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In a surprise move this past February, a new group called Must Read Magazines acquired five well-known genre 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.
With the exception of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which was owned by Gordon Van Gelder, the magazines previously belonged to Penny Publications (which retains its large stable of puzzle and crossword magazines). The magazines’ existing staffers have been retained by the new owner, and the magazines will continue to publish in print.
Per reporting in Locus Magazine, Must Read “is financially backed by a small group of genre fiction fans” headed by Steven Salpeter, formerly a literary agent at Curtis Brown. The magazines’ new mastheads describe Must Read Magazines as a division of Must Read Books Publishing, which in turn is a division of 1 Paragraph Inc., a company incorporated in Delaware in May 2024 and registered in Florida in January 2025. Nearly five months after the acquisition, Must Read Books’s website is still a placeholder, with a generic URL (bookpublishing.center) and a Norfolk VA address.
In the speculative fiction community, the acquisitions were greeted with some concern about hedge-fund consolidation (as Jason Sanford points out in a March 1 edition of his Genre Grapevine newsletter, “a group of investors” carries negative connotations these days), but also hope that the new ownership might help the magazines survive. Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF have been steadily losing print sales and subscriptions over the past few years; additionally, F&SF has been the subject of complaints of contract and payment delays (I wrote about these in mid-2023) and has not published an issue since Summer 2024.
In the same newsletter, Sanford wrote:
There were also concerns raised in the genre [community] that because [CEO Steven] Salpeter worked for Assemble Media, which is what Variety Magazine called “a literary incubator which concurrently develops its book projects for film and TV adaptation,” the new owners would use the magazines to lock in potentially valuable IP content.
The New Contracts
Naturally, the SFWA Contracts Committee (of which I’m a member) was eager to see the Must Read’s contract terms. In March, writers began to share their contracts with us; we’ve now seen multiple contracts from three of the five magazines, and one contract from a fourth, with offer dates in March, April, and May. All offers come from Must Read Magazines, rather than from the individual magazines.
The original boilerplate (and I stress “original”, because it is in the process of changing–see below) seems to have been the same for all the magazines, and claimed a sweeping menu of rights. Included was not just a grant of first English-language publication and translation rights, along with life-of-copyright archive rights (writers with older contracts that may not include an archive grant should keep an eye on this), but the right to exercise and license reprint rights, English-language and foreign anthology rights, paper goods rights (calendars, greeting cards), merchandising rights, and performance rights.
Here’s the merchandising clause:
The first right to develop or license the development of special projects, including, but not limited to, games, toys, T shirts, calendars, and other items based upon characters, ideas, or plots from the Work, for which we shall pay you a sum equal to a pro-rata share of 50% of the net revenues received by the Publisher from such projects, less production, development, or distribution costs incurred by the Publisher with respect thereto.
Here’s the performance rights clause–note that it is “irrevocable and exclusive”:
The irrevocable and exclusive first right to exploit any of the dramatic, musical, or other allied rights in the Work, including the right to adapt, produce, distribute, and exhibit the Work via radio, motion picture, all forms of television, digital media, cartoon, filmstrip, or other audio and/or visual mechanical reproduction media now or hereafter known or devised and customary ancillary and related rights such as merchandising, theme parks, live performance and games (all such rights being hereinafter referred to collectively as the “Performance Rights”). For the disposition of these rights you shall receive a sum to be negotiated and agreed upon by you and the Publisher prior to any such adaptation, production, distribution, or exhibition and you will execute more formal arrangements regarding these rights as might be reasonably required. Your grant of Performance Rights will be deemed to include customary indemnities, a right to assign and sublicense, and a waiver of termination and equitable relief.
Two subsequent clauses allowed Must Read to license performance rights to third parties, and, for any unexercised performance rights, to pre-empt any outside offers the author might independently receive.
Also included was a so-called morals clause, empowering Must Read to choose not to publish a story, or to remove it from publication, “if actions you have taken come to light which would cause widespread disrepute in the opinion of the Publisher”; although the author could dispute such a decision, the process, requiring them to “provide evidence that the sales will not be impacted or other losses would not occur”, was burdensome. (Morals clauses are frowned upon by professional writers’ groups.) Additionally, the contract lacked reversion language: for example, a clause ensuring that if publication doesn’t happen within a defined period of time, rights revert to the author (this is important to prevent a publisher from sitting on a story without ever publishing).
