Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Does Size Matter

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine changed sizes this month. As you can see in the scan, the latest issue of EQMM is a little bit wider and a little bit taller. You can't see that it's a little bit thinner, but it is. I hope the new size will save the magazines some money, but what they could really use is subscribers. Lots of them. If you like short stories, give them a try.

7 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Bill, I have talked to a few people that are surprised it's still being published. That surprises me because I can't imagine a month without EQMM or AHMM. It's still the cutting edge for the latest in our community.

mybillcrider said...

They're hard to find on the stands in most places, even if people look for them. We need to get the word out.

Brent McKee said...

Count me as one of the people who is surprised that AHMM at least still exists. I think I may have seen EQMM somewhere in the past year but for the life of me I can't remember where.

Cap'n Bob said...

They made them taller about 5-10 years ago hoping they'd stand out better on magazine racks. I don't think it helped. They're usually crammed in the floor-level row behind the word search puzzles and Fate. I hope more people subscribe and keep this valuable market alive.

Librarian D.O.A. said...

I looked for this yesterday at B & N but didn't find a copy, luckily the Strand and Ellery Queen were available.

Agreed, these magazines are a great place to find new authors to read.

Ben Boulden said...

EQMM and AHMM are the best. I can't wait to get my monthly fix. And it's really fairly inexpensive for a full year subsciption: $29.97 last time I renewed. And worth every penny. Where else can you get flashes of writers like Loren Estleman, Bill Pronzini, Clark Howard, James Powell, Ed Gorman, Tom Piccirilli, Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, Jeffrey Deaver, and...so many more.

The good news is, in my market all of the major bookstores carry both--Borders, B&N, etc. Also on the shelves are a couple SF mags: Analog and Asimov. Both pretty good if you enjoy SF.

Ben

Todd Mason said...

Actually, C. Bob, they changed the size both times to conform to the sizes of their puzzle and astrology magazines...uniformity of size makes for easier shipping. What I hadn't realized till Sheila Williams's editorial in their sibling magazine ASIMOV'S was that for a brief period they were being printed by TV GUIDE, hence were slightly smaller than the digest sized issues from Davis Publications(I knew they were just a wee bit less wide and tall, but didn't know the reason).