The short fiction market in sci-fi and fantasy has been in trouble for a long time, from large stalwarts of the industry like Analog, Asimov’s, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction having turmoil to smaller alternative outlets like Cirsova showing a drop in sales; it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a path forward for the market. Now, another large market is going out of business while F&SF is displaying yet more troubles.
The 2020s have seen the collapse of the short fiction magazine. Sales tapered off to all-time lows during the pandemic, a decline exacerbated by Amazon's decision to remove subscriptions from its platform. This move gutted magazines that relied on Amazon, leaving them without a means to contact customers who subscribed through the platform.
While some magazines made their own subscription models like Clarkesworld, many haven’t even gotten them back on their feet to this day, gutting their circulation once again.
But beyond the major markets, appetite for short fiction has declined even among independent startups. Cirsova Magazine, which has some of the better works of the last ten years, has reported a massive decline on its blog earlier this year:
