Whatever

Cicada and Cricket also pay 25 cents a word, and they often publish genre fiction.

If one can make it to the top of literary short fiction publishing, the pay is quite a bit better than the adjusted Heinlein rate. Authors may be looking at $3000-$5000 per story. The drop-off between the sky-high markets and the more likely ones is very sharp, though.

As a short fiction writer, I think it financially behooves me to stick with genre publishers -- unless I can get The New Yorker or similar to pick up my work. If I were to flip to novels, though, the smart financial decision seems to be leaving genre far behind.

Another factor may be the rise of the genre market for novels. As far as I know (and my genre history is, admittedly, not perfect), there were far fewer novels published (even as a proportion of the population) back in the 50s. This went double for SF. Science fiction had relatively few novels coming out per year, and fantasy/horror didn't even exist as marketing categories until the 60s and 70s. Perhaps some of the decline in short fiction, both in terms of readership and payrate, reflects a general shift in SF towards novels.

I toyed around with your calculator thingy, and it might also be worth noting that the inflation index from 1938 is affected by years of Depression-era deflation (deflation being almost unheard of in the last fifty years). So a cent in 1920 would only be ten modern cents.

While one might expect that magazine pay rates would have adjusted themselves to deflation, that might be hard to do when you're only pay a cent a word. It's kind of a shiny number. So it's likely that the pulps just kept paying a cent despite it being worth relatively more and then kept paying a cent afterwords. Meaning that this particular year (1938) was a historical high point (since the US has only had two deflationary years in the seven decades since that year).

The simple answer is "yes". Back in those days, it was actually possible for a young agent to make money placing writers' short stories, as Julie Schwartz did.

Now, even the best of short story writers just can't get by on it. Just look at Howard Waldrop. Oh, sure; very few writers of stories OR novels are able to quit their day jobs entirely, but it used to be possible. Now, no one working in short stories--even writing the occasional novel--can afford to do so, unless they're getting income from a myriad of other sources.

What I was thinking the other day was that an anthology or series of novels (a la the Harlan Ellison Discovery series, or the "Ben Bova Presents" books) with built-in readership would help greatly; just imagine the royalties those writers published under the aegis of a "J.K. Rowling Presents" could garner ...

Not sure how this applies to the discussion, but I tend to write more traditional fantasy, and find it very hard to place because short markets tend to want less traditional and more experimental/weird/pick your word kind of work. It's very frustrating for me to market hunt. I've not had a novel published yet (you kinda have to have one actually finished for that to occur, you know ;)), but I do know the frustration and lack of pay is part of the reason I'm more focused on working on my novel(s) than on my shorts. Most of the time, I fell like what's the point?

Yea, I'm sure I'm in for worse aggravation when I finally start submitting my novels.

I also wonder how 1) the fact that most of us who want to paid for our work start at the top paying markets and work our way down (thus creating more intense competition for placement in the higher paying markets) and 2) that there are so many willing to just give away their work to non-paying markets influence how much short fiction markets pay. I run a markets forum and it's just appalling to me that on a page of 50 markets, maybe 5-10 pay even semi-pro rates, and of those almost half are on hiatus. The vast majority of the markets I post pay nothing at all. If writers are willing to give it away, then I don't see much of a push to get markets to pay more.

Of course, I could be off base in assuming there's any connection at all. I've been known to do that more than once...or twice...or so. ;)

I'm a new comer here, I think one of the problems is that there is a great glut of written word being produced and it's hard to separate the good from the bad. 40 years ago, it was absolutely possible for someone to read all of the science fiction published that year, now?

I was just at Comic-Con, the major publishers were giving out the “hook” novels, your Old Man’s War, Ender’s Game, Deepness in the Sky to attract new readers. I went out to Iraq last summer and set up a library for our squadron, 200 plus people and out of the whole bunch, there were probably 15 readers and only 5 were readers of SciFi and Fantasy. Most of the Marines I was with played video games and watched sports.

