I'm personally discouraged. I was going to submit my latest when I was finished. It weighs in at twenty thousand words but I was hoping to get it down to fifteen thou before sending it out. I know I didn't have much of a chance before...but, now, I have even less of a chance.

There are a lot of local papers being published that, under the right conditions, could become major papers.

There may be others that come and go on the stands. I see Realms of Fantasy regularly---but they publish fantasy, not SF, far as I can tell. Weird Tales is usually around somewhere, too---and I'd classify them as semi-pro publishing. Other semi-pro jobs pop up here and there.

Before they engaged me for the Web site, the tabloid had a circulation of 1200. Afterward, it went to 1700, by and large due to the online version. Increases came from readers who found features in the online version that piqued their interest then sought out hard copies for posterity's sake.

Advertising revenues increased $3 for each dollar increase in costs. Not for increased printing costs, just for paying me and site hosting services. The revenues went up because advertisers were attracted by more exposure for the same cost.

The tabloid's printer had a minimum print run of 2,000 copies. So there was no change in printing costs, or hard copy layout or revenue stream expenses. Less recycling, though. The newspaper was free, no mailing, just hand delivered to strategic newstands. The couple that ran it made a modest living doing it, but sought other pastures after about a decade of running it, but only a year after I started the online version. C'est la vie.

And I've heard a lot of bitter words from people about the newspaper-shrinking---uncomfortable rearranging of important features (the TV section is now just about useless, for example). This kind of thing is a good way to drive readers away, not keep them, no matter how much is saved. (Also more than fifty people lost their jobs at the paper, too.)

Thing is, newspapers in general haven't figure out yet how to make the online edition profitable. The only success story I'm aware of is the Los Angeles Times, which recently announced it can now pay for its entire newsroom operation with online revenue. Most papers are losing money hand over fist because people aren't subscribing and are getting their news online for free. My paper, which is a major city daily, is hemorrhaging money and I fear for my continued employment (so, yeah, I have a personal interest in this).

Here's what will happen with fewer newspaper subscribers. All that free online news is going to disappear. Already newspapers are firing workers by the hundreds and some major ones are shutting down. The Rocky Mountain News in Denver is up for sale and likely will stop publication if it finds no buyer in the next two weeks. A paper in Seattle announced yesterday it, too, is up for sale. I think there might be a major one in Florida in the same boat -- the Miami Herald, I think. No subscriptions = less revenue = fewer newspapers of lower quality.

Now is the same thing going to happen to F&SF, with more readers going online for their short-story fix? (See I'm trying to pull my rant back to topic.) In a way. As readers, we're going to see fewer stories over the long run. As writers, we're going to have an even smaller miniscule chance of getting our work published.

Several print outlets have remarked that online versions of their digests increased circulation of the hardcopy. New revenue streams were developed because online increased exposure, and likely prestige also. Online access to past issues is free in many of the going concerns. Only excerpts or teasers free in the online seige mentality of the laggards. We pay for it directly or indirectly, either way, through advertising. Why not let most if not all of it go for free to readers. To persist in today's marketplace, advertising must coopt the fiction marketplace and vice versa.

Further, the online fiction marketplace must adapt new paradigms in publishing. Online references are chock-a-block full of interactive content. Web page formatting allows for a dynamic multidimensional architecture that a text page doesn't. And online text is machine searchable for that one discrete passage that comes to mind and is tedious to find in printed text.

One existing dynamic in reference Web pages not yet adopted for online prose publication, inline links to dynamic content. That made up word or unfamiliar term that readers stumble over in print, what if in its online version it has a pop-up link that defines it or sounds it out for readers who are interested in things like that--without having to get up and go find a fragging dictionary--and invisible to readers who aren't. Online dictionaries, pedia references do both those things.

Departing from blocky online formatting also might benefit readers by organizing the content in less eyestraining and more syntatically logical structures, making for easier on-screen reading and comprehension. Capability to alter text sizes is one welcome dynamic at some of the more successful online fiction digests. Format the content so that it appeals to readers more than print, but recognize that print isn't going to go away anytime soon.

There are valid reasons why businesses change or go under. Despite what the U.S. Congress wants people to think, this is the time for businesses to take responsibility for years of poor decision-making.

The decision by F&SF to publish bimonthly may mean its owners are reconsidering how they do business. Whether F&SF improves its online presence, changes its in-store marketing, or continues as always except with less frequent publication, it will reap what it sows.

