Is Online Genre Fiction All Powerful?

I received an interesting email the other day from Tom Dooley, the editor of Eclectica Magazine. After Tom crunched his own statistics around this year's Million Writers Award—arriving at similar if slightly different numbers as Robert Laughlin, whose stats I reported on last week—he noticed something interesting. Among the top 18 magazines with the most notable stories in this year's Million Writers Award, genre magazines held the top five spots, and overall landed 33 of those magazines' 69 notable stories (or 48%).

This general pattern also holds over the last two years. However, if one looks at the overall notable story stats for the entire seven years of the award, then genre fiction doesn't do as well. Only three of the top 13 magazines with the most notable stories over that seven-year span are genre magazines, and their stories only account for 44 of those magazines' 236 notable stories (or 19%). This means non-genre magazines used to do much better in the Million Writers Award.

As Tom said, "The statistics show the MWA has come to be dominated by genre fiction. What they don't show, or at least, what THESE statistics don't show, is why."

I should note that Tom isn't condemning genre fiction, nor is he complaining. His magazine regularly publishes high-quality genre fiction alongside non-genre stories. He's also long been a vocal supporter of the Million Writers Award, which is open to both genre and non-genre stories and tries to be a level playing field where different stories compete against each other. After reading Tom's email and looking at his stats, I was also curious whether or not genre fiction now dominates the Million Writers Award—and by extension online fiction in general.

To figure this out, I counted the magazines with notable stories in this year's award. There are approximately 108 magazines on the notable story list, with 81 of those being "non-genre" and 27 being magazines focused on SF/fantasy/horror/crime or other mixes of genre fiction. Please note these estimates are rough. I could have miscounted, and I'm sure I didn't slot some magazines into the proper category. There are also magazines like Eclectica which, while counted as non-genre, also publish genre fiction. The simple truth is it's sometimes difficult to divide magazines and fiction into convenient categories.

But assuming my counts and category cramming are close to correct, that means about a quarter of online magazines on the notable list are genre magazines, while around 75% are non-genre or more general "literary" magazines. And if the MWA notable story list is truly representative of online fiction today—I know, another assumption, but one I believe is likely true—that means genre magazines probably make up a quarter of all online fiction magazines.

Yet here are online genre magazines holding down the top spots in this award for the last two years, a fact out of proportion to the number of genre magazines out there. Why is this happening?

I think the reason is simple: The best genre fiction magazines now occupy an equal weight to genre print magazines.

For example, when you look at this year's list of genre magazines with the most notable story selections—Fantasy Magazine, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, Subterranean, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Thuglit, and Apex Magazine—it is interesting to note that almost all of these are professional-level speculative fiction magazines (with Thuglit instead being a crime magazine). Why so many spec fic magazines on this list? I believe it is because this genre has, to a large degree, accepted online magazines as a legitimate place to publish and read short fiction.

In the speculative fiction genre, there are a handful of English-language professional print magazines with large circulations, such as Analog, Asimov's, Black Static, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and Weird Tales. There's also another handful of great print magazines like Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Necrotic Tissue, and On Spec which are also extremely professional but have slightly lower circulations and distribution.

My point? I just named what many people would consider the top speculative fiction print magazines. But there are an equal number of professional online magazines in this genre. By professional, I mean these online magazines publish works by top writers, pay professional rates, have top editorial standards, and have large readerships. That means over half of all the professional-level magazines in speculative fiction are now online magazines. Because of this, they publish some of the best stories online, carry critical weight both inside and outside their genre, and are very hard to compete against.

Compare this to non-genre or literary magazines, where the majority of top magazines are still in print. While there are great online magazines like The Barcelona Review, Eclectica, Storyglossia, and Word Riot, if you want to read the vast majority of fiction influencing today's literary world you must turn to The New Yorker, The Southern Review, Granta, The Paris Review, The Atlantic Monthly (through their annual fiction issue), and so on. Yes, some of these print magazines also cross-publish online, but in most ways they still consider the web a mere afterthought. And while some non-genre online magazines like Blackbird and Narrative are seen as the equal of The New Yorkers of the world, proportionately they make up a much smaller percentage of the top-end literary fiction market than in the speculative fiction genre.

