Pulp Market Share, 1925.

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Title data: 82 titles.

• Adventure: 9 titles, 11%.
• Detective: 4 titles, 4.9%.
• Fantastica: 1 title, 1.2%.
• General: 21 titles, 25.6%.
• Humor: 6 titles, 7.3%.
• Miscellaneous: 3 titles, 3.7%.
• Romance: 11 titles, 13.4%.
• Saucy: 26 titles, 31.7%.
• Sports: 1 title, 1.2%.
• True Crime: 2 titles, 2.4%.
• Western: 6 titles, 7.3%.

Issues data: 1011 total issues.

• Adventure: 100 issues, 9.9%.
• Detective: 116 issues, 11.5%.
• Fantastica: 12 issues, 1.2%
• General: 264 issues, 26.1%.
• Humor: 28 issues, 2.8%.
• Miscellaneous: 31 issues, 3.1%.
• Romance: 158 issues, 15.6%.
• Saucy: 221 issues, 21.9%.
• Sports: 24 issues, 2.4%.
• True Crime: 18 issues, 1.8%.
• Western: 90 issues, 8.9%.

Combined data:

1. General: 25.6% of titles, 26.1% of issues.
2. Saucy: 31.7% of titles, 21.9% of issues.
3. Romance: 13.4% of titles, 15.6% of issues.
4. Detective: 4.9% of titles, 11.5% of issues.
5. Adventure: 11% of titles, 9.9% of issues. 
6. Western: 7.3% of titles, 8.9% of issues.
7. Miscellaneous: 3.7% of titles, 3.1% of issues.
8. Humor: 7.3% of titles, 2.8% of issues.
9. Sports: 1.2% of titles, 2.4% of issues.
10. True Crime: 2.4% of titles, 1.8% of issues. 
11. Fantastica: 1.2% of titles, 1.2% of issues.

Conclusions: The pulp boom is in full swing. The number of titles is up 44% from the year before and 165% from 1920. The number of issues is up 20% from 1924 and 112% from 1920. Publishers clearly saw the pulps as a market with great potential, so they are rolling out pulps at a much greater speed in the hopes of a hit--Ranch Romances was the obvious model here. If a new pulp or even a new genre failed, you could always try another one.

But it's only a boom for some. Publishers clearly saw the General pulps as an area worth expanding into--the number of General pulps went from 13 in 1924 to 21 in 1925. The publishers responded to the showing of the Saucy/Spicy pulps by publishing more of them: 17 in 1924, 26 in 1925. And, at last, the Western pulps begin to show some life: 3 in 1924 (including Ranch Romances), 6 in 1925.

But for the other genres the boom is only gradual. One more Adventure pulp, one less Detective pulp, three more Humor pulps (but of the 6 Humor pulps published in 1925, 4 are a combination of Humor and Saucy), one more Miscellaneous, two more Romance, and one more True Crime. The rich get richer, and the tide which is lifting the other genres is rising at only a measured pace.


General is the dominant genre, once again. And perhaps the publishers and editors of the General pulps felt they were reversing the downward trend of General's market share. But probably not, and with the advantage of history we can see that General's dominance in 1925 is perhaps the last gasp of the genre.

Consider the new General pulps in 1925:

• Best Stories, which will last two years and 25 issues before becoming a western and sf pulp;
• Clever Truths, which lasted four issues (June-Sept 1925) before being turned into Best Stories;
• Complete Novel Magazine, which will last three years and 38 issues before becoming a western pulp;
• Famous Story Magazine, a reprint pulp which will last two years and 17 issues before being canceled;
• New Sensations, an obscure pulp of very low circulation which lasted four issues in 1925 before being canceled; 
• North-West Stories, which is in 1925 a General pulp (despite its title) but which will become a Western, frontier, and Mountie pulp in 1926; 
• Thrills, which has four issues published in 1925, seven in 1927, and one in 1928, and then is canceled;
• and Zest, which has one issue published in 1925, three in 1926, and one in 1927, and then is canceled.

Their fate, every one of them, is cancellation or conversion to another genre. Individual General pulps, the heavyweights like Short Stories and The Popular Magazine, were in good shape in 1925, but most of the other General pulps were not.

Finally, I mentioned last time that the Westerns owed a lot of their success to the Romance pulps via Ranch Romance. In 1925, three new Western pulps appeared: Cowboy Stories, Lariat Story Magazine, and True Western Stories. Cowboy Stories debuted in May, and was published by Clayton, the same publisher which put out Ranch Romances. Lariat Story Magazine was published by Fiction House. And True Western Stories was published by Street and Smith. Cowboy Stories would last for 12 years and 145 issues. Lariat Story Magazine would last for 26 years and 191 issues. And True Western Stories would go through five title changes over the next 7 years and 84 issues. None of these were major Western pulps, but they were popular enough that they added to Western's momentum and bring about the greater Western pulps.