More on Genre E-Zines

Spurred by Simon Owens’s blog post that I blogged about yesterday, several other people have chimed in on the viability of the genre e-zine, including John Kilma, Publisher and Editor of Electric Velocipede.

I usually find his posts very insightful, and I agree with pretty much everything he says here. I had the exact same reaction to ESPN.com when they started charging–I went elsewhere. I also think that e-zines have the potential to hook casual fans reading online in free moments at work, but that type of reader likewise would not pay for content.

My friend Erin, who has great ideas about building online community, thinks that e-zines could snag funding from the ad budgets of big companies like game publishers. I think such arrangements are more luck (Sci Fiction) rather than repeatable strategies, because those companies are going to expect a return on their investment and the e-zine audience doesn’t overlap enough with their customer base to provide it. I think the only way to make a genre e-zine work right now is the Strange Horizons model–set it up as a non-profit company and depend on the kindness of donations.

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