of the magazine but of numerous anthologies as well.  Adams issued the following statement:  "It’s an exciting time to be involved in publishing.  Models are changing and so is the readership, and online magazines have a better shot at sustainability than ever have before. I believe the possibilities for growth are tremendous, and I look forward to staying in the vanguard of this new frontier."

With the announcement last week that Realms of Fantasy was closing again, it's been an eventful week in sff periodical publishing.  As I promised when I posted about RoF I'll have more to say about these changes in a post later this week.

Seven Days of Online Fiction, Day 8: Recap

So a week ago today, I acted on this crazy idea I had to look at a different venue for online fiction every day for a week, with as much a focus as possible on fantasy.  I called the project Seven Days of Online Fiction.  It started when I read Karen Burnham's list of work that had received multiple award nominations this year; most of the short fiction was available online.  (Karen updated the list on Wednesday.) 

I've had the opinion for a long time now that what has been appearing online is just as good as what the print magazines have been publishing.  I intentionally left anthologies out of the mix because even the few anthology series that appear regularly have at least a year between volumes and are often trumpeted as Events.  I wanted to look at what was appearing on a consistent basis.

So I managed to read and post for seven days in a row, although the last couple of days were a bit of a strain from a time commitment perspective.  Links to each day are in the sidebar on the right.  The next time I do something like this, I'll have at least half the posts done before any go live.  Anyway, I thought I would take today, Day 8, if you'll allow, to look back and see what I've learned from this experience.

Seven Days of Online Fiction, Day 5: Fantasy Magazine

Some of you may have been wondering when in this project I would get to Fantasy Magazine, as it's one of the more high profile online publications.  I'm trying to alternate between venues with which I am familiar and those that are new to me.  The drawback is that what's new to me might not be new to some of you.  One of the goals of this series is to introduce some new sources of reading material to some of you as well as expand my reading horizons.  For those reasons, I'm not necessarily going to look at the more well-known venues.

Anyway, onto Fantasy Magazine.  This publication started out in print form and made the transition to electronic format a few years ago.  The format of this one is slightly different than the others we've looked at so far.  It's a monthly publication consisting of fiction (2 new and 2 reprints) and various nonfiction features, but they don't put all the stories up at once, nor do they leave the stories and features up once they've been posted.  Instead the contents of the main page rotate on a weekly basis throughout the month, changing on Monday.  Of course, if you don't want to wait, you can purchase the complete issue in electronic format on the first of the month.  (And if you like this magazine, you should consider doing that to support them.) Once something is rotated off the main page, it is available through the archives..

The story I'm going to look at is "The Devil in Gaylord's Creek" by Sarah Monette.  This was an enjoyable urban fantasy in a rural setting.  The main character is Morgan, a young lady who happens to be dead.  She travels with her companion Francis.  He's the replacement companion; the first was eaten in the line of duty.