SEMIPROZINE

   In the terminology of sf FANDOM, this expression - once colloquial but enshrined since 1983 in the constitution of the World Science Fiction Society, the body that administers the HUGOs - means a semiprofessionalmagazine as opposed to an amateur magazine, or FANZINE. According to that constitution a magazine with a circulation of more than 10,000 is a professional magazine. A semiprozine must therefore have a circulation of less than 10,000. It must also, according to the constitution, have published at least 4 issues (at least 1 in the previous calendar year) and fulfil 2 of the following 5 criteria: have an average press run of at least 1000 copies; pay its contributors and/or staff in other than copies of the publication; provide at least half the income of any one person; have at least 15% of its total space occupied by advertising; announce itself to be a semiprozine. Charles N. BROWN, editor of LOCUS magazine (which has won numerous Hugos for Best Semiprozine), states additionallyin his regular commentaries on magazine publishing that the frequency of a semiprozine should be at least quarterly, and that unlike a professional magazine it should not have national newsstand circulation. A number of the most important magazines of comment in the fields of sf and fantasy, and several of the magazines that publish fiction, are or have been semiprozines.

   PN