Below is my #SFF2020 interview with Sheila Williams of Asimov’s Science Fiction. For the complete #SFF2020: The State of Genre Magazines report, including other interviews, or to download the report in Kindle, Epub and PDF formats, go here.
Interview with Sheila Williams, Editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction
Jason Sanford: I suspect most people in the SF/F genre don’t understand the difficulties of publishing a genre magazine. What’s one aspect of running a magazine like Asimov's that you wish more readers and writers knew about?
Sheila Williams: Many people know I have a fun, intellectually challenging job. It’s also a lot of work. We have a very small paid staff. Other than the occasional college intern, we do not use unpaid labor. (Our college internship program conforms to the DOL’s FLSA seven-factor test.) I read every submission. My managing editor, Emily Hockaday, and I are responsible for editing, copyediting, and almost all of our production work. I’m responsible for the editorials, the next issue page, introductory notes, and most other interstitial writing in Asimov’s. In addition to her other duties, Emily manages most of our social media. Deadlines never change, regardless of vacations, illness, maternity leave, and whatever other challenges pop up. We just have to find ways to work around these challenges.
Jason: You've worked at Asimov's since nearly the magazine's founding. How have things changed since the founding of Asimov's? What would you say is harder or easier for your magazine to do these days?
Sheila: It’s a lot easier to produce a magazine than it used to be. I’m very happy that we said good-bye to repro around 1996, which was probably before some of our readers were born. In addition, I greatly prefer digital submissions to print submissions.
Jason: In addition to paying your writers, Asimov's also pays all of your staff, something which is not common among many of today's newer genre magazines. Is it possible to publish a magazine like Asimov's without the support of a larger company, in this case Penny Publications?
Sheila: An anecdotal review of the American market doesn’t really bear that out. F&SF is published by a small company. Analog and Asimov’s are published by a larger (though not huge) publishing company. Being published by a larger company does have its advantages, though. While only one and a half people are dedicated to each of the genre magazines, we do benefit from a support staff of art, production, tech, contracts, web, advertising, circulation, and subsidiary rights departments. I’m probably leaving some people out of this list. While the support of this infrastructure cannot be underestimated, Asimov’s revenue covers our editorial salaries, and our production and editorial costs. We contribute to the company’s general overhead as well.
Jason: An increasing number of Asimov's readers are using digital e-book platforms to read the magazine. Do you see a day coming when Asimov's will transition to e-editions only instead of publishing in both print and digital formats?
Sheila: Many of our readers prefer to read print editions. Also, print editions are much more visible. They do a lot of our promotion for us. It’s also easier to connect with many of our print subscribers because a lot of them subscribe directly through our online subscription portal. We can send renewal notices directly to them and stay in touch in other ways. For these and other reasons, I don’t see any need to transition to an e-edition format only. Also, note that online magazines benefit from print formats as well.
Jason: According to this year's Locus Magazine survey, Asimov's total circulation was up nearly 10% over the previous year, as was the circulation of your sister magazine Analog. To what do you attribute this increase?
Sheila: Our social media presence is growing. In addition, we continue to benefit from the strong boost we received in the early days of B&N’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle.
Jason: Why do SF/F magazines matter to the genre? What do SF/F magazines bring to the genre which can't be found anywhere else?
Sheila: Magazines are a great place for new writers to break into the SF/F field. They also provide writers with a mechanism for pretty direct interaction and feedback from their readers. Our readers engage with writers on our Facebook pages, they seek out their novels. They look for their favorites and they discover new writers in the magazine. Readers also get a smorgasbord of traditional and nontraditional story telling in each issue.