Talebones Kaput

[Bill Ward]

Just announced at Patrick Swenson's live journal page that Talebones will cease publication as a magazine, though it will resume at some point as an anthology series.

As chance would have it, I just blogged about the subject of vanishing print markets over at my site. The post was prompted by my finding a list of target print markets I had made years ago, in which I was shocked to see that 9 of the 14 magazines I listed are no longer with us.

For fantasy, science fiction, and horror news, books reviews, opinion, and short fiction, check out: BillWardWriter.com</font>

[Jordan Lapp]

Damn, that's bad news. I wish Mr. Swenson good luck in his future endeavors.

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor, Every Day Fiction
First Place Winner, Writers of the Future Q3 2008
Visit my blog, Without Really Trying

[darkbow]

Sorry to hear it, but anthologies might be the wave of the future.

Preludes: four stories of the fantastic, available exclusively for the Kindle

"Beneath a Persian Sun" upcoming in Carnivah House's "Infinity Swords" anthology
"Zombie Tears" upcoming at Dark Fire

"Devil and Devil Damned" at Flashes in the Dark, "The Death of Lester Williams" in the anthology Deadlines, "Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" in "The Return of the Sword" anthology, "The Way the Sunlight Lies Upon Her Hair" at Every Day Fiction, "Zombie Tears" at Tales of the Zombie War,

For more stories, check out my blog at www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com</A></A>

[Bill Ward]

I think we will see anthos picking up where some of the mags left off, especially with POD technology -- but I'd really hate to see print mags disappear.

For fantasy, science fiction, and horror news, books reviews, opinion, and short fiction, check out: BillWardWriter.com</font>

[SilviaMG]

I think some people are caught in a time loop. It used to be that the only way to get your content was through print magazines, but now that I can read it online and the print magazine offers no visual experience or benefit (I'm thinking of F&SF), why should I choose print?

F&SF, for example, has an awkward, ugly format filled only with type. Not a lot of shelf appeal and it gets lost in the rack.

Magazines have not explored many frontiers. You could make a visually exciting publication, but that would require great design and integration of content and text (um, run graphic novels in the magazines along side print stories? comic strips? etc). And that means money and creativity. There's many a spec zine I've seen which looks boring, bland or frankly ugly. Considering they are supposed to be spec zines, this is baffling.

Some zines have lots of organization issues. I will not say which magazines, but I am still waiting for copies of some print magazines. My subscription seems to mean: give us money, we'll give you product one day. Maybe.

Amusingly enough, I like to read during lunch breaks, and while getting to and from work, so I am actually very interested in buying some print magazines. But when they do not arrive, their website is outdated and I can't find contact info, what am I to do? I don't have the same issues with the Graphic Design magazines I purchase.

In the end, many spec magazines look and feel like they're my grandmas magazine and/or have huge customer service issues. There's some really good ones, specially small press. But there's also some big problems with others.

Silvia's online at silviamoreno-garcia.com



Innsmouth Free Press

[erazmus]

Sylvia,
oddly enough I have just the opposite problem with non genre print magazines. They have no content, they are picture captions and photo layout with zero actual ideas. I'm talking a lot of different kinds of magazines--news, men's, specific topics like car, gun and boats.Most of the newer ones are dumb'd down or so they seem to me.

I much prefer the print unencumbered by graphical content. I do not want intense topic oriented graphic content included with my genre reading. It is both distracting and embarrassing, even when done well. Perhaps especially when done well. I read horror, fantasy, science fiction, crime, and most other genres. I read graphic novels, comics and other media as well, but mostly I read print.

Big splashy illustrations are hard to explain on an airplane, bus or across a restaurant. graphic design often renders the print unreadable as editors seem unable to resist printing over the graphic. I read black over white or off-white best, as most people do. I do not read as fast or well reading yellow over black, red over shades of gray, or white over any color but black. Even the best illustrations usually come up short to the picture in my head while reading a well done story.

And I get funny looks and unpleasant responses to well illustrated magazine I read in public. I subscribed to City Slab back before it folded, I loved it. I loved the illos, photos, and the stories. But I had to read it at home. It was too explicit and far to visible to, say, read in a restaurant over lunch. Not to mention reading such material is far too public. I don't want people to know what I'm reading, its none of their business. Print is private, if someone is close enough to read over my shoulder, they are close enough to introduce themselves and ask about it.

And the reason you should choose print is that printed stories come with a completely customized, one of a kind made specially for you graphic element played privately in your own head, perfectly matching your preferences and prejudices while not bothering or informing anyone else of them. The level of detail your own mind call fill in without effort to a well written tale is unmatched in any visual media.

Mike

Michael D. Turner
'Psyched Up' in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
'Dutchman Rescue'in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

'An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern' in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:

www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
'Pink Plastic Flamingos' in Big Pulp
www.bigpulp.com/m.html
'Stains' in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
'Morning Coffee' in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
'The Jewel Below' in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
'Happy Landings' in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
'Teller of Tales' in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read 'Silver Shells' In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/

[SilviaMG]

Erazmus,

Layout and design, when well done, should compliment and work well together. Red type over black is a silly choice because it is hard on the eyes. So is a font that is not reader friendly.

In my line of work I encounter many people who think layout or typography means dumping some text on top of a picture. That is not layout. Good layout and design draw you into the story. A well-laid out novel may not have pictures in it, but there is still an art to designing for text-heavy documents.

I like the design of Weird Tales. It looks pretty decent and does not over do the whole illustration thing. I liked Realms of Fantasy. Shimmer, as far as small print zines go, does very well and their paper choice and size are pretty efficient.

Other magazines do not fare so well. I have paid and received magazines with the bleeds trimmed wrong (it looks bad, bad, bad), size formats that were hard to read or carry around (can't fit it in my bag), or poor quality paper. All this is pretty bad considering I spend good money on these zines and expect a certain level of quality which is sadly missing at times.

Considering your customer picks a magazine after looking at it for 15 seconds, you can not afford to:

a) Have an unattractive or boring or poorly made cover
b) Be hidden away in the rack

Yet many magazines forget one or both of these points (online publications also make this mistake).

While it is forgivable for a fanzine, the pro-markets (and semi-pros too) should take more care in their look and feel, and in other aspects such as distribution channels, promotions, market segmentation, etc. Yet many times it seems these things are an after thought (or not even considered).

I like print products, I do, but some print magazines need a bit of a reboot.

Silvia's online at silviamoreno-garcia.com



Innsmouth Free Press