inspired by the “does anyone make money writing anymore?” thread (https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=809460&page=2)
Someone mentioned Asimov (and many others) started out by writing short stories to magazines that specialized in genre-specific short stories and then mainly switched to novels once they established a fan base
What I was wondering how many of those were left? only one I know of is the fantasy and science fiction digest which is more than a few book excerpts some classic reprints and a few new stories even the one Asimov himself founded is gone (Starlog)
I don’t know of any in the mystery/private detective genre left since the ellery queen one went out years ago …
feel free to post any you know of …
I’m seeing Ellery Quuen’s Mystery Magazine as still for sale on Amazon. Also Alfred Hitchcock’s. And Analog, Asimov’s and F&SF for SF.
I don’t know how big their readership is these days. Magazines (at least, the old-fashioned print kind) seem to have been largely replaced by the Internet.
In SF, there are several online magazines with pay comparable to the digests. They include Lightspeed, Beyond Ceaseless Skies, Amazing Stories, Uncanny, Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge,, and Strange Horizons.
- Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine* is still publishing a hard copy edition, too.
There are also hard copy anthologies like * Unidentified Funny Objects*
So you can make money selling short fiction to magazines. Not a lot: you haven’t been able to make a living from them since the 1940s. Once TV came along, most of the pulps folded, but people even now can get started in the online magazines.