BCS reported our circulation statistics for 2021 to Locus magazine, for their annual February issue that lists such data for magazines in F/SF short fiction. We will also post them here.

In 2021, BCS published 26 issues, containing 54 pieces of original fiction (33 stories, 19 novelettes, and 2 novellas) and 22 audio podcast episodes (17 originals and 5 episodes of our archive podcast The BCS Audio Vault).

The BCS website averaged 70,000 unique visitors per month, up 5% from 2020 but down 10% from 2019-2018. New podcast episodes averaged 9,000 downloads per episode, down 25% from 12,000 in 2020-2017. Submissions volume remained 20-50% above pre-pandemic levels.

Accolades included a ninth Hugo Award finalist for Best Semiprozine, an eleventh World Fantasy Award finalist, a second Ignyte Award finalist for Best Podcast, and “The Mermaid Astronaut” by Yoon Ha Lee voted a Hugo Award finalist for Best Short Story.

Fiction singled out included “The Captain and the Quartermaster” by C.L. Clark, “When Your Being Here is Gentler Than Your Absence Hard” by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko, “A Stranger Goes Ashore” by Adam R. Shannon, “A Flower Cannot Love the Hand” by Aimee Ogden, and “In Case You’re the One to Devour a Star” by Tamara Jerée, as well as pieces by K.J. Parker, Marie Brennan, Richard Parks, Cat Rambo, and Carrie Vaughn.

Funding remained a challenge. Supporters of the BCS Patreon enabled the magazine to maintain its 2019 increase in fiction pay rate, to 8c/wd, and to increase the honorarium paid to the magazine’s First Readers.

Our circulation increased since 2020 but remains down since the years before the pandemic, and submissions volume remains up since the start of the pandemic. Thank you to our readers and fans and supporters and subscribers, and we look forward to 2022!