The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction leapt into the e-book age with both feet — and came out with a deal that could win the beloved print digest a whole new generation of fans.
F&SF announced that a "digest" version — containing all editorial content, plus one free short story per issue — will be available for free for Amazon Kindle users, including people who don't have a physical Kindle but just use the Kindle app. Equally impressively, the full version of the magazine will be available exclusively on the Kindle for just $12 per year.
Here's the full press release with all the details:
Amazon.com today announced that a free subscription to the digest edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine is now exclusively available in the Kindle Store. Kindle customers who subscribe will get access to all of the magazine's editorial content — editor's recommendations, "Curiosities" (odd books of enduring interest), film reviews, book reviews, cartoons and humor, and "Coming Attractions" (highlights of each issue) — along with one short story, all at no cost. Customers can start reading the magazine today on their Kindle or free Kindle reading apps for Android, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.
"Fantasy & Science Fiction is the definitive magazine of the genre," said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President of Kindle Content. "We know our Kindle customers are huge fans of this category, and we're excited to offer them a free and exclusive subscription to the magazine to read anywhere."
Stephen King, bestselling author and long-time fan of Fantasy & Science Fiction, said: "This is the best fiction magazine in America. Kindle readers are in luck."
Fantasy & Science Fiction, which publishes six times a year, was founded in 1949 and is the original publisher of classics by a wide variety of great writers, including Stephen King, Daniel Keyes and Kurt Vonnegut. Each bimonthly issue offers compelling short fiction and the science-fiction field's most respected and outspoken opinions on books, films, and science.
A subscription to the extended edition of the magazine, which is also a Kindle exclusive, is available for just $12 a year and includes everything in the digest edition plus several additional short stories and novelettes. Individual issues of the extended edition are available for $2.99.
Like all Kindle books and many magazines, Fantasy & Science Fiction is "Buy Once, Read Everywhere"— customers can read more than 100 newspapers and magazines, including The Economist, The Atlantic, Newsweek, and the Washington Post, using their Kindles and free Kindle reading apps for Android, iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. With Kindle Worry-Free Archive, books and magazines purchased from the Kindle Store are automatically backed up online in customers' Kindle libraries on Amazon, where they can be re-downloaded wirelessly for free, anytime.