http://www.shortshortshort.com/

http://42blips.dailyradar.com/story/randym_thoughts_the_future_of_speculative_fiction/vote_login/

http://sfscope.com/2009/01/realms-of-fantasy-closing.html

http://io9.com/5133997/sf-must-write-its-own-future

Enjoyed “suckarific.” Could also go with “sucktastic.”

The play between the bad connotation in the first half of the “words” and good connotation in the second is amusing.

I just wanted to add a couple of example ideas for Thaumatrope.

I wondered if there wasn’t a way you could have “free” fiction entries (as well as non-fiction entries) interspersed with the purchased fiction entries, somehow differentiated with key words or symbols up front. You could have themed contests, for example, where followers submit a Tweet on a specific theme, and you post them and select a winner who gets, say, $5 and bragging rights. In that way, you might get, say, 20 Tweets for $5, rather than for $24, AND engage your readers and potentially draw in a few additional readers.

And for multimedia, you can link to youtube or other content from a Twitter. You could even have “Best Twitter Caption” contests, where users go to the linked content, and then come back and submit a humorous caption or synopsis of it, etcetera.

Randy

That is a very good point.

And I don’t think there is any one good answer, especially when you look at sites that don’t follow a “traditional” magazine format online, like Thaumatrope – which I think is a great concept, by the way.

When it comes to multimedia and non-fiction content, I’d say the first trick is to draw in fans who can contribute said content. But that may seem a bit of a catch-22 — you need good content to draw in readers, and you need to draw in readers to find content contributors.

Personally, I have observed that sites that include and encourage reader participation through contests, debates on popular topics, etcetera draw in fans of all sorts. Online zines have the advantage of being just a Google search away. You put enough references to H.P. Lovecraft, or Firefly, or Steampunk, or Twilight, or Doctor Who, or whatever on your site, fans of said topics will find it. And if the content is good, thought provoking, and/or funny or controversial, they will forward the link, and will hopefully stick around to see what else you have.

You can then post calls on your site for audience contributions, or reach out to those readers whose contributions to your contests, forums, etcetera have stood out as particularly entertaining or informed, and ask if they have anything they would like to contribute to your zine in terms of videos, reviews, humor pieces, etcetera.

A fan might have put together their own funny little video that they would be more than happy to have “published” in your zine, for example. Or they might love to write a humorous non-fiction article linking to already existing content on other sites or youtube. Or they might love to lay claim to being the official movie reviewer for an online zine.

Of course, as with the fiction, quality will still matter. But the contributors do not need to be paid professionals, or even paid amateurs, at least not to start. There are a ton of fans out there who would love to have their name on a byline in any spec fic zine, and send that link to all of their friends and family.

And once you are able, you can start to solicit more professional contributors of custom material, and paying all your non-fiction contributors, professional or otherwise, which will help you to compete with all the other zines that are seeking non-fiction content as well.

Another consideration is the ease of finding that content. Layout matters. The prominence and accessibility of non-fiction entertainment, contests, debates and discussions, etcetera that will actively engage the reader (rather than passive content like fiction, reviews, etc.) seems like it would be important.

Not saying that’s the only way to do it, or it’s guaranteed to work for everyone, but again it’s one method I have observed that seems to be working, though I don’t have any web metrics or usability studies or anything like that to back it up

Best of luck,

Randy

Thanks for the comments. It is sounding like the subscription idea might be a popular one. I’m not sure if it already exists anywhere, but when I proposed it, I was thinking it might take the form of a short story (not necessarily flash fiction).

And I also thought perhaps the subscription might grant access to additional online content like non-fiction articles, book reviews, etc. that normally accompany fiction in magazines. Although, again, I think that the magazine would want to offer a certain amount of that content for free to everyone in order to draw people to their website where they could then promote their product, benefit from online ad revenue, etcetera. But there could still be “subscriber exclusive content,” drawings, etc. that build the relationship between the purchased products and the website, and that add to the value of the subscription.

Jim’s interpreting the subscription content as specifically “flash fiction” raises the point that different subscribers might be interested in different forms of content. Some might want longer works on a monthly basis, some a daily short short or article they can read at lunch at work, etcetera. Which means, for example, either supporting multiple subscription “packages,” or allowing a menu-style pick-and-choose subscription customization. That might be a bit ambitious for the smaller zines though, at least to start.

Randy