Realms of Fantasy to Close
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Posted by Colin Harvey Jan 30, 2009 |
I learned yesterday that Realms of Fantasy is to close with its April issue.
The Big Three SF and fantasy magazines are Analog, Asimovs and Fantasy & Science Fiction. It was sometimes said that RoF was very much the Fourth Man, overlooked and comparatively unloved. Maybe that was because of its fiction policy, which one fellow author at Swimming Kangaroo Books complained very strongly about.
I actually liked the fiction in RoF, and bought it a couple of times, but didn't subscribe because:
1. I've never liked the layout, which -like it's colleague Science Fiction Age-- looked tacky . Probably as much the ads as anything else, which are necessary, but looked awful.
2. And I already review F&SF, Asimovs, Interzone and Black Static, (the last two of which are stunning to look at and an object lesson in what the look and feel of a magazine should be) and there are limits to how many books and magazines I can read in a month. So sadly, RoF didn't get my pennies, and I could be accused of crocodile tears, if you so wish.
But it's the subtext, which I don't think holds up in any way.
The reason given was 'plummetting newsstand sales.'
To be frank, newstand sales are not what keep a magazine afloat, but subscriptions and electronic sales. Every other magazine is facing the same problem.
F&SF has gone to bi-monthly scheduling.
Asimovs and Analog have reduced their page count by over 20%. I don't like either of those measures, but at least they're making a fight of it, and they have considerably lower sales bases than RoF.
Sovereign gave the team at RoF no opportunity to make a fight of it even if they'd wanted to. They were in such a hurry that they didn't even let them print the existing inventory.
Yes, the credit crunch is hurting a lot of people. But some people are hiding behind it, among them --I believe-- Sovereign Media.