Below is my #SFF2020 interview with Steve Davidson of Amazing Stories. 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 Steve Davidson, Publisher of Amazing Stories
Jason Sanford: Amazing Stories was the first science fiction magazine, and helped launch the pulp fiction era of the 1920s and '30s. What is it like publishing a magazine with such history? Has that history presented any difficulties to your relaunch of the magazine?
Steve Davidson: Well, you get unexpected support and assistance; a lot of people in the field are still very fond of both the magazine and its place in Science Fiction's history. But that brings with it two difficulties. One, most younger fans among our potential market seem to assume that we're publishing reprints of older works or new works in a golden-age style, despite the fact that promotion and discussion of the magazine – let alone our contributor's own statements – clearly say otherwise. We're an old, venerable name in the genre publishing new, ground-breaking science fiction from the current era.
The second difficulty are rights clearances/issues. I get so many of these regularly that we're unable to really help with that I had to write a piece on rights and clearances for the website (which can be found here). And from the other side – most folks out in la-la land seem to think that trademarks work like patents in that they have a maximum shelf life, or they believe that once a trademark goes into public domain, it can't become a mark with enforcement capabilities ever again. Neither is true and I spend an inordinate amount of time chasing down improper/infringing uses of the title, which we make a decent amount in licensing fees from because it is valid and enforceable. While I really hate going after casual infringers whose motivation is one of love for the magazine, I unfortunately have to, if only to maintain the mark and protect its licensees – one of whom is NBC/Universal Studios.
Jason: You held a successful Kickstarter in 2018 to fund the relaunch of Amazing Stories. Do you see a need to do any more fundraisers in the future? Any surprises or lessons you've learned in funding and distributing the magazine?
Steve: Well what we learned with Kickstarter is, their instructions and instructional videos on how to do a Kickstarter need some work: just as one example – we had numerous people working on that campaign, including folks who have done successful Kickstarters and no one noticed, nor did Kickstarter explicitly state (where we'd see it) that there would be a hold of 24-48 hours as an internal review of the campaign was conducted. That really hurt us. Maybe that info is out there and apparent to most doing their first project, but none of us saw it. It got us off to a bad start – we sent out all of our notices to early supporters, PR outlets etc, only for them to find that the campaign was "on hold". The lesson I learned was – hire someone with vast and long term experiences with such things, you won't regret doing so. The other thing I learned (as opposed to knowing but not "knowing") was – you really, really, really need to front load your campaign. However many early pledge commitments you obtain – you still need more. However many PR outlets promise to support you, you need more, however many supporters agree to flog their friends and cohorts, you need more. It actually wouldn't be a bad idea to get pledges of support that exceed your goal number before you actually launch the campaign.
Yes, we've already done one with Indiegogo that didn't meet our goal for the special edition (which was double length, all color, all fiction to commemorate our first year) and we do anticipate doing some, at least in conjunction with the website (after 6 years it would be nice to pay the site's contributors even if it’s only a token).
Jason: What's your goal for Amazing Stories over the next five years?
Steve: Expanding our reach into a full-fledged publisher of both the magazine and books. We'll soon be officially announcing Amazing Selects, which is an imprint for electronic/POD edition novellas, and we're giving some serious thought to theme anthologies consisting of both new and reprinted material. But,. bottom line, our real goal over the next five years is survival.
Another one of our goals is to find a way to really engage with indy authors. There are a lot of them out there, some doing interesting stuff and, while most of them are focused on novel length works, I think they'd find that being published in one of the magazine will expose them to a different set of readers.
Jason: Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld has said some of the problems experienced by genre magazines come about because “we’ve devalued short fiction” through reader expectations that they shouldn’t have to pay for short stories. Do you agree with this? Any thoughts on how to change this situation?
Steve: Well, I've floated this elsewhere and for both good and bad reasons it's not found traction, but at the risk of annoying an ill horse, I'll try once again. First, I agree with Neil, strongly urge folks to read his editorial on the subject and think that he has managed to successfully outline the problem, which is the first step in solving it: the magazines are in a negative feedback loop right now. Because of the devaluation of fiction, short fiction in particular, the magazines can't command the kind of subscription and cover prices they need to that would allow them to both pay the rates that they ought to be paying for high quality fiction, nor to engage in the kind of advertising and promotion they need to in order to attract new subscribers and bring attention to what they are publishing. If they raise their cover and subscription prices, they lose subscribers; if they can't offer better word rates, they lose contributors, and so it goes, classic catch-22.
What I (and, I am sure, most other magazines) would like to be able to do is pay a word rate that no author, regardless of who they are, would say no to, to pay artists what they're worth and to be able to affordably deliver, in whatever format the reader prefers, regular issues. We'd all like to not have to worry about the added expense of translation when we're considering foreign works (which, quite frankly, is where the market is going these days), etc.
