Because apparently people weren’t, or at least weren’t willing to do so if there weren’t any pictures of naked women involved. Personally, I think that what Playboy should do here is just start buying a metric ton of genre fiction-type short stories. Like they used to, in fact, but buy even more of ’em, this go-round. I have no idea whether this would have saved a softcore skin magazine in the era of the Internet, but then I don’t know what CAN save a softcore skin mag in the era of the Internet. At least in this scenario they’d be tossing a few more checks an author’s way, which is an incredibly smart thing to do with your money…
— Cooper Hefner (@cooperhefner) February 13, 2017
Sounds like someone is asking for Moe money in his particular Lane… 😉
I’d love to sell a story to Playboy: they apparently pay extremely well. 🙂
Well, they were known for paying extremely well (as in a dollar a word back in the 70s, when they were heavy hitters). Don’t know what their rates are these days.
That’s why they had consistently good articles, interviews, and stories. They paid a premium.
Is there a magazine that currently puts out genre fiction short stories? Preferably without the nudity, as that would be a bar to entry into my mailbox.
Well .. there’s F&SF ..
.
https://www.sfsite.com/fsf/
.
It ain’t cheap, but there are consistently several solid stories per issue.
.
Mew
Analog is still around as well.