Another Market Bites The Dust

Realms of Fantasy

RoF announced a quick demise -- one so fast that the editor hadn't been contacted before the news got out -- and it's roaring about the blogosphere. So I thought I'd mention it here. Just in the last couple of days slushmaster was reminding people about submissions for the Halloween 2009 issue, etc. But he confirms the story here as of fifty minutes ago. Main notice is here at SFScope -- and at LocusOnline. I daresay the staff has been caught flatfooted on this one.

I don't write much fantasy, but had a couple of stories which had been slowly percolating along and I always figured I'd submit to RoF. A sudden drop in newstand sales was cited. I've actually bought RoF at Schuler's, but I haven't been to a book store in the last two months due to weather, not economics. Given that there's been bad weather everywhere, I wonder how much of this is a knee jerk bean counter response to the wrong problem? Alas...

This is the second big hit that fantasy has taken, what with the earlier cancelation of The Year's Best in Fantasy & Horror.

Dr. Phil

One Hates To Pile On, But...

Failing At The Internets

Re: Today's news about Realms of Fantasy. It's been a while since I've had occasion to visit the RoF homepage, but you know?

27 January 2009 Tuesday 22:30 EST

http://www.rofmagazine.com/

Dear Realms of Fantasy fans:

We apologize for our extremely outdated site. The magazine is still going strong and is better than ever. We are working on a new and much improved design for the website and hope to have it up and running this summer. In the meantime, the Forums are still operational and you can still access the Subscription and Guidelines areas. Please be patient—we know you are going to love the new site!

http://www.rofmagazine.com/issues/current

Issue: August 2006
Inside this issue

Look, Even My Website Is Currently Out Of Date...

... but I'm a one person operation, and sorry, but my classes and my writing come first. (grin)

BUT, in 2009, couldn't they at least find some fanboy intern who keep the pages even somewhat up to date? This irks me, because it's not fair to the authors.

It's as bad as if a major anthology still hasn't gotten around to doing a major print run even though the book was launched way back on 15 August 2008. Seriously.

Dr. Phil