Neil Clarke's Blog, page 4

Amazon Kindle Subscriptions

We’ve been offering Clarkesworld Magazine for subscription on the Amazon Kindle since 2011 via their Kindle Publishing for Periodicals (KPP) program. If I recall correct, we were the third genre magazine on the platform, right after Analog and Asimov’s.

Earlier today, I received an email that began:

I am writing to share a Business Update on the Amazon Newsstand Business planned for 2023.

As part of our annual operating planning review process, we always look at each of our businesses and what we believe we should change.  Following an assessment of our magazine and newspaper subscription offerings via Newsstand, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the individual subscription programs for both print and Kindle, which also includes Kindle single issues. We don’t take these decisions lightly. We are winding down this program in a phased manner and will work with you throughout the wind down process to help ensure the best experience possible for our mutual customers.

It went on to detail some information about a plan to invest in magazine and newspaper content in Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Prime Reading before expressing a timetable for ending KPP in September 2023.

What Does This Mean

Amazon is effectively ending its print and digital subscription business. If you have a monthly or annual subscription to a magazine on their platform (among which you will find Clarkesworld, Forever, Asimov’s, Analog, F&SF, Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, The Dark, Apex, Galaxy’s Edge, and Uncanny) your subscription will end in September.

Earnings from Amazon subscriptions provide a varying and sometimes significant portion of the revenue that these publications require to stay in business. If you don’t already know, genre magazines are subscription-driven, meaning that subscriptions make up the bulk of their income. Some people think advertising is a major source, but it actually represents a tiny fraction for us. (Advertising tends to be a leading source of revenue for glossy magazines, so it’s easy to see where they could get that impression.)

None of these magazines is entirely reliant on Amazon, but as the largest ebook retailer in the field, the cancelation of this program will hurt and in some cases, hurt badly. Badly enough to shutter a magazine? Maybe. It’s too soon to tell and there are a lot of variables, including you.

What Was That About KU?

It turns out that some (not all) publishers are being offered an opportunity to offer subscriptions in KU Magazines. If you are already familiar with KU from the author side, this version is a little different. Unlike books in KU, magazines will not be required to be exclusive to Amazon and instead of being paid by pages read, you are paid based on calculations around “qualified borrows” or basically, active subscribers. Readers with a KU subscription can subscribe to magazines in the program. Publishers who have been invited will be provided an estimate for their annual income and a contract. That estimate is what Amazon is willing to pay you to offer your magazine to their subscribers for the year.

Clarkesworld has been offered entry into this program, so I had a phone meeting with them today. I should receive an estimate and contract next week. Some of the information in this post comes from that conversation, which they indicated was fine to share. (Receiving this news the week before Christmas was terrible planning on Amazon’s part, but not the fault of the person I spoke to. They were quite helpful and I worked hard to keep from inflicting my distress on them.)

Several of my colleagues have informed me that they received letters without an invite. During my meeting, I inquired if this meant they were not selected. This was confirmed, but it was indicated there might be room for reconsideration for a few.)

What Happens Next?

Amazon plans to inform subscribers via email in March. I asked if there would be an opportunity for the publishers to be involved in the framing of that language and it was received positively. I should have additional information sometime in mid-January on how that will work, but first impression was that it would be some direction towards the publisher’s website for information on how to continue subscribing somewhere else (or even KU should the publisher be willing and able to go that route).

I would rate the likelihood of Amazon changing their mind as very slim. I don’t know precisely why they are doing this, but they are doing so with full knowledge of how many customers it will impact and potentially upset. That doesn’t mean you should refrain from letting them know how you feel about this, particularly if you are a current subscriber.

Each of us has 8-9 months to try to figure out how to work around and adjust to these changes. It’s no small task. Some of us have thousands of subscribers on their platform and even with some cooperation from Amazon to get the word out, migrating subscribers to a new platform will be extremely challenging.