There was also a moral rights waiver. Here’s the original boilerplate:
You agree that the publisher may publish the work in the style and format of its choosing, including next to advertising Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this document, you expressly waive all moral rights in favor of, and covenants to, Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees, assigns or successors in title, as the case may be, to refrain from asserting any and all moral rights in the Work or any updates or revisions to the Work, accruing to you now and in the future, by virtue of statute or otherwise, howsoever arising throughout the world. However, Publisher undertakes to make its commercial best efforts to ensure that Author’s Pseudonym or Name, will appear with the story of every copy of the Work published by Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees.
Moral rights include the right of attribution–a work must be published with the author’s name–and the right of integrity–a work must not be amended or altered in ways that would be damaging to it or to the author. Moral rights waivers crop up from time to time in publishing contracts, but they’re extremely rare in fiction magazine contracts.
Why would a publisher demand a waiver? Usually for two reasons: to ensure that the publisher and its licensees don’t have to identify the author every time the work is reprinted or otherwise licensed; and to ensure that they can make changes or adaptations without having to seek permission or deal with the possibility that the author might object (for example, removing or altering content that a particular country or market might consider objectionable, in order to sell the work into that country or market).
US authors are often not familiar with moral rights, which aren’t really recognized for written work in the USA (other US laws offer some of the same protections). They’re important in the rest of the world, however, and US authors need to carefully consider the implications of a waiver, especially where the contract allows the publisher to sell the work into foreign markets where moral rights are recognized and US protections don’t apply. (For a more on moral rights, with examples of waiver language, see my recent article at SFWA’s Planetside.)
Negotiation Logjams
Importantly, Must Read has been willing to negotiate (as with contract offers, all negotiations appear to be with Must Read staff, rather than with editors at the individual magazines). Authors have been able to amend or delete merchandising and performance rights clauses (in an April 22 bulletin issued by SFWA’s Board of Directors, Must Read described these clauses as “an editorial error or a holdover from an outdated contract”–it must be noted, however, that every contract I’ve seen originally included them).
But some writers have described the negotiations as unduly time-consuming and convoluted. In a lengthy email published by Jason Sanford at Genre Grapevine, author Stewart C. Baker describes the process as sometimes easy and sometimes “extremely frustrating”. “Overall,” he writes, “it took me a month and a half and roughly 50 emails back and forth to get to a contract I was okay with signing….I would advise anyone who does submit to one of [Must Read’s] magazines to make sure they are ready for a potentially long and frustrating negotiation, even in areas where other authors have already gotten them to agree to change something.”
Several other writers have privately reported similar experiences.
A particular sticking point has been the moral rights waiver. Although Must Read has been willing to change it, and has offered different re-formulations to different authors, these have mostly just added words or shifted them around so that the effect of the new clauses is the same. For example, here’s the reformulated and much longer clause offered to Baker (copied with permission from the email linked in above):
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in this document, and excepting the right to claim authorship of the Work and the right of attribution in territories where applicable as of the date of this agreement, you expressly waive all moral rights in favor of, and covenants to, the Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees, assigns or successors in title, as the case may be, and to refrain for asserting any and all moral rights in the Work or any updates or revisions to the Work, accruing to you now and in the future, by virtue of statute or otherwise, howsoever arising throughout the world. You agree not to hold Publisher liable or in breach of contract, for any damage to or infringement of your moral rights and understand that Publisher undertakes to make its commercial best efforts to ensure that Author’s Pseudonym or Name, will appear with the story of every copy of the Work published by publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees, and that the Publisher, its Related Licensees and Unrelated Licensees will not purposefully remove the Author’s Pseudonym or Name with the intent to induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal infringement. You hereby agree to waive and renounce any and all rights to injunctive relief against all parties inclusive of third-parties, licensors or assigns or equitable from the Publisher relief in connection with such matters.
The Speculative Fiction Community Responds
Concern about the contracts has been growing in the speculative fiction community.
