- Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 35
- The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction – January/February 2017
Reckoning 1
- Bone Swans: Stories by C. S. E Cooney
Uncanny Magazine Issue 14
- Locus February 2017 (#673)
The Fisherman by John Langan
- Interzone #268
- Clockwork Phoenix 5
- Black Static #52
- Interzone #264
- LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction – Issue 6
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies Issue #200
- Galaxy’s Edge Subscription
- Uncanny Magazine Subscription
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies Subscription
- Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories
- Locus March 2016 (#662)
- Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories
- Locus February 2016 (#661)
- Mothership Zeta Issue 1
- Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria
- Lightspeed Issue 69 (February 2016)
- New York Review of Science Fiction
- Galaxy’s Edge Magazine
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies
- Lightspeed Magazine
- Clarkesworld Magazine
- Uncanny Magazine Issue 6
- The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Six
- From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction, Charles Rice-Gonzales & Charlie Vazquez, editors
- Lightspeed Magazine Issue 64
- Normal Miguel by Erik Orrantia
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 33 - J. M. McDermott, Straggletaggle
- Rich Horton, ed., Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2015 edition
- Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, No. 33
- Ginn Hale, Champion of the Scarlet Wolf
- Locus July 2015 (#654)
Nicole Kornher-Stace, Archivist Wasp - New York Review of Science Fiction
- Galaxy’s Edge Magazine
- Uncanny Magazine
- Clarkesworld Magazine
- Lackington’s Subscription
- Uncanny Magazine
- Galaxy’s Edge Magazine
- New York Review of Science Fiction
- Clarkesworld Magazine
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies
- Lightspeed Magazine
- Locus February 2015 (#649)
- New York Review of Science Fiction #317
- Forever Magazine Issue 1
- Uncanny Magazine Issue 1
- Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 31
- Apex Magazine 12-Month Subscription
- New York Review of Science Fiction 12-issue Subscription
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies 12-Month Subscription
Forever Magazine 12-Month Subscription - Galaxy’s Edge Magazine Annual Subscription
- Clarkesworld Magazine: 12-Month Subscription
- Ginn Hale, Champion of the Scarlet Wolf Book Two
- Ginn Hale, Champion of the Scarlet Wolf Book One
- Uncanny Magazine Issue 1 Jennifer Marie Brisset, Elysium: a novel
- Bastion Science Fiction Magazine – Issue 9
Clarkesworld Magazine – Issue 99 - The Paul Di Filippo MEGAPACK
- Ginn Hale, Champion of the Scarlet Wolf Book One
- Ginn Hale, Champion of the Scarlet Wolf Book Two Preorder
- Uncanny Magazine Issue 1
- Bastion Science Fiction Magazine – Issue 8, November 2014
- Clarkesworld Magazine – Issue 98
Delia Sherman, Young Woman in a Garden: Stories - The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2014 Rich Horton et al.
- Sprawl Alisa Krasnostein (ed) et al.
- Couch Benjamin Parzybok
- Locus September 2014 (#644) Liza Groen Trombi et al.
- The Devil Lancer, Astrid Amara
- Clarkesworld
- Galaxy’s Edge
- Interzone
Beneath Ceaseless Skies - New York Review of Science Fiction
Lightspeed - Apex Magazine
- Bastion Science Fiction Magazine – Issue 5, August 2014
- Lightspeed Magazine Issue 49: Women Destroy Science Fiction! Special Issue
- Lightspeed Magazine Issue 50
- Locus #643, August 2014
- Interzone 253
- Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic
- Nina Allan, Spin
Astrid Amara, The Devil Lancer - Eric Brown, Rites of Passage
- Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold, Death by Silver
- Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
Clockwork Phoenix 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, Mike Allan, ed.
- The Devil Lancer by Astrid Amara
- Rasputin’s Bastards by David Nickel
- The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack by H. P. Lovecraft ,et al.
- The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2010, Paula Guran, ed.
- The Poison Oracle, Peter Dickinson
- Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism by David Nickel
The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved by Joey Comeau - The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2014, Rich Horton, ed.
