Jim Baen’s Universe To Close After April 2010

Jim Baen’s Universe, the online magazine, will be closing after their fourth year of publication. Editor Eric Flint has this to say:

In a nutshell, we were simply never able to get and retain enough subscribers to put us on a sales plateau that would allow us to continue publishing. From the beginning, we were too dependent on the income from the Universe club. The Club’s purpose was to provide the magazine with a much-needed initial surge of income–which it did indeed provide–and then, after the first year, to continue as an important but subsidiary source of income. Instead, the Club wound up being the source of about half of our annual income, from beginning to end.

The magazine intends to make sure that current subscribers get all the issues they paid for, and to honor all contracts with authors. For further information, visit their website.