Steampunk Tales – pulp magazine for the iPhone
By Paul Biba
Received this press release and it looks like such good fun that I decided to print the release in whole. I certainly will buy the first issue to see what’s going on. The cover art certainly looks promising.
Steampulp Publishing LLC has released the world’s first electronic pulp fiction magazine created exclusively for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Emulating the style of the pulp adventure magazines of the 1920s and ’30s, Steampunk Tales #1 contains first-run and original fiction written by an A+ list of award-winning authors. Issue #1 contains 10 short stories (between 4,300 and 11,000 words) for the unbelievably low price of $1.99. Authors contributing to Issue #1 include Jay Lake, Catherynne M. Valente, SatyrPhil Brucato and G.D. Falksen. The cover art was painted by popular artist Melita “Missmonster” Curphy. Steampunk Tales is distributed exclusively via the iPhone App Store and features the unique Steampunk Tales Reader, which renders the stories with a retro-futuristic Victorian flair never before seen in any eBook reader application.
“We stand at the beginning of a revolution in the distribution of print,” says John Sondericker III, founder of Steampulp Publishing. “The combination of low distribution costs and the potential for high volume sales allows us to provide an astounding value for the consumer. The timing is perfect to re-introduce the world to the ‘Penny Dreadfuls’, and the iPhone is a platform that can truly do them justice.”
Steampulp Publishing LLC is the first and only company to release a fiction magazine exclusively on the iPhone platform. New issues of Steampunk Tales will be released monthly. Steampunk Tales will be one of the first applications to implement several of the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 features, as 3.0 will allow readers to purchase back-issues as well as new content from within the Steampunk Tales Reader.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Love everything except the iPhone-only limitation.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:03 am
Why the limitation? Hopefully it’s a temporary ploy to get attention. Otherwise, interested people like me won’t get to read it.
June 10th, 2009 at 7:42 am
I guess it’s about time to update that phrase to “Dollar Dreadfuls,” huh? Only the only dreadful part is that I can’t read it on my PDA or LG phone… and I’m not going out to buy an iPhone just for this.
So climb down off of the iPhone bandwagon, and try providing your product in a format for the rest of us, guys.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I love steampunk, and the old pulps. I’d be a guaranteed sale IF I owned an iPhone.
I neither own one nor plan to get one.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:08 am
I think the iPhone-only part comes from this: “…the Steampunk Tales Reader, which renders the stories…” Since they’re not just delivering content but an app to display that content in a particular manner, I can understand why they would want to limit the amount of development/maintenance for their Reader. Hopefully, they’ll make enough money to branch out to other OSes.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
The Limitation is because there is a HUGE Iphone audience even without the rest of us who don’t have Iphones. It’s an incredibly smart business move to start. Yes, I hope the branch out, but they have a potential audience that is much bigger and easier to manage for a small new company.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I love steampunk, and the old pulps. I’d be a guaranteed sale IF I owned an iPhone.
October 6th, 2009 at 9:01 am
This is the future of magazines, going digital like this,
I am convinced. I discovered this is more than just for
iPhone. You can read it on anything. Issues contain what,
well over 100 pages for less than $2. Can they be making
money at all? Meanwhile, the paper magazines are all
folding. It’s a transition, that’s certain.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:54 am
_Steampunk Tales_ is now available in PDF. It’s not just for iPhones anymore!