More Rights Grabs from Must Read Magazines

In early 2025, a group called Must Read Magazines acquired a suite of six well-known genre fiction magazines: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. My July 2025 blog post about the acquisition, and the ensuing backlash over unfriendly contract terms, has all the details, but here’s the TL;DR. The Backstory News of the acquisition came out of the blue. But despite how little was known about Must Read and its founders, as well as concerns about consolidation, there was hope that the new ownership might help the magazines survive. Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF had been steadily losing print sales and subscriptions over recent years, and F&SF had been the subject of complaints of contract and payment delays for some time. It soon became clear, however, that Must Reads’ new contracts were significantly author-unfriendly, with sweeping claims on a large menu…