But I was able to hook some in using the same methods Tor and Daw did. Old Man's War is a great book for that, you have one of the best first lines I've ever read:)

I think it isn't just a decline in short SF. I think there's been a general decline in short fiction over the years: this may be due to the influence of teh interweebs, I'm not sure. It may be a sort of circular feedback loop, where magazines pay less so fewer established authors write short so magazines pay less because they're still getting huge loads of submissions even at the lower rate and so fewer established authors write short stories and...

And here's where the advent of the web may be partly to blame. As I understand it, subscriptions to short fiction magazines have been falling for years. The undiscerning reader can get millions of (generally poor quality) stories for free on the web. There are zines and flash fiction sites and boards filled with execrable fanfic, more than enough to keep someone reading for years without paying a cent.

I mourn the loss of the market. I know that if I ever want to earn any sort of living from fiction, I will have to write novels, and that's a bit sad because I love short fiction. So someone like me, who writes a lot of short fiction and enjoys it, will have to stop writing it. Or keep writing it and keep the day job, and perhaps have my highest goal be to have Nick Mamatas accept a story for Clarkesworld.

40 years ago, it was absolutely possible for someone to read all of the science fiction published that year, now?

Harriet Klausner.

Guilty Admission #1: Even though I subscribed to Asimov's for a couple of years, I could never manage to finish more than one short story per quarter, at best (though I would read the columns voraciously). Something about the form puts me off, try as I might to tackle it.

Guilty Admission #2: In terms of pure Science Fiction, I believe I haven't read a science fiction novel other than Old Man's War in the 21st Century, despite once being a voracious consumer of it (with the possible exception of the Jean Cavelos' Babylon 5 stories). Fantasy? Tons. But honest-to-goodness SF? Not so much. Not sure why this is.

Seem to me there is more than on issue here.

First, writing short stories takes a different skill set than writing novels, so not every writer out there can do both. If writing short stories is not a way to support yourself then there is less incentive for new/developing writers to learn the short story skill set.

Second, from what I have heard from couple of sources there is less demand from the public for short genre fiction. Magazine sales have slumped, but so have anthology sales. Even Romance, and media-tie in, short story anthologies are not selling as well as they have in the past. I've heard that a couple of publishers have either shelved or cancelled short fiction anthologies this year.

I have a theory about this that has to do with the changing face of SF, and maybe other genre, readers. I have my husband's reading habits to thank for this theory. He's a, research scientist with training in electrical engineering and environmental biology who reads mostly short SF fiction, sort of the "classical" SF fan. I think these "classical" fans prefer short stories because most short SF has a puzzle, riddle, interesting-problem-clever-unexpected-solution, structure that appeals to this sort of reader. The same sort of story structure is found in most short Mystery fiction and I'd be willing to bet that many people who read Analogue also read Ellery Queen.

As SF readership has expanded outside the "classic" fan base it started to include people who were looking for things other than that "clever solution" as the heart of their fiction. Texture, world building, and character relationships were more important to them, and to really developed those things you need more than the 3000-5000 words you get in most magazines these days. So, these people don't buy magazines, the mags have less money, they can't pay as much for stories, and fewer are written.

And just an aside, my guess is that a majority of the non-"classical" SF readers are women. This came up at discussion panel at a Con I was attending not to long ago. Some vocal older fans were vetching about female readers "ruining" the genre by caring more about who characters slept with than about the science in a book. I think they are wrong, but I know that opinion is out there.

Rachel:

"Cicada and Cricket also pay 25 cents a word, and they often publish genre fiction."

They are not primarily SF/F publications, however. They may publish SF/F, but it is not really in their mission to do so.

Not that I think people in SF/F shouldn't submit their fiction to non-genre markets; they should submit to any market open to fiction. I'm just focusing on the SF/F market.