- A Rope of Thorns: Volume Two of the Hexslinger Series by Gemma Files
Inner City by Karen Heuler - Bearded Woman: Stories by Teresa Milbrodt
- Lightspeed Magazine Issue 49: Women Destroy Science Fiction! Special Issue
- Bastion Science Fiction Magazine – Issue 3, July 2014
- Locus July 2014 (#642)
- New York Review of Science Fiction #309
New York Review of Science Fiction #310 - Clarkesworld Magazine – Issue 40
- Clarkesworld
- New York Review of Science Fiction
- Galaxy’s Edge
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
- Lightspeed
Apex Magazine - Bastion Science Fiction Magazine
- Lightspeed Magazine Issue 49: Women Destroy Science Fiction! Special Issue
- LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction – #2
- LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction – #1
- Bastion Science Fiction Magazine – Issue 3, June 2014
- Locus June 2014 (#641)
- Nick Mamatas, Sensation
- Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold, Death by Silver
- Douglas F. Warrick, Plow the Bones
- The New Hero Volume 1: Every Age Needs Its Heroes Ebook
2017 Bestsellers So Far
Tags: BestsellersWith Am*zon going big into physical retail (see Whole Foods purchase + opening bookstores) it seems ever more important to me to have an independent ebook website where books, zines, magazines, and journals are available — especially in all-DRM-free formats, instead of being locked into one device or ebook ecosystem.
So thanks, Weightless users and readers one and all for buying good books here!
And what are people reading? The first half of this year was huge for subscriptions: thank you subscribers! There are 18 titles listed on this bestseller list but there are thousands more available, most of which sold at least one copy — yay for the long tail! Here’s a list of 99c ebooks; here’s the changeable list of sale ebooks; here are the bestselling ebooks from one of our favorite presses: ChiZine; and here are the bestselling ebooks on Weightless for the first half of this year:
January – June 2017 Bestsellers
Subscription Bestsellers
May 2016 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersApparently not everyone is playing Neko Atsume on their phones, some people are also reading a lot. We had a great month kickstarted along by two star magazines, Uncanny and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, who both ran very successful subscription drives.
These magazines, like Weightless, run on subscriptions and readers choosing DRM-free independence over globespanning humorless megacorporations. We appreciate the business, we’d like to stay in business, so we will keep working to make the site faster and easier to navigate and we hope readers will keep spreading the word, especially internationally as about half of our readers are from beyond these shores. Hello world!
Someone slipped us a piece of good news this month that we will get to share with you later. Will it mean more good reading for you? Possibly!
May 2016 Bestsellers
Subscription Bestsellers
March 2016 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersMarch was a hard month as we helped distribute the New York Review of Science Fiction’s free special issue that memorialized David G. Hartwell with “memories, conversations, appreciations, poetry, arguments, and outpourings from friends, family, fellow travelers, clients, coworkers, and others whose lives David touched.”
And science fiction — and radical politics — lost another strong proponent in February, Jef Smith, who I first met at WisCon more years ago than I can remember. PM Press, who he used to table for at conventions, has a memorial by Berianne Bramman and there is a GoFundMe for his partner.
Maybe it was the weird warm (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) weather but March was an odd month here at Weightless: nothing quite took off, instead everything rose up a little and overall everyone did very well. Which is all thanks to you, readers, who choose to buy your DRM-free ebooks here, thank you. Please do keep spreading the word, it is much appreciated!
It is snowing now in Massachusetts, because of course snow happens in April instead of in February, bah!, but the driveway is shoveled and maybe I won’t have to do it again. After this I’m going to finish the Robert Jackson Bennett novel I’m reading (City of Blades) and maybe catch up on the new issue of Locus.
March 2016 Bestsellers
29 Days of Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersWe had a fun time in February with some sale titles (hello Letters to Tiptree) doing extremely well and everything getting a boost from our bonus LCRW subscription — which Michael went ahead and added to hundreds of readers’ libraries on Wednesday! I’m very happy that some of the people getting that bonus picked up an LCRW sub, basically doubling their subscriptions.
