Amazon has ended its periodicals program, and independent publishers are panicking

Books, yes. Magazines - maybe. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

I like short stories. I read them, and I write them. I grew up subscribing to and reading The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Analog, Asimov's, and a bunch of others, some genre, some not. And as I got older, I began to understand the financial tightrope that many of these independent periodicals walk - a tightrope funded by contributions, subscriptions, the occasional ad, and perhaps a second mortgage.

I also understood that any resource that makes it a bit easier for these pubs to find and keep readers - like the ability to gather subscribers through Amazon's Kindle Periodicals program - can make all the difference in keeping the books (and their walk on that tightrope) balanced.

Until that resource goes away.

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