Rahul Kanakia:

"While one might expect that magazine pay rates would have adjusted themselves to deflation, that might be hard to do when you're only pay a cent a word."

Not really. There were lots of genre magazines that paid in fractions of cents per words back in those days. I regret to say I've seen publications suggesting they'd pay in fractions of cents today as well.

Your point about 1939 was a good year for the penny is noted, but I don't know how relevant it is. Today's payment rates for beginning writers are well below what they were in 1920 or 1939; the question is whether they are 60% of what they used to be, or about 40%.

Sean:

"I think one of the problems is that there is a great glut of written word being produced and it's hard to separate the good from the bad."

Eh. Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") was coined long before the advent of the Internet; I imagine the ratio of crap has been constant.

Also, I'm not sure, if one is talking about outlets that pay a "pro" rate (which according to SFWA is five cents a word), that it's not possible to read all the genre outlets that publish short fiction, because there's not that many of them.

Dean:

"It may be a sort of circular feedback loop, where magazines pay less so fewer established authors write short so magazines pay less because they're still getting huge loads of submissions even at the lower rate and so fewer established authors write short stories and..."

I think it's definitely true that there are fewer magazines that pay good money for short fiction, and that lowers the motivation of people looking to be commercial writers to write in the field. I didn't bother writing short stories before I wrote my first novel; I didn't see much point to it.

I don't know how much responsibility can be laid at the feet of the internet and readily available crappy fanfic or flashfic. It's like saying hamburgers have diminished the market for steaks. Circulations at the "big" SF magazines were falling before the Web hit it big; the initial conditions there did not include the Web. I suspect, in fact, that they would be much better off embracing the Web more than they do, but that's a topic for another conversation.

WizarDru:

Clearly the solution is to try more recent SF. Go to the library and check some out there; it's a no risk way of doing it.

Mfitz:

"Some vocal older fans were kvetching about female readers 'ruining' the genre by caring more about who characters slept with than about the science in a book. I think they are wrong, but I know that opinion is out there."

Heh. Yes, what a horrible thing that people would be interested in reading about people!

I do think your "clever solution" point is probably on point here.

I'm not positive about the SF markets, but for most publications the major money comes through advertising, not subscriptions. Subscription cost is mostly mailing and printing.

I think that would be a great new declarative statement for slang use, instead, "Getting Real Paid!" or "Mad Fat Loot!"

Instead once could say, "I'ma go make me some Heinlein money!"

I bet you it'll be the title of the new DMX album. Mark my words.

In 1938 there was no television and the book market was upscale no mass market paperbacks at all. If science fiction novels appeared at all it was as magazine serials.

So pulp magazines were a major part of leisure entertainment with much less competition than the magazines of today.

With no television let alone computers people were much more literate. If you wanted entertainment and the movies and radio were not to your taste reading was your only choice.

I also like the deflation from the 1920's legacy rate argument.

I love to read good short specfic, and I still have my standard subscriptions (and now my bookmarks on online sources), but I primarily rely on "best of" anthologies to feed me. I like short fiction because when I get really busy and the novel and non-fiction to-read piles simply must be ignored, I can still feed the fiction monster in my belly.

I don't spend a lot of time writing short fiction, though, and one reason is that it does seem rather a lot of work for, well, not much. And I'm not getting any younger, and I have a very demanding day job. And it isn't as if I write solely for the money, but the type of writing I choose to do with the little time I have for it is certainly influenced by the value I anticipate I'll receive from the finished project. Even a blog post I spend an hour writing, for which I don't get paid at all, has a higher value to me because I value the immediate community interaction and feedback. But to spend how-many odd hours working on a short story? Eh. I have three half-finished stories on my currently unusable laptop hard-drive. Maybe, if they're recoverable, I'll finish them. But if I do I might just post them on my blog.

Part of the problem with pay rates is that a lot of print markets can't afford to pay that much. For example, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction only has around 20,000 subscribers, and not a lot of retail presence. Out of this they need to cover expenses, not just editorial but printing and distributing.