The bestselling ebook was Sofia Samatar’s novel The Winged Histories. The pub date is March 15 and we have a reading in LA at the Last Bookstore on March 30 with Kelly Link, Maureen F. McHugh, and Ayize Jama-Everett (come along!) but certain online behemoths released the ebook earlier than expected so to be fair to the legion of preordering Weightless readers, out it went. Sofia’s first novel, the multi-award winning A Stranger in Olondria, got a boost from The Winged Histories and jumped back up onto the charts.
Magazines had a(nother) strong month: the February Locus is always popular — all those year end numbers and lists and the Recommended Reading — and Lightspeed’s heavyweight author line up (Sarah Pinsker, Paul McAuley, Karin Tidbeck, Christopher Barzak, & more) certainly brought in the readers:
Ebook Bestsellers
Wait, didn’t I miss something above? Yes! Mothership Zeta which is building up a great head of steam as the first issue is still finding happy readers and the second issue just came out. Lookit that #1 spot!
Subscription Bestsellers
January 2016 Bestsellers
Tags: Bestsellers9/10 January bestsellers were subscriptions! The one individual magazine on the list was the January Locus, which had interviews with Mary Rickert and Charlie Jane Anders — so no wonder that was popular. The February issue is always a big seller too since it includes the Recommended Reading lists and has all the many and varied wide-ranging year-end reviews in it. Remember: anyone can vote in the Locus poll.
Otherwise the list is a fascinating look at the current expansion in the range and type of (mostly sf&f) magazines available. Mothership Zeta, from the very popular Escape Artists podcast publisher, is the newest magazine to quickly hit our bestseller list. Between them, Galaxy’s Edge, Flash Fiction Online, Uncanny, and Forever, fully half of January’s top ten bestsellers didn’t exist 3-4 years ago! Even Clarkesworld is only 10 years old and Beneath Ceaseless Skies is coming on eight which shows, at least on this indie ebookstore, the scope of editorial visions available now at the click of a button.
Somewhat related to the above: the full range of what is published is not always reflected by reviewers, sometimes purposefully, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies editor and publisher Scott H. Andrews had a great series of storified tweets on that subject (as Storified by Michael):
.@Scott_H_Andrews said some wise things yesterday about @rocketstackrank’s reviews metrics, so I made a #storify: https://t.co/NfGIyA2PAQ
— Mercurial J DeLusion (@michaeljdeluca) February 13, 2016
January 2016 Weightless Bestseller List
September 2015 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersAutumn is here in Western Massachusetts and it is beautiful. There are probably people right now sitting in buses going up and down and around the hills and mountains round here checking out all the leaves, baby, the leaves. Hope they also get out the buses and pick up a few leaves to take home. Meanwhile if those people on the leaf-peeping bus trips need a break from all the beauteous views, they could try some of the recent bestsellers — everyone has been stocking up on their subscriptions, which is awesome, and check out the individual titles because there are some beauties (cough) on there!
Subscriptions
Individual Titles
July 2015 bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersJ. M. McDermott’s new steampunk opus Straggletaggle hit number one this month while the first of the annual year’s best volumes came close at #2. I’m very happy to see the latest issue of LCRW in the top 5. It’s the first guest-edited issue — you can read an interview with one of the contributors, Giselle Leeb, on editor Michael J. DeLuca’s Mossy Skull. Perennial fave Ginn Hale takes the #4 spot and there’s a tie for #5: the July issue of Locus includes the Locus Awards and poll results, which always make for interesting reading and Archivist Wasp has all the buzz in the world!
In the subscription list, it’s fascinating to see the ups and downsand it is always great to see a lively upstart such as Lackington’s pop up. Yay!
