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Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Weird Tales, Back to Old Habits

My plan is to finish the current series on the Houdini issues of Weird Tales from one hundred years ago--issues that culminated in the anniversary number of May/June/July 1924--then to move on to the most recent issue of the magazine, published last year. I have been caught up in my regular work, though, and so my plan is on hold. Rather than leave you with an unfinished Houdini series, though, I would like to write about a problem with the current Weird Tales and let that stew on the Internet for a while.

In preparing to write about the anniversary issues of Weird Tales, I ordered the most recent one, published in mid to late last year. I placed my order in October 2023, or five months ago as I write this. I ordered two copies, one for myself and one for my brother, who reads weird fiction and does his own research on it. He especially likes Robert E. Howard.

To summarize: two copies of the 100th anniversary issue of Weird Tales, ordered in October 2023.

The rest of October went by.

Then November and Thanksgiving.

Then December.

Christmas.

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Half of January went by, and I said enough is enough. I got on the website of Weird Tales and sent a message through its online email function.

I did not receive any response.

Then I received in the mail a slim package from Weird Tales.

It was slim because it contained only one copy of the magazine that I had ordered.

To summarize further: two copies ordered in October 2023. One delivered in January, but only after I pointed out to the magazine that I had placed an order.

I got back on the website of Weird Tales and sent my best Baby-Boomer message about trustworthiness and customer service and meeting your obligations. I still didn't receive a response. I also didn't receive my second copy.

So it looks like Weird Tales is back to its old habits of not providing good service to its readers and customers. This has been going on for years. A couple of people have left comments on this blog telling about their own lack of experience in receiving what they have paid for. I'm sure there are and will be more.

So, my advice to anyone who is thinking about ordering copies of Weird Tales directly from the publisher: Don't do it. You won't get what you have ordered and you won't get any customer service once you point out to the publisher that your order has not been filled. I guess that's just how the world is now. Maybe we should learn to be satisfied with our meager portion and not to complain about it. 

Weird Tales has failed before, and I think it will likely fail again if this is how it runs its operations. As an aside, I will tell you that my current web browsers don't trust the Weird Tales website and have scrambled its contents. I'm not sure that I can send another message through the email function on the website. If I'm ever going to receive my second copy of the thing that I ordered and paid for five months ago, I guess I'll have to write a letter and send it the old-fashioned way, not that anyone at the magazine is interested at all in providing a service that they advertise on their website, the very same service that keeps them in business. Maybe someday Weird Tales will be in good hands again. We can wait, I guess. After all, it's the magazine that never dies.

Copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

5 comments:

  1. I feel your frustration, Terence. I stopped buying WT years back for the same reason. Very slow shipping times, but I never had the pleasure of trying to contact them about it. It's a shadow of its former self, anyway. There were very few stories that I found interesting. Their "modern" concept of weird just doesn't float my boat no matter how hard I try to like it.

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    1. Hi, John,

      Sorry to hear about your experience with Weird Tales.

      As I see it, there are two issues here:

      First is the issue of simply running a business. I think if you're going to run a business, you need business people. Good business people know how to run things, keep things going, meet the obligations of the business. Fans usually don't make good business people. They're too close to their subject. Weird Tales has failed before because of a lack of business acumen. One hundred years ago, businessmen--the men who ran Cornelius Printing of Indianapolis--saved Weird Tales. It is because of them that we have it today. The magazine would have otherwise been just a footnote in the history of pulps.

      Second is the issue of content, editorial policy, and so on. I'm planning to write about that issue in a series of entries on Weird Tales #367.

      Thanks for writing.

      TH

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  2. I Gotta admit, is there really any need for the current revival of Weird Tales when that need is now being taken care of by Pilum Press Anthologies like Death Flex on the Market, or Cirsova which has been around now for over 8 years and has never ever missed a beat in it's publications? And done a better job of breaking in new Weird authors to the public to boot? If anything you should have rubbed it in to the current owners of Weird Tales that can't even match up to either of those magazines/publishers.

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    1. Hi, Narabedella,

      I don't want to rub anything in with the current publishers of Weird Tales. I just want my magazine. That's a really simple thing, the most basic thing when you're publishing a magazine: give people what they pay for. Weird Tales has failed to do that.

      As for other publications: I don't have any experience with Pilum Press (a book publisher) or Cirsova (a magazine). I have never read them and had never heard of them before now. Hopefully there's enough room for all three to go on publishing. Hopefully there's enough of a demand and enough of a readership out there.

      You make a good point about publishing regularly. It looks like Cirsova has done that, while Weird Tales has not. I'm planning to write about that issue as well in a series of entries on Weird Tales #367.

      Thanks for writing.

      TH

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    2. Hi, Terence!

      I had someone point this out to me. We are both a magazine AND a publisher [we've release a handful of novels and solo anthologies from some of our authors as well as a couple lines of reprinted pulp classics (particularly Leigh Brackett's Stark and Julian Hawthorne's All-Story era weird fiction)].

      If you would be interested, I'd be happy to send you a couple of back issues and other items gratis. Just drop me a line at cirsova at yahoo dot com with a mailing address.

      "Alex" P. Alexander, Ed.

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