In April, SFWA issued a press release addressing confusion over merchandising language. Respected author Kristine Kathryn Rusch withdrew several of her stories over her objections to contract language. For his widely-read Genre Grapevine newsletter, Jason Sanford did a deep dive into writers’ contract concerns and negotiation frustrations. Discussions erupted on social media. And writers reached out privately to share contracts and experiences with the Contracts Committee and Writer Beware.
Most recently, Submission Grinder (a comprehensive source of submission information and tracking for writers) de-listed Analog over the moral rights waiver and other contract language, and SFWA flagged Analog in its monthly market report. Submission Grinder co-founder and administrator David Steffen told Locus Magazine that “[i]In the case of waiving moral rights, we are concerned that this clause would allow the author’s name to be removed from their work and would allow the work to be modified without the author’s consent or knowledge.” Must Read CEO Steven Salpeter, also contacted by Locus for comment, indicated that he was surprised by the de-listing, and described the controversial clauses as “minor updates to the boilerplates we inherited” (a characterization writers with older contracts might not agree with).
Subsequently, Submission Grinder also de-listed Asimov’s and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.
Changes Afoot
On her Patreon, Kristine Kathryn Rusch has published several articles about the Must Read contracts, including the archiving language and the moral rights waiver. “As I’ve told writers for years,” she writes, “contracts are a story. They must be read in their entirety to understand the intent behind them.”
What story do the Must Read contracts tell?
The original boilerplate, with its extremely broad claim on rights–including rights, such as merchandising, that aren’t typically claimed by magazine contracts–told a tale of ambitions well beyond preserving and revitalizing a suite of legacy magazines. Must Read clearly hoped to profit from the underlying IP, with the original boilerplate not just locking in control of a huge range of rights, but, with the moral rights waiver, maximizing Must Read’s ability to exploit them. Must Read has been willing to relinquish some of those rights to writers who ask–but as always with publishing contracts, many writers don’t know they can ask, or are willing to accept author-unfriendly clauses for the sake of a prestigious publishing credit.
The good news: Must Read has taken notice of the concern and criticism. Per a press release from SFWA, the moral rights waiver will be removed from contract boilerplate going forward (this has been confirmed to me by Must Read publisher P.L. Stevens, to whom I reached out for comment; see the Q&A below). And as of this writing, Must Read is considering suggestions offered by SFWA for sample language in the areas of moral rights, merchandising rights, and author’s termination and rights reversion.
“SFWA has continued to work with Must Read to integrate improved contract language,” SFWA President Kate Ristau said. “SFWA is looking forward to seeing these changes implemented to the benefit of the SF/F community of writers. We appreciate Must Read’s willingness to address authors’ concerns, and, importantly, the authors’ willingness to share their experiences and push for positive change in our literary ecosystem.”
So Must Read’s contracts may soon tell a somewhat different story. That doesn’t mean they will be perfect (what publishing contract is?) and I don’t imagine that Must Read will abandon its ambitions for the IP. But hopefully they will be better.
I’ll update this post as new info comes in (I hope to get a look at the new boilerplate). Writers, feel free to continue to confidentially share your contracts with me and with SFWA’s Contracts Committee (and never be afraid to negotiate!).
UPDATE 11/17/25: Since publishing this post, I’ve seen a number of Must Read contracts: six from Analog, two from Asimov’s, one from F&SF, and one from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. The contracts were issued in July, August, September, October, and November.
Must Read seems to have arrived at something like a boilerplate. The grants of publishing, archiving, anthology, and translation rights are essentially the same as in the original contracts, but the moral rights waiver is gone, as is the morality clause. Termination language requiring Must Read to publish within 30 months of contract signing or else return rights has been added, as has a clause enabling the author to demand that the publisher cure a breach of its obligations.
Though the bulk of the language, from August on, is identical, each contract includes variations that appear to be the result of negotiation. Must Read seems determined to keep the merchandising clause, but will remove it if the author requests (most did). One contract added an AI training clause. Several authors chose to insert, delete, or substitute multiple words and phrases.
As to the three performance rights clauses (1.b., 1.c., and 1.d.) that appeared in the original contracts issued in March and April, and were the subject of much criticism as well as advocacy by SFWA, nine of the 10 contracts did not include them–though their ghosts remained, in the form of “intentionally deleted” notations. Why keep the notations, if the clauses were indeed eliminated? It may be that they haven’t been, at least not for all the magazines: they were present in the single Alfred Hitchcock contract I saw, issued in August. So I wonder if they’ve only been removed for the SF magazines.
