A shadow over spec-fic mags

Amazon is to end digital magazine and newspaper subscriptions in September, along with a service which has been around for a decade in the US, but was never launched in the

UK, the ‘print textbook rental program’, writes Gary Dalkin. An Amazon spokesperson told Publishers Weekly: ‘Following an assessment of our print textbook rentals and our magazine and newspaper subscriptions and single-issue sales, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue these services. We don’t take these decisions lightly, and are winding down these offerings in a phased manner over several months.’

This decision may seriously impact fiction magazines, as since the decline of print distribution many speculative fiction titles, among them Analog, Apex, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, The Dark, Forever, Fantasy Magazine, F&SF, Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, Nightmare Magazine and Uncanny make most of their income through digital subscriptions, often through Amazon, though also through other outlets including their own websites. Any lack of availability on Amazon may mean many people never even discover such titles exist, and readers are less likely to search for them elsewhere online, potentially threatening the future of many digital titles. Neil Clarke, publisher and editor of Clarkesworld, wrote: ‘Earnings from Amazon subscriptions provide a varying and sometimes significant portion of the revenue that these (speculative fiction) 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. … None of these magazines are 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.’ Reading between the lines, it appears that the move is designed by Amazon to force magazines to join its Kindle Unlimited programme, as some, though not all subscription titles are being offered the option to join KU as an alternative. Clarkesworld is one of these titles, and it looks like Amazon wants all digital magazines in one place, presumably to greater increase the appeal of Kindle Unlimited. For customers it seems like a bad deal, as rather than being able to buy a single issue of a title or subscribe to it, soon readers will have to pay a monthly subscription to access titles they will never own, along with many other titles they may have no interest in. And that’s for the magazines Amazon decides to allow into the KU ecosystem. Smaller and less prestigious magazines than Asimov’s and Clarkesworld look like they will be out on their own. Amazon says it will begin notifying customers about the changes in March.