I’m hoping for patience from our readers and followers. I’m going to be pushing subscriptions quite loudly for a while. Because I have to. We’ve also been talking about the need to increase our subscription price. (I’m not sure why magazines are locked at a price from ten years ago, but all other literary content has increased in that time.) This situation may make it a necessity and not just for us.

And finally, if you are an Amazon subscriber, please don’t forget about us. Your subscription will continue well into 2023, but at some point we hope you’ll transition to a new subscription from one of the many places that offer them. Look for information in our January issue or come back here around then. You can also check out our current subscription options, but we’re hoping to add to that. If you have suggestions, please don’t hesitate to ask about them. No matter what, thank you. Your support over the years has been crucial and we hope it can continue.

Thank you.

Philcon 2022

This November 18-20, I’ll be attending Philcon in Cherry Hill, NJ and participating in the following program items:

Saturday

11:00 AM – Autographs

1:00 PM – State of the Short Fiction Market
Jean Marie Ward, Fran Wilde, Margaret Riley, Neil Clarke, Stephanie Burke

Sunday

12:00 PM – Meet the Editors!
Michael A. Ventrella, Ann Stolinsky, Ian Randal Strock, Neil Clarke, Margaret Riley  

Capclave 2022

I’ll be attending Capclave (Rockville, MD) this weekend and will be on the following panels:

Friday

4:00 PM The State of Small Press Publishing
Participants: Cathy Green (M), Joshua Benjamin Palmatier, Mike McPhail, Neil Clarke
It’s no secret that Capclave loves small press publishing. What’s considered a small press today and how is it different than years past? What’s new and exciting in small press publishing?

Saturday

1:00 PM Anthology Builder
Participants: Alex Shvartsman, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, David Keener, Jeanne Adams, Joshua Benjamin Palmatier (M), Neil Clarke
Your anthology questions answered! How do you come up with a theme and properly curate your anthology? How do authors produce readable fiction in the confines of an original themed anthology? How do the stories get picked? What sells and what doesn’t?

2:30 PM From Amazon to Zines – Publishing in the 2020s
Participants: Ingeborg Heyer, Joshua Benjamin Palmatier, Neil Clarke, Ty Drago (M)
The publishing industry continues to evolve in surprising ways. How has Amazon, self-publishing, technology, the internet, or other factors changed the way books get made? What direction might publishing go in the near future? What do authors and readers need to know about publishing trends?

4:00 PM Ask the Editors
Participants: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Joshua Benjamin Palmatier, Neil Clarke, Scott H. Andrews (M), Ty Drago
Here’s your chance to ask our panelists all your burning questions about being an editor. Our panelists will give an overview of their role and then turn it over to you.

2022 Hugo Award for Editor (Short Form)

I won the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Editor (Short Form) at Chicon this past weekend. I was absolutely convinced this would be my tenth loss. That also means that I was completely unprepared to give a speech. Fortunately, I’ve been keeping a list of names in my jacket pocket for years (that list was falling apart so I had to copy it to a new piece of paper that day) and was able to make the best of it. Barely remember what I said, but people have been very nice about it. I’ll have to watch the video sometime.

My thanks to this year’s Hugo voters.

Oh and if you are wondering what the TSA has to say when you take a rocket through airport security, it was one word: “Nice!”

2022 Worldcon Schedule

These are the panels I am scheduled for this year at Worldcon in Chicago. I will also be at a number of other events (Hugo Awards stuff and other things) still being scheduled.  Clarkesworld will not have a table in the dealer’s room this time (sorry, only at cons I can drive to). If you see me wandering around though and would like to chat, feel free to stop me. If you’ve had a story rejected by me at Clarkesworld, you can always ask for the card. If you don’t know what that is, you can ask about that too. Good icebreakers.

