The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25 (Mammoth Books) (3 page)

None of this, impressive as it is, means that the print book industry has collapsed. There were still an enormous number of print books published in 2011, and many of them sold very well indeed. The U.S. Census Bureau’s preliminary figures for October 2011 show estimated bookstore sales of $886 million, down 43 percent from September 2011, but down only 7 percent from October 2010 figures. For the year-to-date, sales are up 2 percent at $12.91 billion. Overall retail sales were up 1 percent from September, and up 8 percent year-to-date.

The effect of the ebook revolution can best be seen in the changes in the
kinds
of books that are selling best. Hardcovers and trade paperbacks both saw their numbers increase, with a noticeable boost in new titles, but the traditional mass-market paperback reprints dropped significantly, as did new mass-market titles. The fact that ebook sales are dramatically increasing at a time when mass-market paperback sales have dropped suggests that ebooks are to some degree filling the market niche once occupied by mass-market print books, particularly reprint titles.

Unexpectedly, sales of print books also surged during the holiday season, with Barnes & Noble showing a 4 percent rise, the first increase in five years. This suggests that many people still find a print book to be a more satisfactory Christmas present than the gift of an ebook – something physical to wrap and put under the tree.

For this reason, and the reason that for the foreseeable future there are going to be people who just
prefer
a print book they can hold in their hands to an ebook that must be read from a screen, and prefer browsing at a bookstore to shopping for books online, the publishing apocalypse that some commentators seem almost to yearn for, where all the publishing houses go out of business, physical brick-and-mortar bookstores disappear completely, and print books themselves become extinct (or at least rare artifacts), is probably not going to happen – although things in the publishing world are never going to go back to the way they were before the invention of the ebook either. (Another factor not usually taken into consideration in conversations about the future of books is that even here in the twenty-first century, there are still plenty of people who don’t have ereaders, don’t have notebook tablets, don’t have Internet access, don’t even have computers of any sort, and their numbers may even swell as economic times harden. To ignore them would be to abandon a considerable subset of potential customers. Even the poorest of people may occasionally be able to afford a paperback book, where they might not be able to afford a Kindle or an iPad.)

Besides which, it doesn’t really come down to a choice between print books and ebooks. The most likely thing is that most customers will buy
both
print books and ebooks, choosing one format or the other depending on the circumstances, convenience, their needs of the moment, even their whim. There are even some indications that in some cases people will buy both the ebook and print versions
of the same book.
The chances are fairly good that all of this will eventually lead to a general expansion of the book business in general, no matter what format the books are being sold in. More people seem to be reading more books, in whatever format, than ever before – and that can’t be bad news in the long run.

One of the other big stories of 2011 was the controversial move by Amazon to found their own publishing imprint, leading to accusations of anti-trust practices, the charge being that Amazon’s immensely deep pockets (estimated at $40 billion in 2011) and its position as the leading online bookseller would enable it to engage in predatory pricing to destroy its retail competitors, the so-called Big Six publishing companies, by effortlessly outbidding them for bestsellers. This has led to what the Author’s Guild blog has called “a behind-the-scenes battle for control of the publishing industry,” a three-sided battle between Amazon, the Big Six publishers, and Barnes & Noble, whose NOOK is the Kindle’s rival for dominance of the ebook market.

Another big story, one which has an impact on the story above, was the bankruptcy and collapse of the giant bookstore chain Borders, with Borders stores closing across the US. This means that fewer books have places where they can be sold, with total rack space decreasing dramatically nationwide as the 650 Borders bookstores disappeared, something that was itself widely feared to be apocalyptic last year, although the surviving chains and, particularly, online sales from places like
Amazon.com
and the Barnes & Noble online bookstore,
BN.com
– (plus revenue from increased ebook sales) – seem to have minimized the impact to some extent. Nevertheless, the behind-the-scenes impact of the Borders closing, in terms of diminished sales and adjustments to the number of books bought and the amount of money paid for them, to say nothing of industry employees dismissed to cut costs, is likely to reverberate through the publishing world for years to come.