Must Read is willing to negotiate, and that’s always a good thing. But the lengthy and convoluted process reported by authors in April and May still seems to be an issue, even where the requested changes are relatively minor.
Benjamin Kinney has written about this, citing a negotiation process that included 27 (!) emails (his article includes a link to the final version of his contract). Scott Edelman has written about the impasse he encountered in attempting to make a modest (though significant, from the author’s perspective) change in the contract’s indemnity language. And he makes this comment, which I think pinpoints a key issue:
To start, one of the problems with the Must Read Magazines business model is that any progress achieved by a single author doesn’t accrue to all authors. Each author must start from scratch, negotiating from the same flawed boilerplate, and even if they do manage to arrive at a contract they can comfortably sign, they have in effect ended up with a unique contract unlike those signed by any of the other writers with whom they share a Table of Contents.
Q & A With P.L. Stevens
Writer Beware: Last week, SFWA issued a press release indicating that Must Read will be removing the moral rights clause from its contract boilerplate. Can you confirm that the clause (Clause 8) will be removed in its entirety? If so, is that immediate? If not, will there be any changes to the clause?
P.L. Stevens: We’ve worked with SFWA’s contracts committee, their legal counsel and ours to draft a version of this clause that addresses the concerns we’ve heard from authors, and deletes the moral rights waiver.
WB: The moral rights waiver has been a particular sticking point for writers, and has led to Submission Grinder’s de-listing of several Must Read magazines and the flagging of Analog on SFWA’s Market Report. Why did Must Read feel the need for a moral rights waiver in its original contracts, and why was it appropriate to ask writers to give those rights up? (I’m aware that moral rights aren’t recognized in the US for written work, but they’re important overseas and it’s clear Must Read intends to publish and license internationally.)
P.L.S.: These magazines have been published internationally and in multiple languages in the past and we’d like to return to international publishing. Moral Rights waivers are used to help speed along simultaneous international publishing by some major trade book publishers and other media companies. We at first gathered feedback from writers and tried to adapt the language to directly address the major moral rights, spelling out what consults and approvals we could give for each and waiving all others, but when authors express discomfort with this route we instead sought to delete the language entirely and replace it with clear language about our translated editions, and now we’ve worked with SFWA’s contracts department, their counsel and ours to more clearly expand the approvals and consultations authors would like to see for our future agreements. Most of these practices have been done at the magazines by the editors themselves for decades, and we are happy to formalize them contractually in a way that is fair to authors and also works for the deadline demands of print magazine publishing.
WB: Have you been surprised by the response to the new contracts from writers and other professionals?
P.L.S.: We have been grateful for the feedback. We have seen some of the conspiracy theories, however, and want to reassure people that we’re just fans and are trying to restore the magazines to their past statuses in the world and are grateful for writers and readers’ continued support of our efforts to make sure these great magazines will be around for many more decades to come.
WB: Do you plan any other changes in Must Read contract boilerplate going forward?
P.L.S.: We would refer you to SFWA’s recent and forthcoming press releases, including the statements from our editors, many of whom have long been members of the storied organization. We’re excited to serve writers in new and exciting ways as stewards of these important magazines.
Any updates or new articles on this topic or related to Must Ready Magazines / PL Stevens? I didn’t see any, but wanted to check to make sure I wasn’t missing something worth reading.
Thank you for summarizing it all!
Back in January I received an email from the (new) editor of the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine saying she’d like to buy a story I’d submitted and telling me that because of the change in publisher etc. it would take a couple of weeks for a contract to arrive. I was thrilled of course and told friends and family and just about anyone who crossed my path. But after a month, no contract arrived. So I emailed a polite query … but got no reply. And I emailed again and again but still heard nothing, not even a holding message. Eventually after six months I gave up, told EQMM I was withdrawing the story and submitted it elsewhere. I will not submit to EQMM again.
As I recall from my contracts with AHMM back in the nineties, there was just a right of first refusal for film & TV. These new clauses surely seem to be overreaching.
