The Future Of Publishing?????

[R Nitelight]

Amazing to Relaunch as a Breakfast Cereal


Herb Jedco, CEO of RiteBuy Breakfast Products, has announced that he has acquired the rights to Amazing Stories from Wizards of the Coast and will repackage the magazine to appear on the back of boxes of breakfast cereal. RiteBuy Breakfast Products is the third largest supplier of generic breakfast cereal in the United States. Starting in June, new issues of Amazing will printed on the back of RiteBuy’s RTE (Ready To Eat) oat product, which has been renamed AmazOs.

Jedco said “Amazing Stories was America’s first sci-fi magazine and it will return as America’s best sci-fi magazine. Aside from the fact that this makes business sense for RiteBuy, I see the acquisition as a very unique way to introduce kids to sci-fi.” Jedco, a 1976 graduate of Clarion, has named James Patrick Kelly as editor. “I met Jim when we attended Clarion together,” said Jedco. “I really wanted to be a writer and I actually sold a story to David Hartwell at Cosmos, but when Dad died, I had to step in to take over the family business. I guess I never lost the sci-fi bug.”

Kelly will be paying a flat rate of $1000 for stories up to 2000 words long and has already acquired stories from Michael Swanwick, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis and Jonathan Lethem. “Right now,” said Kelly, “Amazing is an invitation-only market, but I hope to open it up by WorldCon.” Asked about Amazing’s future, Kelly was guardedly optimistic. “Sure, I thought it was pretty far fetched at first. But who knows? If you were like me, you grew up reading the back of cereal boxes at breakfast.”

 

[Sateema Lunasi]

I am a big hoser.

I suck so bad. I work at WOTC and this is the first I have heard of this. I am ass deep in Magic The Addiction...I mean Gathering, cards over here. I am missing Gen Con this year, dammit. Like I said, I am a hoser.

 

[CreamyLady]

I read the backs of the cereal boxes, too, because my mother thought it was rude to bring a book to the table.

The boxes were convenient, though. They stood in front of one, at a comfortable distance, and were not subject to messy drips and spills on the pages.

This actually sounds like a good idea.

 

[Whispersecret]

Anything that encourages kids to read can't be that bad.

 

[Blackbich]

I like this idea. I STILL read the back of my cereal boxes when I'm at the table. Habit I guess.

 

[p_p_man]

A good idea especially as they've chosen Amazing Stories. For all you youngsters out there that was one of many pocket sized magazines (Galaxy and Astounding Stories are others that spring to mind) which published Science Fiction as it was meant to be. Before Michael Moorcock destroyed the genre with all this sword and spaceship rubbish we see today.