Baen can afford to pay more, even on a base of about 5,000 subscribers, because it's all web-based, and so distribution expenses are nearly zero.

My theory for the decline of magazines is due to the decline of "casual" readers. Back when the average household had only a handful of TV channels, or even earlier in radio, people bought magazines simply to have something to do of an evening. There is a lot less of that now.

Also, on the flip side of the inflation coin - how much did a book cost in 1938? Bear in mind that the first mass market paperbacks hit the US market in 1939.

In 1994 I was a sucky teenage writer with big dreams, little talent, and almost no follow through. However, I remember very clearly that Analog and Asimov's paid 6-8 cents a word for stories under 7500 words. If this trend continues, according to the CPI calculator, short fiction writers are getting closer and closer to making that Heinlein penny per word($450 now has the buying power that $324 did).

Jeff Beeler:

"With no television let alone computers people were much more literate."

If you're talking about actual literacy (i.e., the ability to read at all), I don't think this is true. If you're talking about the number of people who read for entertainment, I don't know that it's true either, since people read lots of stuff not counted as literature, including blogs and message boards.

Chris Gerrib:

"Back when the average household had only a handful of TV channels, or even earlier in radio, people bought magazines simply to have something to do of an evening."

Well, I think you underestimate the resourcefulness of the average entertainment-seeking human. Remember that in the 30s and 40s movie attendance was far higher than it is today; I would not be at all surprised if attendance/participation in local events was also pretty high. Prior to the invention of the television people didn't just sit around waiting for it to arrive. They found other things to do.

This is not suggest that people didn't read more fiction, back in the day, merely that they weren't reading it just because there was nothing else to do.

Daniel:

I think it's a very salient point that the payment among science fiction magazines has been stalled for a very long time. It would be interesting if someone could generate a historical chart plotting both the actual per word rate at the "big three" SF/F magazine, and what the rate is indexed to the CPI. I would expect the former line would be a slow rise, flattening out at the end, and the latter line would be a downward slope.

John - I do understand the movie attendance thing - my family ran a theater from the 1930s to the 1960s. For a town of (then) 2,000 population, it seated maybe 100. It was full every night until TV came to town. Ditto the dozen or so bars.

Yes, people were more creative at getting entertainment. Part of that creativity was buying a magazine. :-)

More to my point - I think that a way to sell more short fiction has to be via online delivery channels.

In the intro to _Skeleton Crew_, Stephen King makes the point that while he only netted $770 for the initial serial publication of "Word Processor of the Gods", by the time that his collection of short stories came out, he'd picked up another $2300. (Of course, not many people get Stephen King money, either). There is the possibility of money beyond the initial serial sale.

Something else RAH said may be relevant here -- one of his rules for writing (and I paraphrase): "Write the story, and put it on the market until it's sold. No matter how bad it is [and I think he is assuming a minimal level of professionalism here -- grammar, spelling, in conformance with the conventions of the market], someone somewhere will need material badly enough that he'll buy it." And Heinlein did that, in the way discussed in this thread. He'd write, and submit to Campbell at _Astounding_. If Campbell couldn't pay top rates, he'd accept a lower word rate, but it would be published under a pseudonym (and possibly at one of the less prestigious mags that Campbell edited). If it didn't go there, he'd go to lower- and lower-tier mags until it got published. I believe he sold every single piece of short fiction that he wrote, once he took up writing as a living. Not always for a cent a word, but for something.

Once the manuscript was finished, the labor/time to do it was a sunk cost. A half cent a word from _Thrilling Wonder Stories_ was better than letting it sit in trunk.

Bill M:

"Once the manuscript was finished, the labor/time to do it was a sunk cost. A half cent a word from _Thrilling Wonder Stories_ was better than letting it sit in trunk."

