Previously, we’ve announced that the NBC deal looks to be going through; that this deal will provide the funding we need to begin regular publication of new short fiction, albeit on a limited basis, and that internally we’ve been discussing and planning how we’re going to go about doing all of that.
Now it is time to find out what you, our readers, would like us to do.
We would greatly appreciate it if you’d take a little time and ponder two questions:
1. What should Amazing Stories publish? (Only Science Fiction? SF/F/H? Specific sub-genres of one or more of the preceding?)
2. Who should Amazing Stories publish? (advocate for your faves).
There is a good chance that we’ll start our publication of fiction by targeting and soliciting specific authors and then, after a suitable time frame, begin open submissions. Here’s your chance to tell us who you think we ought to solicit.
Put your answers in the comments and/or join the discussion we’re having on these subjects on Facebook.
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When Hugo Gernsback first hit on the idea of “scientifiction”, it’s likely that he was primarily looking for an unexploited niche on the newsstands, rather than looking to establish a whole new genre.
He experimented with his idea by publishing stories that came close to the kind of thing he was looking for in the Electrical Experimenter magazine and later, Science & Invention. Starting in 1923 he even published a couple of “special scientifiction” issues to help him gauge the market. In fact, he was planning on launching Amazing Stories that year, but then held off for reasons not entirely clear.
When he launched Amazing Stories in 1926, he did so based on only two pieces of information – his own guesswork and the responses he’d received to the publication of those early StF tales. He then had to sit back and wait to see how things would develop.
These days, we’re much more fortunate; we’re not limited by the speed of the mail or the telegraph, and we don’t have to rely on a single individual’s vision and guesswork.
This is your opportunity to shape the future of Amazing Stories…to take a step towards ensuring that it is the kind of magazine you would like it to be.