There’s some irony in the fact that many independent bookstores were driven out of business by the dominance of the big bookstore chains, and now the chains themselves may be being threatened by online bookstores like
Amazon.com
and by the ebook revolution. There’s even more irony in the fact that the problems the chains are having may be creating opportunities for more independent bookstores to come into existence and reclaim some of the market share they lost, and the last couple of years have shown exactly that happening. So the independent non-chain bookstore, once considered to be an endangered species, tottering on the brink of extinction, may, unexpectedly, be making something of a comeback.

Things were relatively quiet on the surface of the publishing industry in 2011, although changes and adaptations forced by the ebook explosion and the closing of Borders will no doubt be felt for many years to come. Random House added two new paperback YA/middle-grade imprints, Ember and Bluefire. Pyr also began publishing YA fiction, and Orion Children’s Books launched a new YA imprint, Indigo. HarperCollins announced a new imprint for Avon, Avon Impulse, concentrating primarily on ebooks and print-on-demand books. Anthony Cheetham left his position as associate publisher and member of the board of directors at Atlantic Books to form his own book imprint, Head of Zeus. Nicholas Cheetham left his position at Corvus to join his father at Head of Zeus, and was replaced as editorial director at Corvus by Sara O’Keeffe. Scott Shannon, mass-market publisher at Ballantine Bantam Dell, is moving to a new position as senior vice president and publisher for the entire Random House Publishing Group, although he will remain as publisher of Del Rey and Spectra; Libby McGuire, publisher of Ballantine Bantam Dell, will take over as head of the mass-market line. Hartmut Ostrowski stepped down as CEO of Bertselsmann, and was replaced by Thomas Rabe. Jennifer Heddle left Simon & Schuster to edit
Star Wars
books for Lucasfilm. Paula Guran stepped down as editor of Juno Books and became senior editor at Prime Books. Chris Schluep left his position as senior editor at Ballantine/Del Rey to join
Amazon.com
Books as a senior editor. Phyllis Grann retired as senior editor of Doubleday after a forty-year career in publishing. DongWon Song left his position at Orbit US; Tom Bouman joined Orbit US as an acquiring editor. John Helfers left his position as senior editor at Techno Books after sixteen years in that position. John Prebich left Dorchester as CEO, replaced by Robert Anthony. Linda K. Zecher has been hired as president, CEO, and director of Houghton Miffllin Harcourt. Gillian Redfearn has been promoted to editorial director at Gollancz. Tricia Pasternak was named senior editor at Del Rey. Jessica Wade was promoted to senior editor at NAL. David Rosenthal was named president of the general imprint at Penguin Group. Allison Lorentzen joined Penguin Books as an editor. Michael Rowley has been hired as editorial director for SF/Fantasy at Ebury Publishing.

There were relatively few changes in the professional print magazine market.
Realms of Fantasy
died for the third time in three years, perhaps for good this time (since they obviously have a dedicated readership, but not one large enough to support the expense of a print edition, I really don’t understand why they don’t try this one as an online electronic magazine).
Weird Tales
was sold to Marvin Kaye, who took the unpopular step of dismissing the current staff of the recent Hugo winner and announcing that he was taking the magazine in a nostalgically retro direction, something that few industry insiders thought would work; most are predicting a short life and an early death for this venerable magazine under its new management.

Overall circulation of most of the professional print magazines is slowly creeping up, after years of decline, mostly because of sales of electronic subscriptions to the magazines, as well as sales of individual electronic copies of each issue. The figures are still too small for anything other than the most cautious of optimism, but it may just prove, as I suggested it would years ago, that the Internet will be the saving of the professional SF magazines.