I agree with this. The question is whether the amount of money on offer is enough to spur someone to write in the first place. As it happens, I've sold every short fiction piece I've written as well, but at this point that's because I don't generally don't start writing short fiction unless I know I'm going to make a sale -- i.e., the work was solicited and the terms agreed to beforehand.

This does go a long way to explaining why I don't write a lot of short fiction (most editors don't feel they need to agree to those terms, and by and large they're correct), and why most of my non-novel writing time is spent writing other things.

Special interest magazines are going to take a big hit with the latest postal rate changes. The periodical mailing rate has been restructured. Publishers now have to use more complicated sorting for their subscriber database, and more advanced barcode labels to mail at the periodical rate. Smaller publishers who can't use SCF drops, and other automated mailing options, because their subscription base is small, will be paying up to 20% more. Large publishers like Time/Warner, whose operations take full advantage of mail automation and have large enough subscriber bases that they can truck large numbers of magazines to regional centers for local delivery will be seeing little if any price change.

I've been worried since I saw the changes about the impact this will have on marginal magazines of all sorts, not just genre fiction.

Great read, great comments. A must visit blog for sure :)

I used to read a bit of Asimov's as a child (though, upon reflection some of those short stories should have been rated MA ;) My mother was an avid SF reader, both short and long. I enjoyed the science based short stories over the fantasy and never really got strongly into the genre. If I choose, I am more likely to reach for a science thriller or fiction with scientific storyline or of course scientific non fiction. I think that SF may not the most popular variety of fiction, and as economics play out, not the most lucrative. But, this is all speculation; I am truly ignorant on this subject.

As far as short story financials, as a member of the massive 'aspiring writer' club; I was surprised that the pay was that good, as I was under the impression that you were rarely paid for short story publications. I thought the pay generally was the exposure and the in print experience, unless you were a published novelist commissioned for the short story via publicist.

Also, although short story writing takes significant skill, I am not sure that it is as large of a working project as a book might be and therefore may not belong in the same pay scale. But, if you write short stories; you can always publish a book of short stories. I look for these collections sometimes, as I find short stories to contain philosophical or challenging thought processes and plenty of meat for the buck (pun intended).

Well, I am off to see what else this wonderful treat of a blog might be hiding for other discussion gems!

KellyAnne

I very much enjoy good SF/F short-stories. I also believe firmly that, at least in that realm, the web is the new pulp-mag. In light of that I recently sprang for the first three issues of a new on-line mag with a very prestigious backer.

The first issue was good. I enjoyed it and felt the money was well-spent. I suspect that was an effect of it being the premier issue though because the stories in the next two issues fell in quality to the point where I didn't even care to spend the pittance required for the fourth.

Low pay equals low-quality work equals fewer subscribers equals lower-pay equals lower-quality work equals fewer subscribers...

You can see the trend.

The question before those who don't want to see the short-story die is, How does a publisher, web or otherwise, break the cycle and still make money?

As a voracious reader, to some degree, I've always looked at an author's short works as a gateway to their longer works -- a faulty assumption, in many cases (folks such as Ellison or Paul di Filippo seldom write novels, and the ability to crank out 7000 words doesn't guarantee that they can sustain a narrative of 150,000).

Do writers such as yourself view short works as advertising, as a loss leader to get someone to shell out $27.95 for a novel?

Of course, I find myself reading less short fiction overall -- the last subscription I had to F&SF I dropped years ago because there was so little, outside of the editorial stuff, that I enjoyed. I pick up a story online periodically when you or Cory Doctorow post a link -- I miss The Infinite Matrix in particular, but I keep meaning to read Subterranean online and perhaps OS Card's webzine (although, it's not FREE).

The plain fact is that the circulation of Analog, F&SF, Weird Tales etc. is way down from the pulp heights, which in turn leads to the lower per-word rate, which leads to more crap being bought (Sturgeon's Law in practice), and the cycle continues.

joelfinkle:

"Do writers such as yourself view short works as advertising, as a loss leader to get someone to shell out $27.95 for a novel?"