Launching and Maintaining a Magazine (Crystal Ballroom C)
Thursday, September 1, 2022, 1:00 PM CDT

Table Talk – Neil Clarke (Crystal Foyer)
Thursday, September 1, 2022, 4:00 PM CDT

Get to Know Short Fiction Publications (Crystal Ballroom A)
Friday, September 2, 2022, 4:00 PM CDT

Ask an Editor: Short Fiction (Michigan 1)
Saturday, September 3, 2022, 1:00 PM CDT

Best of the Year (Crystal Ballroom A)
Saturday, September 3, 2022, 4:00 PM CDT

Autographing – Neil Clarke
Sunday, September 4, 2022, 11:30 AM CDT

The State of the Translation Market (Randolph 3)
Sunday, September 4, 2022, 4:00 PM CDT

Sorry for not including the names of the other panelists, but it’s not easy to copy and paste from the scheduling system. I’ll add them when I have it in an easier to use format.

Spanish Language Submissions at Clarkesworld

In a November 2020 editorial, I announced our plans to hold a Spanish language submission window at Clarkesworld sometime in 2021. What I didn’t see coming was seven months of kidney stones and related hospital stays. It became very difficult to keep up with my normal obligations and fell behind on more than a few. This inevitably led to the project being delayed.

For much of 2022, work on this project has been in the background. I spent months working on revisions to our submissions system. I would go as far to say that these changes are the most significant updates I’ve made to the software since I began working on it in 2008. More recently, a small group of volunteers translated all the author-side text, prompts, and emails into Spanish so they could be added to the system. I hope to move this update into production during the next month or two.

This month, I will start training our Spanish language team on English language submissions. We have a few people on-board, but it would be nice to have a few more. Here is what it entails:

reading 1000-8000 word science fiction stories submitted in Spanish and providing notes (in English)if you will not be recommending a story for translation, it does not need to be read through to the end,  but you will need provide a short summary of what you read, and your reasons for rejecting it (these will be kept confidential)if you will be recommending a story for translation, you will need to provide a thorough summary and your reasons for recommending it (also confidential)you may occasionally be called upon to give a second opinion of a story recommended by another readerresponse time is important to us, so we’d like readers to commit to reading three-five stories each daythe submission window for this trial project is one month, but may be extended to two if we don’t receive a satisfactory number of submissions from a variety of Spanish speaking regions of the world in the first monthtraining will take place on live English language submissions so we can better assess and provide feedback on your summaries and comments (during training, we read every story you read)the dates for our submission window is directly related to how well training goes and the team’s availability (we hope late 2022, at worst early 2023)we take confidentiality very seriously–you are not permitted to talk about stories, cover letters, authors, or any other data found in submissions or our submission system with anyone outside of our fiction team

When it comes to slush readers, we normally look for people are (or want to be) authors or editors. (We see this as an educational opportunity and it serves those groups best.) We also expect a certain level of familiarity with what we’ve published in recent years and an ability to clearly state your likes and dislikes, even if you know I won’t agree. (Tell me what you think. Not what you think I want to hear.) Obviously, you should be fluent in Spanish.

During the time you are working with us on this project, you will not be permitted to submit your own fiction in either language. A small stipend will be provided.

If you are interested, please contact me at neil (at) clarkesworldmagazine.com and we’ll talk about it.

Confluence 2022

I’ll be attending Confluence this weekend as their Guest of Honor. If you’re in the Pittsburgh, PA area, why not stop by and say hi!

Here’s some of the panels I’ll be on:

Friday 4 pm: SF/F/H Magazines: Print versus Online [Commonwealth West]
Saturday Noon: Reading Short SF: Why You Should Be Reading Short Fiction, Both Classic and New [Commonwealth West]
Saturday 1 pm: Autographing [Near Registration]
Saturday 3 pm: GoH Interview [Ballroom 1]
Saturday 5 pm: Where To Next? Trends in Recent SF [Commonwealth East]
Sunday 11 am: Kaffeeklatsch [225]
Sunday Noon: How Do Editors Shape Their Publications? [Commonwealth East]

Clarkesworld Citizenship

We developed the Clarkesworld Citizenship program in the very early days of the magazine and it since has evolved into a popular option, particularly among those find everything they need in our online text or audio podcast editions. Not everyone wants or needs a print or electronic subscription, so having an alternate method to support the magazine is important.