Asimov’s Science Fiction
had a very strong year as well, perhaps strong enough to earn Sheila Williams her second Hugo in a row. Excellent fiction by Paul McAuley, Kij Johnson, Michael Swanwick, Elizabeth Bear, Tom Purdom, Ian R. MacLeod, and Paul Cornell appeared in
Asimov’s
this year, as well as much good work by Robert Reed, John Kessel, Mary Robinette Kowal, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Theodora Goss, Allen M. Steel, Nancy Kress, Nancy Fulda, and others; there was a high proportion of SF in the magazine this year, with only some fantasy, most of which was weaker than the SF. For the second year in a row,
Asimov’s Science Fiction
registered a gain in overall circulation, up 7.3 percent from 21,057 to 22,593. There were 12,469 print subscriptions, and 7,500 electronic subscriptions. News-stand sales were 2,334, plus 290 digital copies sold on average each month in 2011. Sell-through was 28 percent. Digital editions became available on more platforms in 2011, including the iPad – via Zinio – and the Kindle Fire. Sheila Williams completed her seventh year as
Asimov’s
editor.

Analog Science Fiction and Fact
had a somewhat weak year overall, although it still published strong stories by Alec Nevala-Lee, Sean McMullen, Juliette Wade, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Don D’Ammassa, Marissa Lingen, and others.
Analog
registered a 0.2 percent rise in overall circulation, from 26,493 to 26,440. There were 19,302 print subscriptions, and 4,100 digital subscriptions. News-stand sales were 2,941; plus 150 digital copies were sold on average in each month of 2011. Sell-through was 30 percent. Stanley Schmidt has been editor there for thirty-two years, and 2011 marked the magazine’s eighty-first anniversary.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
also had a strong year, publishing more SF than they usually do (although they also published a lot of fantasy, most of it better than the fantasy in
Asimov’s
); excellent stories by Robert Reed, Geoff Ryman, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Chris Lawson, and Peter S. Beagle appeared in
F&SF
this year, as well as good stuff by James Cambias, Robert Chilson, Karl Bunker, David Marcus, Albert E. Cowdrey, Kali Wallace, Ken Liu, Rick Norwood, and others.
F&SF
registered a 4.7 percent drop, from an overall circulation of 15,172 to 14,462. Print subscriptions dropped from 10,907 to 10,539. News-stand sales dropped from 4,265 to 3,923. Sell-through was 38 percent. Figures for either digital subscriptions or digital sales of single issues weren’t available, although Gordon Van Gelder has been quoted as saying “our electronic sales . . . were strong in our first year on the Kindle.” Gordon Van Gelder is in his fifteenth year as editor, and eleventh year as owner and publisher.

Interzone
is technically not a “professional magazine,” by the definition of the
Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA),
because of its low rates and circulation, but the literary quality of the work published there is so high that it would be ludicrous to omit it.
Interzone
had a weak year overall, but still published good stories by Jim Hawkins, Lavie Tidhar, Mecurio D. Rivera, Jason Sanford, and others. As far as can be told, as exact circulation figures are not available, circulation there seems to have held steady, in the 3,000-copy range. The editors include publisher Andy Cox and Andy Hedgecock. TTA Press,
Interzone’
s publisher, also publishes the straight horror or dark suspense magazine
Black Static,
which is beyond our purview here, but of a similar level of professional quality.

Realms of Fantasy,
in what will theoretically be its last full year (see
page xvi
), ran noteworthy stuff by Richard Parks, Lisa Goldstein, Thea Hutcheson, Alan Smale, and others.

The British magazine
Postscripts
has reinvented itself as an anthology, and is reviewed as such in the anthology section that follows, but I’ll list the subscription information here, for lack of anywhere else to put it, and because, unlike most other anthology series, you
can
subscribe to
Postscripts.

If you’d like to see lots of good SF and fantasy published every year, the survival of these magazines is essential, and one important way that you can help them survive is by subscribing to them. It’s never been easier to do so, something that these days can be done with just the click of a few buttons, nor has it ever before been possible to subscribe to the magazines in as many different formats, from the traditional print copy arriving by mail to downloads for your desktop or laptop available from places like
Fictionwise.com
and
Amazon.com
, to versions you can read on your Kindle, Nook, or iPad. You can also now subscribe from overseas just as easily as you can from the United States, something formerly difficult to impossible to do.