The Problem with Fiction Magazines…

…in the early 1900’s. And perhaps today?

“This was about the way the problem looked to me as I analyzed it. Magazines were in danger of being driven from the field. They were emphatically off the key. They seemed to be made for an anemic constituency — not for the young, energetic, red-blooded men and women. Editors edited these magazines for themselves, not for the people. That is, they gave their readers what they (the editors) thought they ought to have. The were like architects who build a building for the outside rather than the inside — build it for their own glory, rather than to make it serviceable for the uses for which it is designed. These editors were not men of the world. They didn’t mingle with the world — didn’t get down to the people and mix with the people. They lived in an artificial literary world, where they saw everything through highly-colored spectacles. There was a woeful lack of up-to-date-ness about these magazines.— a woeful lack of human interest.”

-Frank Munsey, publisher of Argosy, the first American pulp magazine

Lest you think the literary vs popular debate is a new thing. Maybe there is a lot of room for quality, exciting fiction magazines right now.

And speaking of exciting fiction magazines, I hope StoryHack helps scratch that itch for you. Issue 0, Issue 1, with Issue 2 coming very soon.