So, on the one hand, readership of SF/fantasy short stories through the traditional magazines seems to be declining year on year, in general.
On the other hand, there are still plenty around. I counted more than 100 pro and semipro markets for SFF last time I checked.
On the gripping hand (we are talking about SFF here), there’s a revival in people reading short fiction, snatching moments when they’re waiting in line or waiting to pick up the kids from school to read on their phone, tablet, or ereader. Amazon have a special section of their ebook store based on how long it will take you to read something.
Maybe (I thought last night) we need an app that will connect SFF (and maybe other?) readers with stories.
Sign up the magazines, which act as curators of content, and maybe some of the anthologies, too. Allow authors to put their own stories in directly, if they’ve previously sold the story to at least a semipro market and the rights have reverted.
Enable the users to choose what to read by magazine/antho, or by author, or by editor, or by length, or by (user-generated) tag, or a combination.
Charge a small monthly subscription, and track which stories people read, and pay the source magazine/anthology/author proportionately (kind of the Kindle Unlimited model).
Yes?
An interesting idea. But as with all endeavors like this, it could only succeed with lots of buy in (from publications, authors, readers). Perhaps the better way to do this would be to leverage the existing Amazon infrastructure. If you developed an app and /or website that provided a semi curated experience but linked directly to the amazon pages for purchase or KU, then you’d just have to get readers to take advantage of the service. No real need for publications to buy in. Whoever curates and develops the service might be able to fund it using in app advertising and amazon Associate revenue.
That would be one approach, yes – curating the stories on KU (so not adding another subscription) and adding a discoverability layer. That would work better for authors participating directly than for those with their works bundled into magazines and anthologies, though. It’s the unbundling that is a big part of the power of the idea. And I don’t know how many authors are putting their short stories up on the Zon.
Might be a good place to start, since I know how to build a website but not how to build an app. I’ll give it some consideration.
If the service were useful, it would gain readership. If you gain a critical mass of readership, either you can approach magazines to participate, or the magazines will approach you. At least, that’s how it seems to me.
That does seem likely, yes.
Name idea: Find My Shorts.