Fantasy Magazine's "relaunch"
I just posted this on a forum for a crit group I'm part of, and then decided I might as well post it here as well:
I saw this news on Ralan's yesterday--there's a .pdf news release, if you missed it. Any thoughts on this? JJA has tons of experience, and I even met him at World Con two years ago, and he's a nice guy. The consistency between the two zines makes sense in a lot of ways.
At the same time, I've had encouraging comments from Cat Rambo in the past, so I'll be sad to see her leaving. And with two reprints a month, this essentially cuts in half the number of stories they'll be buying (which is a big disappointment). But it also sounds like a big change in style/format: instead of a blog, with an unpredictable but pretty frequent number of posts (articles, reviews, interviews, etc.) each week, it sounds like it'll be going back to a more issue-based magazine, with a set (rigid) schedule.
If you asked me a couple of years ago, I'd have said that the blog-based set-up is the future of online magazines, or at least the most likely way to succeed. Cultivate a regular readership, have them come back frequently--ideally every day/weekday, make them feel involved in the community of its readers. Originally Fantasy was more regular with its daily posts, and recently has dropped back to only about three a week (their once-weekly "Blog for a Beer" hasn't appeared in at least a year, I'd guess), so maybe that was just too much work for the editors. Even as infrequently as I commented, though, I did feel more invested in it than I am in some of the other online zines I read. When I visit Lightspeed or even my other favorites, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, etc. much as I obviously enjoy them all, I feel less like a participant and more like a consumer. (The blog model is essentially what Tor.com does...with, I'm sure, a much larger staff and resources...)
Maybe that's OK. Maybe the participant model was flawed--too much work, too little return. Maybe the rise of e-readers means a more issue-based format makes more sense. Or maybe this won't be as drastic a change as it appears in the release. I don't know. This announcement doesn't make me worried about Fantasy's future or anything, but it still makes me sad to see it seemingly abandoning what I had once thought was an exciting new approach.
At the same time, I've had encouraging comments from Cat Rambo in the past, so I'll be sad to see her leaving. And with two reprints a month, this essentially cuts in half the number of stories they'll be buying (which is a big disappointment). But it also sounds like a big change in style/format: instead of a blog, with an unpredictable but pretty frequent number of posts (articles, reviews, interviews, etc.) each week, it sounds like it'll be going back to a more issue-based magazine, with a set (rigid) schedule.
If you asked me a couple of years ago, I'd have said that the blog-based set-up is the future of online magazines, or at least the most likely way to succeed. Cultivate a regular readership, have them come back frequently--ideally every day/weekday, make them feel involved in the community of its readers. Originally Fantasy was more regular with its daily posts, and recently has dropped back to only about three a week (their once-weekly "Blog for a Beer" hasn't appeared in at least a year, I'd guess), so maybe that was just too much work for the editors. Even as infrequently as I commented, though, I did feel more invested in it than I am in some of the other online zines I read. When I visit Lightspeed or even my other favorites, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, etc. much as I obviously enjoy them all, I feel less like a participant and more like a consumer. (The blog model is essentially what Tor.com does...with, I'm sure, a much larger staff and resources...)
Maybe that's OK. Maybe the participant model was flawed--too much work, too little return. Maybe the rise of e-readers means a more issue-based format makes more sense. Or maybe this won't be as drastic a change as it appears in the release. I don't know. This announcement doesn't make me worried about Fantasy's future or anything, but it still makes me sad to see it seemingly abandoning what I had once thought was an exciting new approach.
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