If you’ve ever seen one of our annual Clarkesworld anthologies, you may have noticed the key perk of being a Citizen: being officially recognized for their support.

Learning from our friends at PBS, we made Citizenship a tiered program with fun titles. You can be a Citizen, Burgermeister, Royalty, Overlord, or Diety based on your level of monthly support. Your name (or pseudonym) is listed under your title in the Census of the next volume (print and digital).

Subscriptions are important to the future of Clarkesworld and directly impact what we can pay our authors, artists, and staff. If a traditional subscription isn’t for you, I hope you’ll consider this fun little alternative available at one of these two sites: Patreon and ClarkesworldCitizens.com.

Oh and I’m working on the Year Thirteen anthology now. If you sign up soon, your name could be in that one!

 

Clarkesworld Android and Apple apps

Over the last few months we’ve experienced an increasing number of issues with the company that has been handling our Android and Apple subscription apps for Clarkesworld Magazine. Among them is the fact that they haven’t paid us since August.

Because of this, we’ve been left with no choice but to cancel our relationship with them. At this time, we have been unable to secure a list of active subscribers from them, so we are sending out an alert via the app that will direct people to this post.

We are presently investigating other options for providing subscriptions on those platforms and hope to restore that option with a new vendor. If you were an app-based subscriber, please consider one of these options as an interim or permanent replacement:

AMAZON
Monthly digital subscriptions to Clarkesworld are available for the Kindle and Kindle Apps for Android, iPhone & iPad. Issues will automatically be delivered to your device as they are released.
BUY HERE – Amazon.com (US, Canadian and International Subscribers not covered below)
BUY HERE – Amazon.co.uk
BUY HERE – Amazon.de
BUY HERE – Amazon.fr

BARNES & NOBLE
Monthly and annual digital subscriptions are available for the Nook and Nook app. New issues will be delivered automatically to the Nook.
BUY HERE – barnesandnoble.com

CLARKESWORLD CITIZENS
Among the many options to support us directly at Clarkesworld Citizens are digital (EPUB, MOBI/KINDLE, and PDF) and print subscriptions. Monthly subscriptions start with the current month’s issue. Files must be downloaded to your device.
Join at clarkesworldcitizens.com.

PATREON
Among the many options to support us at Patreon are digital (EPUB, MOBI/KINDLE, and PDF) and print subscriptions. Monthly subscriptions start with the current month’s issue. Files must be downloaded to your device.
Join at Patreon.

WEIGHTLESS BOOKS
Annual and semi-annual digital (EPUB, MOBI/KINDLE, and PDF) subscriptions. Gift subscriptions available.
BUY HERE

 

If there are other subscription services that you are aware of, please feel free to leave a comment on this post and we’ll see whether or not we can add them to our list of distributors.

Chicon 8

I just booked my flight and hotel room for Chicon 8, so I’m one step closer to attending Worldcon this year. Despite that, I still have a reluctance to say that I’ll absolutely definitely be there even though it looks like I will.

Why?

Ten years ago, I was supposed to attend Chicon 7. I had just received my first Hugo nomination for Editor Short Form and I was excited to have the opportunity to celebrate with my fellow finalists. Everything was set. I had my flights, hotel, and membership. A month and a half before the convention, however, I had a heart attack and nearly died. I tried to maintain some hope that I could attend, but it wasn’t destined to happen. Trip canceled.

Here it is ten years later… I’m celebrating my tenth time on the ballot and it appears as though I’m set to visit the same city to mark the anniversary. To say I’m looking forward to it is an understatement.

That heart attack changed a lot of things for me and reshaped the direction of my career as an editor. It also left me with a significant amount of heart damage, which puts me at high risk with regards to COVID. All the other conventions on my list for 2022 are in driving distance, which eliminates the need for airports and reduces my risk of exposure to a more reasonable level. Toss in the recent end of mask requirements on planes and an expectation that cases will tick upwards towards the end of Summer, and you find the source of my uncertainty. I want to be wrong, but have to acknowledge that the ghost of my heart attack could strike again and keep me home.