May 2015 Bestselling Subscriptions
Tags: BestsellersThere’s nothing like a subscription drive to power a magazine to the top of the bestseller list. Uncanny Magazine‘s May 2015 drive pushed it past everything else on the site to sit comfortably in the number one position. Uncanny has quickly become a magazine to check out. The current May/June issue shows off their range and strength:
Featuring new fiction by Catherynne M. Valente, A. C. Wise, John Chu, Elizabeth Bear, and Lisa Bolekaja, classic fiction by Delia Sherman, essays by Mike Glyer, Christopher J Garcia, Steven H Silver, Julia Rios, and Kameron Hurley, poetry by Alyssa Wong, Ali Trotta, and Isabel Yap, interviews with Delia Sherman and John Chu by Deborah Stanish, a cover by Tran Nguyen, and an editorial by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.
February 2015 Bestseller
Tags: BestsellersJust the magazines, this time for a change. That year-in-review edition of Locus certainly is popular, but no wonder, I certainly added a story or three and a book or two to my reading list. It’s interesting to see the NYRSF near the top of both lists: with that and Locus, it proves there is a readership for strong nonfiction.
Another reason I wanted to just do magazines this month was to shine a little light on two popular new additions to the store, Forever and Uncanny. Both are published by experienced teams of editors (Neil Clarke and Lynne M. and Michael Damien Thomas) who are busy remaking the field (of whatever you want to call it: fantastic fiction? spec fic? sff&h? new weird? Ok, that last one dated me) in the shape they want. It’s an exciting time and we’re proud to be part of it. Thanks for reading and for choosing DRM-free Weightless Books!
Magazines: we have them!
December 2014 bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersAt some point I’ll have to do a 2014 bestseller list, but that takes more time than I have right now: January, the surprisingly busy month! Ginn Hale’s books would be real contenders to be the bestselling ebooks of the whole year as they are flying out of here. Uncanny Magazine continues to build its readership and it was great to see Jennifer Marie Brisset’s novel Elysium hit, love that cover! We are also very happy to note that we sold more ebooks and subscriptions in 2014 than in 2013, thank you! One of the reasons Weightless exists is so that publishers and readers will have more choices available to them and we very much appreciate you making Weightless one of yours! Check out the bestselling ebooks and subscriptions for December 2014 below. Please do come back to see what we’re up to and do tell your friends. Just because 99%* of the internet is owed by two companies doesn’t mean we can’t have fun running our own spot over here. Happy new year!
December 2014 Bestsellers
December 2014 Bestselling Subscriptions
Completely pasted in from last month’s bestseller post: some more mags that might catch your interest:
* Probably an exaggeration.
November 2014 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersNovember shot by — surely there were less than thirty days? Can’t tell, it’s all a blur. 2014 seems to have never dropped down from top speed. I’m glad to say Weightless was moving at the same velocity, especially with a new Ginn Hale book landing: that is a readership! Uncanny Magazine launched and started gaining readers. You can read the first issue online here and subscribe here.
I suppose the next bestseller list will be for 2014! (Although December is kind of nuts — I don’t know if we should include Gift Certificates on the list — so maybe I’ll include December, too. I’m imagining in early January I’ll have all kinds of free time to build lists about this that and the other: subscriptions, magazines, books, I don’t know what.) Books, books, books. What would I like more of? Time to read more books!
November 2014 Bestsellers
November 2014 Bestselling Subscriptions
Magazines!
And some other mags that might catch your interest:
September 2014 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersI was brought low by a cold and then was offline for a bit doing non internet(!) family things so I’m still catching up on, well, everything. So here’s a quick look at what rose to the top during a very busy* month. Everything rose up a little more than the month before, which is great to see: I especially like seeing some of the newer or smaller magazines picking up more readers. More variety in my my view being better all round. I am very curious to know if there are any readers out there who bought all 5 of the bestselling titles. Drop us a line or leave a comment if you did!
September 2014 Bestsellers
September 2014 Bestselling Subscriptions
* Seems every month is getting a little busier than before: which is fantastic news, thank you!
August 2014 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersThe Weightless Weekly Sales were huge last month but there were some other big titles, too, so for August I made a Top 10 (actually 12) as well as magazines (Lightspeed is still destroying science fiction, but . . . see below!) and subscriptions.
Hey, lookit Bastion’s at #1! Congratulations!