Short stories aren’t profitable, which is why they only paid me a nickel a word–I understand the pay hasn’t gone up much in 30 years. These magazines sit on a vast pile of IP, perhaps (AI estimates) 20,000 stories among the four mags mentioned. Three or four might make interesting film projects, one might be another “Total Recall.” Every writer should want the IP owner to have financial incentives to go through that mass of stuff to see what’s there that might be marketable.
It would be in the interest of writers to come up with language that would give these owners the chance to make a ton of money if they find something that might work. Nobody is going to waste time exploring film or merchandising options if they’re not going to be the ones to make a buck from it. If I were still writing fiction, and somebody told me he could make a hit movie out of one of my stories, I’d give it to him on any terms he wanted. The boost to all other and future sales would be well worth it.
Just another reason to never submit (and the term applies in all its meanings) to a traditional publisher. Make your reputation on your own. There’s really no other choice these days.
You sure are a gem, Thank You for your warnings!
Is this going to push more authors to try and go it alone? Or are they doomed to a slow death of a thousand cuts as fewer and fewer avenues for publications retain any hint of author-friendliness?
As for the readership of those magazines, I have an opinion (that no one asked for and this isn’t the place for).
I was a subscriber to analog from roughly the early 1980s to 2007, at which time I realized I was skipping a lot of the content (I used to read those magazines cover-to-cover).
For me, the stories ceased to elicit wonder about the future as they drifted more and more into social issues. Mind you, SF was always a good platform for exploring social and political issues, but whereas the SF was always a strong part of the narrative, it seemed (to me) to take a back.
Basically, the stories — while socially relevant — got boring.
Perhaps I changed, but I don’t think so because I can still pick up one of the issues from the 80s and 90s and enjoy rereading them.
A few years ago, I got an Analog subscription as part of the Kindle Unlimited program . . . I tried reading a few, and today, they are still there, in my catalog, unread. And that’s at a time when I managed to slog my way through mediocre books (along with some great offerings — go, Murderbot!).
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but I was triggered by the claim of wanting to elevate those magazines to their former glory. I’ll be interested when the stories will once again have me turning pages instead of closing them.
Who knows, I may even submit to them again . . . nah!
Thank you for spreading the word of warning.
Thanks for the ongoing updates on this issue. A few notes:
For performance and adaptation rights, the following clause appears to be in bad faith: “for which we shall pay you a sum equal to a pro-rata share of 50% of the net revenues received by the Publisher from such projects, less production, development, or distribution costs incurred by the Publisher with respect thereto”. This clause is what film actors refer to as “points on net”, which means a share of the profits after all expenses are deducted; unfortunately, Hollywood production companies are highly skilled at arranging their accounting so that the property doesn’t earn a profit, and thus, the actor gets nothing even if the pro-rata share is 100%. What you really want is “points on gross”, which means a share of the total income before expenses are deducted.
Moral rights include, depending on the country’s code, the rights to credit (i.e., your name appears on the published document), association and intent (how the publication context affects how you and your story will be perceived), and integrity (not modifying the document without your approval). Details for Canada here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/heritage-information-network/services/intellectual-property-copyright/nailing-down-bits/moral-rights.html
Basically, moral rights lets you insist that (for example) your copyrighted material not appear beside a neo-Nazi article or advertisement, with the wording modified (without your permission) to make it look like you approved of the neo-Nazi material. No author should ever waive those rights. Indeed, they’re important enough that in Canada, they come into existence as soon as material is copyrighted, without requiring any special steps to secure the moral rights. I think that going forward, SFWA should try to insist that moral rights not be waived in contracts from SFWA-approved publishers, and possibly de-list publishers that don’t meet that standard.
Net profit royalties are a problem in publishing, too–sometimes with really extensive lists of deductions. I always point out to writers that without knowing the cost of the deductions (for example, printing costs), authors have absolutely no idea what royalties they will actually get (even if the publisher isn’t nefarious enough to expense income down to zero).
Personally, I think I would run far and fast away from this publisher. There must be someplace better than a fly-by-night That doesn’t have a track record you can see.
These magazines aren’t fly-by-night–they’re among the most well-known in their respective genres, with long publishing histories.
Thank you for this update. I often submit to those magazines and if one of my stories gets picked up, I’ll be extra sure to read through the contract.
Hopefully by the time you get an offer, the contracts will be much improved!