The one place where I think we can all help each other though, is by getting together to promote the idea of the magazines and short science fiction in general; form an org – bring in F&SF, Analog, Asimov’s, Galaxy's Edge, Lightspeed, Future, Clarkesworld, Amazing and whomever else is meeting some minimal set of publishing criteria (paying within some percentage of SFWA qualifying market rates, has published regularly (mostly) for a set time frame), and hire a firm to help promote and market, with the promotion directed towards the idea of magazines/magazine fiction, supported by a one-stop shop for subscribing to any and all of them. Make it perhaps a three year commitment to give it time to show some progress. I base this program on two concepts: one, that no single magazine can afford to promote itself the way it ought to these days and two, that the reader of one science fiction magazine is a reader of multiple science fiction magazines.
Sure, there's detail that would need to be ironed out; some magazines are bigger than others and might feel they'd not benefit as much, but the bottom line is, ALL of the magazines are facing the same issue and I'd much rather be in a race for "who put out the best mag this year?" than I would to be in a race for "the last surviving science fiction magazine".
Maybe we don't have to organize in a formal way; maybe we can all agree to commit to promoting short fiction and magazines independently through our various outlets.
What we can't do is all get together and agree to raise our prices across the board – that would be engaging in unfair trade practices.
Jason: 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 Amazing Stories that you wish more readers and writers knew about?
Steve: In general, I think that the collective audience does not understand two aspects of this business: first, that the publisher is not in control of every single element that goes into a publication and second, that things take time to develop.
To expand on that – diversity issues. I and the team that I have assembled are largely comprised of older/boomer generation individuals of a progressive bent. From the beginning we've advocated for better inclusion and representation of minority contributors and have done what we have been able to do to support that with the magazine; we pay attention to the "mix" of contributors to an issue (authors and artists) and how that represents over time, but, practically speaking, the criteria – minority representation, a good story, a good story on a particular topic – often mitigate against a quick fix. Which is one reason why we look at the mix of both individual issues and the publication over time: given the constraints and the "stuff" that happens at periodicals, we may have no choice but to put out a badly balanced issue, but have the ability to make corrections in future issues. If one had the budget and could afford to commission every story you'd get closer, but not even that is guaranteed as "stuff" happens; a writer is unable to make needed changes to a story, an artist get sick and can't complete an illustration and yet, many in the audience for whom these are important issues do not see these things, only a lack of representation. Further, when taking the time to explain these things to those who raise objections, reality is often not seen as an acceptable solution. Complaints can lead to contributors being unwilling to engage, which can further exacerbate the issue. Good we can do tomorrow; perfect will take us a little longer. And understand, "perfect" will never be achieved, even when we try really hard to get there.
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?
Steve: Well, my answers to those questions may not resonate with younger readers, but I'll give them anyway. First, the magazines are where this genre was created and that influence and legacy is felt to this day. It would be a shame and a loss if a foundational aspect of this wonderful thing we call Science Fiction were to be silenced.
Beyond that, well, if you look at Amazing Stories' current incarnation, especially the print edition, you'll see that we believe that a magazine is an experience separate from just reading. It impinges on all of the senses at once. Holding it, you can feel the weight of all of those words and illustrations, the slickness of the cover, the crispness of the pages. Visually, there's the presentation – the layout, the fonts used, the illustrations. Then there's the flow realized through the placement of individual pieces of fiction, their accompanying art, the non-fiction breaks, the cartoons that give you a pause. You can smell the paper and the inks. Each issue of an individual magazine is a unique and separate experience; the cover illustration sets a tone, the blurbs and intros entice, the voices of the different authors influence the reception of each individual story (even if only on the level of this story I like better than the last); you can engage with it on so many different levels, comparing the art to the story it accompanies, agree or disagree with the editorial, go back and check recommendations in the reviews.
It's a different experience than a book, even an anthology, and especially if the magazine is serving one of its true purposes – bringing attention to new talent, or an established authors attempting to widen their scope.
What do magazines bring to the genre you can't find elsewhere? Well, truth to say, not as much as they once did. In the beginning, the magazines were the ONLY source for this stuff. The one and only. Nowadays that's no longer the case. Original fiction and theme anthologies have encroached on the magazine's preserve of being the place to discover new authors. And publishing itself in general is rewarding longer works, particularly those associated with a series, neither of which fit the magazine model too well. But I think the one place where magazines can and should shine is by giving a platform to new authors and a place for authors to experiment with new ideas and new forms/styles. A good writer can "test" a concept out without making the commitment to a novel length work. Maybe the market isn't ready for the adventures of Bozo the Astronaut Clown...but maybe it is. You could make that short available to your reading list, or get outside your own box and get a whole new set of eyes on it through a magazine.
And magazines also remain a vehicle for authors to expand their readership. In short, they offer an opportunity for both sides of the community – creators and consumers – to come together in a relatively inexpensive and constantly changing way.