I find it curious that SCIFI.com decided to pull the plug on SCI FICTION without exploring other options first. There have been a number of online ventures that have tried modified versions of the “give it away free” business model (for instance, Salon.com, with their subscribe or watch this ad system), yet SCIFI.com didn’t bother to try with any of these. Though we all have come to expect SCI FICTION will be free, and though some of us would abandon it if we were charged money for it, I’d wager a fairly large number of people would subscribe to it, or pay some sort of small fee in order to read a particular story.

Sure, any business model that includes payment for SCI FICTION might not put the ezine in the black–it would still be a money-losing venture–but I expect it would help quite a bit, thus lessening the burden on SCIFI. If a little money were to start rolling in, wouldn’t that have been enough to stave off execution, considering all the accolades SCI FICTION has received (and all the legitimacy it afforded the SCI FI Channel)?

The other issue is the SCI FICTION anthologies…or the lack thereof. Ellen Datlow has spoken of them informally, so I assume deals for books have been in the works, but none have materialized. These anthologies could have been a great potential source of income for SCI FICTION. I don’t know the terms of their contract, but if SCIFI.com reaped most of the rewards from royalties from such books, that would go a long way toward offsetting the financial drain the site put on the network. And though that’s probably not generally how anthology royalties work, that seems fair–they pay big bucks for the stories and gave them away for free to the general public; when it comes time to sell the anthologies, they’re entitled to making some of that money back.

So while I’m disturbed that SCI FICTION is no more, I think I’m more disturbed that nothing was done to try to save it. Or if anyone did make any of these suggestions behind closed doors, the beancounters at SCIFI chose to ignore them, and instead let the axe fall without listening to any pleas for clemency.