Personally? No. I see the short works as works in themselves, to be enjoyed as such. Now, if people like them, they act as advertisements for the novels, etc., as a matter of course. But you have to make every work stand on its own. People know when they're just being marketed to.

I'm in USC's MPW program (which is like an MFA, sorta, only taught by writers and directors I had heard of before I considered grad school), and this question has come up a lot. The program aims at professional writing (the 'PW'), and focuses less on 'fine art' than on story, structure, market, and craft, often in that order. I've worked on both two novels and two screenplays in classes, but I've also been encouraged to write short fiction. Which I did.

The thing is, one of the requirements in the program is that, at the end of the semester, we have to submit our work to publications we've chosen. Or that our teachers recommend, sometimes because they know a guy who knows a guy, or even are on the staff.

(this is how a lot of the small-press literary magazines work: they are publications of MFA programs, edited by students in the program and run by faculty. Not all, but some, certainly. Ploughshares springs immediately to mind)

Thing was, I was really unimpressed by the marketplace. I've never really gotten into the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly, and nobody buys Playboy for the short stories. After that, Chris Gerrib's already made the big point that turned me away: retail presence. I've seen The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Glimmer Train at Borders, but others? I don't know if I've ever seen a copy of Ploughshares. I know I never saw The Southern California Review, which is the one from USC, before I was in a class at USC.

In Strange Highways, Dean Koontz made a joke that, had he been writing for the then-current market and had an agent, Poe would've been encouraged to make "The Masque of the Red Death" longer, and maybe add a part for Jim Carrey. This was back when Carrey was popular, of course, but the point was that short stories just aren't so worth it, mostly. I think Different Seasons is the finest collection of novellas ever, but I'd be hard pressed to name a single place where "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" would've found a home.

My personal solution was self-publishing via Lulu. I had already attracted a small audience via MySpace, and so, in March, I put the collection up on Lulu. For a self-published collection from an unknown writer, the reception has been pretty good, especially considering they would've been sitting in a computer folder otherwise. A few weeks ago, it also became the first e-book to appear in pictures on an iPhone.

One thing my writing program taught me (and perhaps the most important so far) is that I can write short stories, and I can write screenplays (which is, of course, the main market here in LA), but I don't love anything the way I love novels.

I really think there's so many different things going on here that it's hard to place the blame for low short story pay in any one place. You could target changes in how people spend their leisure time, a shift in interest (by both readers and publishers) from SF shorts to novels, more sources of things to read (some of them free), the top magazines' inability to attract younger readers, the ease of creating a new ezine (potentially diluting the market), and on and on and on. Fewer readers == lower pay for everyone involved.

One of the interesting things that I've discovered in the course of working on a sf zine is that there are a lot of people who are interested when they see it, but would never think to look for something like this in the bookstore. It makes me wonder whether maybe the biggest problem is that only the hardcore fans even know these publications exist.

Yes, Baen pays extremely well for the current prevailing circumstances - but that "25 cents a word for pros" is a little misleading. From their website:

"If we commission a story from you, our pay rates are as follows:

* For the first 5000 words, we'll pay 25 cents a word. That comes to $1,250
* For the next 5000 words (i.e., from 5-10K), we'll pay 15 cents a word. That comes to $750, or a cumulative payment of $2000 for a story that was 10K words long.
* For the next 10,000 words (i.e., from 10-20K), we'll pay 10 cents a word. That comes to $1000, or a cumulative payment of $3000 for a short novella that was 20K words long.
* For the next 20,000 words (i.e., from 20-40K), we'll pay 8 cents a word. That comes to $1600, or a cumulative payment of $4600 for a short novel that was 40K long.
* Anything longer than that, we'll pay 6 cents a word.