Please note this is not an attempt to put down online literary magazines like The Barcelona Review or Eclectica, which for my money often publish better fiction than The New Yorker. But the simple truth is that despite all the changes of the last decade, the world of non-genre or literary fiction still considers print as superior to online publishing.

That's why I believe genre fiction is doing so well these days, both online and in the Million Writers Award. It's like a professional baseball team competing against a college team. While the college team may have some great players who play at a professional level, overall they'd have a tough time against the New York Yankees. And at the moment the Yankees of the online fiction world are speculative fiction magazines.
 

Note: Below are some of the Million Writers Award stats referenced in this post.

2009 Notable Story Leaders
(genre magazines are bolded)

Fantasy Magazine, 7 notable stories
Clarkesworld Magazine, 5
Strange Horizons, 5
Subterranean, 5
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 4
Blackbird, 4
Kill Author, 4
Thuglit, 4
Writers' Bloc Magazine, 4
Agni Online, 3
Apex Magazine, 3
Eclectica Magazine, 3
Kenyon Review Online, 3
Knee-Jerk Magazine, 3
Prick of the Spindle    3
Storyglossia, 3
Toasted Cheese, 3
Word Riot, 3


2008-09 Notable Story Leaders
(genre magazines are bolded)

Fantasy Magazine, 13 notable stories
Strange Horizons, 11
Narrative Magazine, 9
Clarkesword Magazine, 9
Blackbird, 8
Storyglossia, 8
Eclectica Magazine, 7
Agni Online, 7
Subterranean, 7
Carve Magazine, 7
Word Riot, 6
Thuglit, 6
Apex Magazine, 6
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 6


All Time Notable Story Leaders
(genre magazines are bolded)

Eclectica Magazine, 38 notable stories
Pindeldyboz, 31
Strange Horizons, 27
Narrative Magazine, 24
Agni Online, 22
Word Riot, 22
Blackbird    19
Storyglossia, 19
Clarkesword Magazine, 17
failbetter    17
Fantasy Magazine, 5
King's English, 15
Mississippi Review, 15

Comments

[Michael Ray]

Excellent work. This is part of what lead us to start up Redstone Science Fiction - http://redstonesciencefiction.com. A quality online genre magazine can gain acceptance and traffic quickly.

[Jeff VanderMeer]

Maybe I'm misreading the whole voting process, but couldn't it just be that the genre community is more organized about voting for what they like?

JeffV

[Robert Laughlin]

Mr. Vandermeer, the general readership does not vote to name notable stories. Only the judges can do that. The general readership votes to choose a winner after Jason Sanford has chosen ten finalists from among the notable stories.

[Frank]

Robert,

Well then isn't the answer merely that the judges are showing their biases?

[Robert Laughlin]

You'll have to take up the issue with Jason Sanford. He appoints the judges.

[Jason Sanford]

The notable stories were selected by 18 preliminary judges, only 5 of whom are known specifically for focusing on genre fiction. The reason Fantasy Magazine and the other genre magazines did so well is that so many of the judges--including the non-genre focused judges--picked their stories. The judges also didn't know who their fellow judges were, making it difficult to conspire to pick certain types of stories. As a result, I don't believe there is anyway for all of them to be showing a "genre" bias. Instead, each judge simply selected what he or she believed to be the best online stories of 2009.

Just FYI, here are the judges: http://www.storysouth.com/millionwriters/millionwritersnotable_2009.html#Judges

[Neil Clarke]

All it takes to make the notable list is the support of one judge, right? What percentage of the notable genre stories were picked by the non-genre judges? Did the genre judges pick many non-genre stories?

If you look at the smaller set of stories that were picked by multiple judges, does it still skew towards genre?

[Someguy]

I have to disagree with Richard and Jason. As I understand it, the main pool the judges choose from is nominated by readers and editors, yes? I don't wish to disparage the million writer award at all, but a casual glance at the nominated stories notes that a lot of the most famous literary magazine editors do not nominate stories from their magazines and likewise many of those magazines are not nominated by their readers. Magazines like Mississippi Review and Conjunctions aren't in the pool for 2010. On the other hand, it seems all the major genre magazines are nominating or getting their readers to nominate.