August 2014 Bestselling Magazines
August 2014 Bestselling Books
Nice to see new additions to the site On Spec and Bastion Science Fiction Magazine building up their readerships. Clarkesworld just announced a new translation project that I’m looking forward to seeing funded on Kickstarter:
August 2014 Bestselling Subscriptions
July 2014 Bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersJuly was a fantastic month at Weightless: thank you! DRM-free ebooks for one and all, and ftw! August has kicked off very well especially with the addition of so many Infinity Plus titles — for instance Neil Williamson’s The Ephemera, Robert Freeman Wexler Circus of the Grand Design, and Anna Tambour’s Monterra’s Deliciosa and Other Tales and. (Yes, that title is correct!)
The Weekly Sales were huge last month but there were some other big titles, too, so I made a Top 10 (actually 12) as well as magazines (Lightspeed is still destroying science fiction!) and subscriptions:
July 2014 Bestselling Magazines
On August 13th the price of the Beneath Ceaseless Skies ebook subscription is increasing. It’s currently $13.99 for 1 year/26 issues (56 stories) and will be going up to $15.99. Subscribe (or renew) now before the 13th to get the current price.
July 2014 Bestselling Subscriptions
June 2014 Bestsellers
Tags: Bestsellers The weekly sales go so well that I’ve added a special “sale” bestseller list for June. First up this month in magazines, Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction destroyed not just science fiction but all comers! (Going to Readercon this weekend? There’ll be a reading and there will be copies of the limited edition paperback on the Small Beer Press table in the book room.) The buzz on WDSF is huge, can’t wait to read my copy.
Great to see new LONTAR carry over from their big BoingBoing kick last month as well as new magazine Bastion. It’s hard to gain traction with a new magazine — it’s all about finding readers and being able to pay the writers. Here’s a quick link to all the magazines we carry.
June 2014 Bestselling Magazines
A special note should be made of the very popular Beneath Ceaseless Skies bundles, especially as this is the last day they’re just $9.99 for 25(!) back issues. We have every single past issue of BCS, from #1 to #150, including many that aren’t available anywhere else. As of tomorrow they go back to their regular price. Add some bundles to your cart:
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #1-#25
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #101-#125
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #126-#150
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #26-#50
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #51-#75
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #76-#100.
The subscriptions category is getting really competitive! Renew yours today:
June 2014 Bestselling Subscriptions
In case you missed last month’s 1-day sales, you can still pick up these very popular books right here and right now:
May 2014 bestsellers
Tags: BestsellersQuick notes: New books keep coming! Latest book: Lovecraft’s Monsters edited by Ellen Datlow. Robert Reed’s 3-book omnibus The Memory of Sky just dropped from $10 to $6.99. Vodo has a DRM-free ebook/movie/film bundle which includes Sofia Samatar’s much lauded debut novel A Stranger in Olondria. Interfictions Online is running an Indiegogo with lots of excellent rewards! Got more monies to spend? Support Metafilter!
Also, apparently Am*zon are pushing for bigger discounts from all their suppliers and playing hardball by taking away buy buttons, pre-orders, and even book pages. As a publisher, for Small Beer Press, it makes me really glad that we have this independent distribution channel. As someone who gets to distribute all these fabby ebooks DRM-free through Weightless, I’d like to offer a big thank you to all the publishers for working with us. We love indie bookstores (that link goes to a fun book) and would rather order from them, even if there’s a buck or two added to the price, because they are paying booksellers (either in our town or elsewhere) rather than working warehouse to death.
So: bestsellers!
Last month BoingBoing (also big believers in keeping ebooks DRM-free!) picked up editor Jason Lundberg’s Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, LONTAR, and both issues shot to the top of the list, boom! Also, putting together this bestseller list made me realize how fast time flies: in 3 weeks 2014 will be half gone. Doh! Here’s a short list of what floated to the top, book, magazine, subscription, whatever!*
Pick up your copies of the May 2014 bestsellers and push them onto the June list, too!
* That said, I haver: I didn’t include the bestseller list skewing titles from the 1-day, 1-book Thursday ebook sales.