As for our chances publishing, I think TaleSpinner brought up a good point.

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If all the major print mags were to do the same thing, the overall market for stories might reduce by say 10% or 15%. Given that we have a 0.1% probability of getting published in one of them, it hardly reduces our chances of getting into print by anything significant--and makes the kudos of achieving publication even more.

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I'm glad you don't work for the Rocky Mountain News, too, JenniferHicks, but maybe aspirit didn't consider it "a major city daily" and so felt safe in saying that about it.

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Actually, I figured she doesn't work for the Rocky because she separated the Rocky and "my paper". Also, working for government, I tend to forget most people take complaints about their workplace personally. I'm accustomed to people who talk like "The Government" is out to get them and lump all levels of government together.

Yes I would be much more interested in a local newspaper than a national newspaper. My town has a free newspaper that discusses things like decisions of city council meetings, and it ends up in my mailbox twice a week regardless. Perhaps if I didn't already get one for free, I would consider paying for one. For news of the metro area, I usually get that from the TV local news, again, for free. The local TV stations also have websites where they post similar stories to what they had on TV. For national or world news, I use the internet.

I don't think there is a direct comparison between newspapers and print fiction. News depreciates in value very quickly. If a major event happens right now, I can find out about it online probably within an hour (albeit with preliminary details) or wait a few hours for the evening news, both for free. Or I could pay money to receive this same news tomorrow morning.

Of course it doesn't help that one of the local newspapers has been dogging me for months to subscribe. At one point they just started delivering newspapers without our agreement and then started sending bills and I had to call them a half dozen times for them to cancel an account I never started. I can't hold that against newspapers in general, but I will now never consider getting a subscription to that particular newspaper.

Back on topic:
Fiction, on the other hand, doesn't depreciate so quickly, IMO. If I read a good story, it would be just as good as if I read it yesterday or tomorrow or next month. So the delay in time for writing, printing, and mailing, are unimportant. Many stories still depreciate in the long term, of course. I've read some 50's SF and marveled at how terrible some of them were by today's standards, but I expect they kept their value at least on the scale of years.

I don't think that moving to online publishing will produce fewer stories over the long run. On the contrary, publishers will spend less money on all those printing and postage costs and can spend more money either buying more stories or raising their pay rates to attract more writers.

On the other hand, reading a screen that disappears with each click of a mouse reminds me of how fleeting this world truly is.

The Internet and TV are my sources of choice for news (short-term information) - today's news quickly becomes tomorrow's kindling. The information that lasts, such as history and science, I prefer to have in the form of books. I do still rely greatly on the Internet for this information simply because I do not have enough money to buy every book I would like to have.

With literature, it is not information that I seek, but a place where I can crawl inside and live for a short time. More importantly, it is a place that I know I can visit whenever I want.

I've seen the future. Early adapters are already on their way. Why do the fantastical genres have to be last? Wait and see. Watch long enough and they won't be able to catch up. The audience will be lost to early adapters' preemptions.

I once had stacks and stacks of magazines. They're not very portable. Most of them them got left behind in one move or another. I used to spend as much on paperbacks as on booze. I don't buy booze anymore, nor paperbacks very often. The ten thousand I'd accumulated over seventeen years weren't very portable, either. They went in lot sales to used bookstores at a penny a cover store credit for new purchases. Most of the titles going for about fifty cents that were available were the same ones that I traded in. I bought a couple of reference books. I kept a few of my favorites, some of which got lost through loaning out.

My library shelves now hold mostly antique dictionaries and reference books, a few replacements for favorite fictions, and a few more-modern references and contemporary novels, several dozens of writing tomes that collect more dust than wear. The rest see regular use.

The gem in my collection, Porter's 1860s Principles of Chemistry, Pre-Mendeleyev's Periodic Table. The original owner's signature practice limns the front and back endpapers in pencil. At the time I bought it for a quarter at a yard sale, it had ten times its present-day appraised value. Online used booksales drove the value down. No matter, it's a classic sample of bookmaking from a bygone era and its content is fascinating.

My 1926 Funk and Wagnall's Standard Encyclopedia complete set in mint condition sans slipcovers has gone up in value since I paid a buck for it at the same yard sale I bought the Porter's. More fabulously fascinating content, like Porter's, that's not on the World Wide Web.

Dictionaries that span a century of changes in language, and my how it's changed. A mass market casecover edition of Black Beauty from before paperbacks came into production. A 1947 Hoyle, rules for gaming entertainments. Know what a four-flusher is? A common derogatory term from the mid 20th Century. The use of the term by GIs and sailors during World War II directly caused the game of poker to abandon four cards in the same suit as a hand superior to a pair. Even though the odds of a four flush are longer than the odds of drawing a pair, a four flush is no longer a hand superior to even an Ace high. A four-flusher is a sneaky low-down churl taking advantage of every niggling trifling card over a noble pair. Webster's 11th Collegiate, 2004, "four-flusher; to bluff in poker holding a four flush; broadly: to make a false claim: BLUFF."

Print isn't going anywhere, the Internet is.

It's one of our leading national newspapers, to the left of the Times, and I believe that all the print content is also on-line, certainly much of the in-depth analysis. I never buy it now, always read it online, and feel as informed as I ever was, FWIW.

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JenniferHicks, I agree with your sentiments about newspapers and hope, believe, that sooner or later we will come around to paying for decent on-line coverage. After all, a few centuries ago, we moved from free news via word of mouth to paying for newspapers. We may have to go through some uncivilized times before getting there, but here in the UK I think the Guardian is leading the way:
]http://www.guardian.co.uk/

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Pat, I don't think you'll have to worry about that happening. It seems inevitable one way or the other to me. I see one of two things happening with print news.

The first is that free market forces will eventually force the print market down to only a few players. It's happening already with newspapers buying up smaller ones. Sooner or later, there will only be a few left that will be willing and able to pay for quality reporting and news, so they will be the only ones left with news worth reading. When that happens, I would expect that they would miraculously all decide to charge for the on-line stuff as their print markets fade, and would be the only on-line sources with reliable reporting.

The other thing I could see is visual news media pushing print news out entirely as a paying business model. Then, everything on-line would become a free service offered by someone else, like Yahoo, MSN, Google, and so forth, just to get visitors. Kind of like the main street mom and pop stores being all but run out of business by places like Walmart and Target. One stop shopping.

Personally, I think the latter is more likely. People who grew up with the internet expect all their media for free, and everything is heading that way. The genie is out of the bottle. The problem with newspapers is that they are based on very old technology, and don't seem to be able to adapt well as a business model under the new technologies. As the readers used to the old technology fade away with time, the newer readers expectations will force newspapers to either die or adapt. The same goes for music and video, but they are making headway on adapting, where newspapers don't seem to be.

I read my antique books, the Funk and Wagnall's cover to cover during a dark, dreary, miserable time. Got me over habituation to alcohol. The Porter's has detailed processes and methods providing for the agricultural, medical, and industrial needs of the times. The university where it was a required textbook served the vocational needs of the region, farmer-chemist-doctor-inventors like Booker T. Washington. One particularly detailed process covers how to get tree stumps out of the ground with a minimum of fuss. Dangerous though, not the kind of reading material that I'd want to fall into the wrong hands.

In endeavoring to get a better handle on where the creative writing game is going, and looking for sales figures related to print-companion free e-digests and novels, I've located a lot of talking points about name writers and publishers. Tor's free e-books, Baen's free library, Mike Resnick on his results, John Scalzi, Thomas Buckell, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, Harlequin, HarperCollins, Random House, St. Martin's Press, Yale Univerity Press, blogs galore--some optimistic, some naysayers--all have forayed into the free online fiction marketplace.

I'm an inveterate cutter-outer---I've got piles of some comic strips going back to the late 1970s. I also like these things in consistent piles---and the rearrangement defeats this consistency.

In addition to that, there's two comic strips I like, but which have lapsed into what amounts to living death---"Peanuts," which I am devoted to, but which in my paper currently runs strips I cut out back in the 1990s---and "For Better or For Worse," which I was devoted to, but whose creator made the decision to go back to Square One (in both style and content).

I'm forced to go online to find my favorites---and, also, find ones not in my local paper, but that I like and want to read regularly. The notion of "paying for what you get" came up above. Last year, I finally bit the bullet and subscribed to the "goComics" service, to get several bundled together in a neat package I can print out and paste into notebooks. (Not ideal---there's some kind of glitch in my web browser that every so often prevents one or other of the comics from printing out correctly and completely, forcing me to go to their pages to get a corrected page and printout.) (Nor does this service have every comic I like to read---I may eventually subscribe to a competing service as well.)