This seems like a likely source of the genre disparity in the award.

[Jason Sanford]

Neil: Yes, to make the notable list at least one judge had to select a story. While I haven't crunched the numbers on which stories were picked by genre vs. non-genre judges, from what I recall there wasn't a clear division between the two. While genre judges tended to select more genre stories, they also selected non-genre stories. The same happened with the non-genre judges.

As for whether the smaller set of stories picked by multiple judges skews towards genre, I'll have to look at those stories and see. Off the top of my head I don't know the answer.

Someguy: One indicator of which magazines and stories make the notable list is whether or not a magazine has stories nominated by either their editors or readers. This year the Narrative Magazine editors didn't nominate any stories--the first time in years they failed to do so. I'm sure this was part of the reason why they didn't have as many notable stories as before. The judges are only able to read so many stories, and having the editors and readers suggest worthy stories to consider helps the process immensely.

But that said, I'm not sure "a lot of the most famous literary magazine editors" didn't nominate stories for this year's award (aside from Narrative). Literary magazines which first publish in print and then reprint or cross-publish online are not eligible to take part in the Million Writers Award. But a vast majority of the top online-only fiction magazines always seem to take part.

[Someguy]

Hey Jason, like I said I'm not disparaging the award at all. Certainly judges can only be expected to read so many stories. But if all of the top genre magazines are nominating and getting their readers to nominate, but many of the top literary magazines are not doing either, then that would help explain the literary-genre disparity. As for whether many aren't, you mentioned Narrative and I mentioned Web Conjunctions and Mississippi Review. That's already three top literary websites. I don't see Hobart, elimae, Opium, flatmancrooked, and others glancing at the editor nominations page.

It is certainly the editors own faults, but I think that it is a factor.

[Robert Laughlin]

We are missing an important point here: sf and fantasy readers share a strong consensus as to which of their magazines are the best. A half-dozen print mags and a half-dozen ezines are considered "must-read" and every writer submits to them first; the remaining magazines get the rejects.

The New Yorker, Poetry and a few other mainstream print mags are "must-read" for their audience, but the situation online is much more splintered--there is no reasonably short shortlist of "must-read" ezines. Perhaps that is because there is too much outstanding material produced within mainstream traditions to be contained in any half-dozen ezines. Whatever the case, expect a few top sf/fantasy ezines to keep getting judges' nominations in bunches.

[Story writer]

How about an explanation as simple as this: People like to read great stories, period.

As someone who writes crime fiction (and has a piece on the “notables” list), I have found that a *lot* of people are drawn to stories involving themes such as dysfunction, greed, violence, lust, revenge, perversion and psychosis. After all, aren’t these elements of the human condition? And most people love to read what happens when interesting characters are put in challenging and extreme situations. … I have found that many of the same people who write literary-genre fiction (and read Wolff and Carver and the New Yorker) also love to read crime-genre stories -- in fact, I have found that the more I warn them that "this piece is not for those with delicate sensibillities, nor for anyone who'd rather not read about 60-minute headlocks and the innappropriate use of toilet systems," the more these folks read these stories. Maybe that's because, at the end of the day, a good story stands on its own.

Every story can be categorized, if someone really wants to do that. Literary-genre fiction can be categorized just as easily as crime-genre fiction. I could rail off a long list of the most common, heavily repeated tell-tale devices, characteristics and ploys of literary-genre fiction (as I could for crime), but I think I’ll stop here …

After all, isn’t the Million Writers Award supposed to be about recognizing great online stories, period?

[Jason Sanford]

Story Writer: Makes sense to me. The story is always the thing!

[Kathy Johnsen]

Ah, the internet; where a man can't make a simple, non-controversial statement about a set of perfectly straightforward statistics without people showing up to piss all over it, for no apparent reason and to no evident advantage (including a couple of big names who don't really need the notoriety and probably ought to know better).

[Rachel Swirsky]

Ah, the internet; where some people can attempt to engage forthrightly with a proposed conclusion to see if it's sound, but there's always some snide little troll trying to derail the conversation because they apparently don't know better and do need the notoriety.