Editorial: Reach

Last year there was some talk about changing one of the qualifications for an SFWA pro market to a publication’s “reach”. That hasn’t happened yet, and unless people are donors in much higher dollar amounts so we can pay pro rates it isn’t likely to happen under the existing rules. However, Abyss & Apex’s audience is as large as the current SFWA professional markets, so I thought I’d share those numbers. We are also changing the way we are funded to Buy Me a Coffee  (but will continue PayPal donations and subscriptions) because, on the advice of an internet security expert, when Patreon fired their entire internet security staff, that was a huge red flag.

Let’s get back to A&A’s reach. Every year Locus Magazine sends all the genre magazine a long questionnaire for their February issue, and here’s how we’ve been growing based on that metric. Keep in mind what when I took A&A over it had 2000 hits per year, and that was not unique viewers. These stats are all unique viewers per month:

2013 – 7,666

2014 – 10,213 (why the jump in readership? We had a kerfuffle where we were wrongly accused of many things. Many of those who came for a negative reason stayed for a positive one.)

2015 – 10,547

2016 – 11,050

2017 – 18,400 (why the jump in readership? We had a security breach and much of it was due to bots before that was solved.)

2018 – 11,554

2019 – 12,996

2020 – 11,800 (dip due to pandemic)

2021 – 12,903

As you can see, there has been a steady growth. Understand that if even five percent of our readership sent us $20 a year, we could probably pay pro rates. Those who want this to become a pro market are welcome to put their money, as it were, where their mouth is. Otherwise, we’ll still be here doing what we usually do: finding and nurturing new talent, plus bringing you the best stories we can find–on a shoestring, a wing, and a prayer. But we’d sure like to pay our authors more.

Wendy S. Delmater, Editor

Abyss & Apex Magazine

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2 Responses to Editorial: Reach

  1. Ray Daley says:

    You already ARE a pro market, according to SFWA. You pay 8 cpw (that was pro rates for years until a recently bump to 11 or 12 cpw but is still classed as pro). Ignore what Neil Clarke’s “semi-pro” site says. He says you have to make enough to live on to be a pro market. That’s garbage.

    SFWA are the globally recognised organisation. And I used my pay rate from Abyss & Apex as part of my qualification for Full Member status at SFWA. Which proves it’s a pro market.

    • Editor says:

      We only pay 8 cents per word up to 1,000 words. There’s a cap of $80 per story no matter how much longer it is. We’re proudly semi-pro, at least for now.

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