Amazon has ended its periodicals program, and independent publishers are panicking
Books, yes. Magazines — maybe. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge
I like short stories. I read them, and I write them. I grew up subscribing to and reading The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog, and a bunch of others, some genre, some not. And as I got older, I began to understand the financial tightrope that many of these independent periodicals walk — a tightrope funded by contributions, subscriptions, the occasional ad, and perhaps a second mortgage.
I also understood that any resource that makes it a bit easier for these pubs to find and keep readers — like the ability to gather subscribers through Amazon’s Kindle Periodicals program — can make all the difference in keeping the books (and their walk on that tightrope) balanced.
Until that resource goes away.
No…