Our rates are lower for stories that we buy from unsolicited manuscripts, whether submitted through the submission form or the Slush conference. They range from eight to fifteen cents a word depending on various factors. Stories bought from Baen's Bar for the "Introducing" slot will be paid six cents per word."

Please note, the really high pay rates apply only if Baen actually ASKS you to write a story for them. Otherwise, if you're submitting over the transom, it's "8 to 15 cents" - which, admittedly, is still twice to three times what the next market pays but it's far from a quarter a word.

However, that's quibbling - it's one of the best-paying markets, if not THE best-paying one, out there today for stuff that's less than novel-length. I've been lucky enough to have had a story accepted there - and perhaps one day I'll graduate to having a story commissioned from me, at a quarter a word. A girl can dream...

"It makes me wonder whether maybe the biggest problem is that only the hardcore fans even know these publications exist."

i know that every now and then, i get an itch to see what's going on in the s/f short story genre and i practically have to tear the newstand or even the magazine rack at b&n and borders apart to try and find the big three -- and i live in NYC! i also notice that when i do find the 'zines, they generally tend to have the same author names on them as the last ones i bought, maybe months before. its a tough market to break into -- and i'm not saying that just because i've been trying to break into it. as you start submitting down the scale, one still feels slightly furtive about it -- as if sending your work to an online 'zine or one of the quarterlies is somehow degrading! i've had a few things published in smaller markets, and i've been paid, but of course, those markets and publications don't count towards becoming a pro-s/f writer! still, i love doing short stories and novellas, so i keep trying.

One comment by Larry Niven that I always have since thought makes the most sense is that the real talent for short story SCIENCE FICTION writing has found its way to TV and Movies. I think the point is that we may never know what potential exists out there right now because the talented have gone another way, with no intention of ever writing novels or short stories in the first place. For example Darren Aaronofsky and his movie "Fountain". It implies that screen writing and story boarding are on the same wave-length as short story writing in contrast to SF novels as a form of literature/entertainment. (there are generations of middle school aged students over the last 15 years indirectly being taught this message )Good novels seem to find their audience somehow, that is, despite the pressure from electronic media. One dose not need to write a short story to validate his ideas as legitimate given other outlets available. The remunerations involved simply drive the quality SF stories to other places, because at the end of the day Science fiction is dead sexy.

I was thinking along the same lines of Craig Mitton.

If you're a solid writer of SF, particularly shorter SF, it might be a far better effort to work on TV or film scripts. Are there a lot of SF/Fantasy TV shows on? Battlestar Galactica. Eureka, to name just two that come immediately to mind. Scifi regularly produces original SF movies, etc. And I wouldn't be blind to comics, Star Trek, Star Wars and video game tie-ins, etc., either.

So I'm sure that at least part of the issue here is that if you're a writer who's more comfortable working at this length--30-55 pages, say--then there's clearly more money to be made writing scripts than short stories.

On the other hand, as a freelancer and novelist who still makes the bulk of his money off his freelancing, if I want to write something relatively short, I've broken into a number of nonfiction markets that pay anywhere from 50 cents to $1 a word or more (sometimes I don't get paid by the word, so the rates are higher), and if I'm going to consider how best to spend my time, a short story isn't really the way to go. (On the other hand, neither is a novel, but that's a different topic for a different day, I guess).

I realize that I used to read short SF all the time. I don't read so much of it now. I do buy JBU and I do read a few of the stories each issue but I'm probably not getting my $5 worth. I have to say that, particularly at the current £/$ exchange rate with an issue of JBU costing the same as a pint of beer this does not worry me too much.

I will say that JBU, so far, seems to be a higher quality level than other (e)magazines. Assuming it can maintain its rates - and I understand it's doing well enough that that is true - then perhaps more people will subscribe and allow some sort of virtuous circle. When JBU was announced I did some back of the envelope sums that indicated that it could be viable on 10k readers and wildly successful with more. As I understand it, JBU is actually breaking even on fewer than 10k because it is offering levels of membership for dedicated fans. As far as I can tell this is unique and undoubtedly helps build loyalty, but it doesn't of course help build a fan base.

