Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazines—both owned by Dell Magazines—are changing their format effective with the December 2008 issues.
Asimov’s Editor Sheila Williams tells SFScope “the reason for the change is othing to be alarmed by. Paper and production costs have presented Asimov’s and our sister publication, Analog, with a choice: increase subscription rates and single-issue costs to retain the old format, or adopt a slightly different size and retain our current prices. Naturally, we felt it was of best benefit to all to choose the latter. The award-winning content inside our magazine will always remain of the same high standards.”
Echoing his colleague, Analog Editor Stanley Schmidt tells us “the format will have fewer but larger pages, and the first issue using it will be December.”
The magazines are currently 5.25″ wide and 8.3125″ high, with 144 pages. The new size will be 5.875″ wide and 8.625″ high. The number of pages will be cut to 112, but, Williams says, “due to our font choices, we’re still able to cram as much fiction or more into our pages than other magazines.” Asimov’s will lose about 4,000 words per issue.
Williams’s December editorial will “provide a brief history of SF magazine sizes.” Readers with long memories will remember Analog‘s original format, which held from the magazine’s founding in 1930 until the mid-1960s, when it was briefly change to a large-format (8.5″ by 11″) magazine, and then returned to the digest size. Following that change, Analog and Asimov’s became stable-mates—after the latter’s founding in 1977—at Davis Publications. Following their sale to Dell Magazines, the trim size was increased slightly to match the puzzle magazines which Dell published. Dell later sold the magazines to Penny Press, which took the Dell Magazines name along with the entire magazine line.
[Edited to add correction: Sheila Williams writes to note that the earlier trim size change was in June 1998, after Penny had bought the magazines. They’ve been the current size for ten years.]