I need to research this,but a very minor point. One reason Campbell's Astounding was able to pay more back in 1939 was that more people were buying the magazine. I don't think even Analog tops 25k copies per year. According to Wikipedia (which isn't infallible), Analog's circulation fell from 115,000 in 1983 to 28,000 in 2006. Who can afford to pay a lot when that happens?

Jonathan Strahan:

"Analog's circulation fell from 115,000 in 1983 to 28,000 in 2006. Who can afford to pay a lot when that happens?"

As I noted in the main entry, I'm not faulting the magazines for paying what they pay. I am suggesting it's had consequences for the market.

Another interesting comparison is the per-word rate for short fiction vs. the rate for nonfiction freelance writing.

6-8 cents a word isn't much when it comes to paying the rent. And compared to the 14 cents to $3 per word that Writers Market lists for consumer magazine features articles, it seems even lower!

It seems to me that I'd be more likely to keep a roof over my head focusing on nonfiction markets, and keeping the short fiction going as more of an avocation.

Jeri:

"It seems to me that I'd be more likely to keep a roof over my head focusing on nonfiction markets, and keeping the short fiction going as more of an avocation."

Well, yes. That's pretty much what I do, in fact.

What we're trying to do at Baen's Universe is raise the prices people have to pay to get good writing. If we could have a minimum of a quarter a word, we'd do it tomorrow. We will get there...we're committed to continuing to raise the bar. And it is already working. After only a year in existence, we've gotten quite a reputation for quality writing and just plain good stories.

Francis is quite right-- at 10k readers, we'd be wildly successful. We're at about just over 3k now, and the Universe Club is picking up the slack. We expect to make 10k readers in a year or two. (hint, hint-- www.baens-universe.com to subscribe)

Personally, I have been writing SF and F for over thirty years, and most of it got roundfiled just after writing. I have now sold enough stories to qualify for SFWA membership, but my problem is the same as Mark Terry's. I can make $.85 to $1.25 a word writing freelance non-fiction, where Martin Greenberg paid me $.065 a word for the short story I sold him for the _Something Magic This Way Comes_ anthology this year. Do the math.

And since my day job is also as an editor (www.controlglobal.com) I know what _I_ pay freelancers. Same as I make when I freelance.

The market is there.

Eric the Red's sinister plan is to make Baen's Universe so successful that the other venues will have to pay similar rates. Mike Resnick, Paula Goodlett, and all the rest of us on the team are on board with that.

We are following RAH's dictum: we are separating you from your beer money. We'd better give you as good or better value than you'd get from your brewski.

Hmm. Maybe SFWA should become a union, and go in for collective bargaining on short-fiction pay scales?

I.e., is short fiction really worth 1/35 of what it was 70 years ago?

Paul di Filippo does write novels.

http://www.pauldifilippo.com/novels.php

But for somebody who started out only being interested in writing short fiction -- there's no escaping John's points. There is no reason to be in it for the money. And no reason other than pride in one's work to put the type of time/energy in as well.

Has anyone looked at the inflationary rate of cover prices for these SF magazines over time? That would also be an influence on how much publishers can afford to pay.

FYI, a similar discussion on this topic ("Death of the Short Story") is brewing over at the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

http://www.nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/378/8094.html?1186087941

Anybody else read OSC's IGMS?

I'm curious how its quality compares with the other mags out there.

There is no reason to be in it for the money. And no reason other than pride in one's work to put the type of time/energy in as well.

Taking the above points about Baen's Universe into consideration as well:

[unsolicited manuscripts] range from eight to fifteen cents a word depending on various factors. Stories bought from Baen's Bar for the "Introducing" slot will be paid six cents per word.

You'd be amazed to discover how many people vie for the 'Introducing' slots in the magazine, even though they pay the worst.