 Popular was uncertain of the sales potential for the two new titles and decided to publish them under its Fictioneers imprint , which was used for lower @-@ paying magazines . Super Science Stories ' first issue was dated March 1940 ; it was bimonthly , with Astonishing Stories appearing in the alternate months . In Pohl 's memoirs he recalls Harry Steeger , one of the company owners , breaking down the budget for Astonishing for him : " Two hundred seventy @-@ five dollars for stories . A hundred dollars for black and white art . Thirty dollars for a cover . " For Super Science Stories , Steeger gave him an additional $ 50 as it was 16 pages longer , so his total budget was $ <unk> per issue . Pohl could only offer half a cent per word for fiction , well below the rates offered by the leading magazines . Super Science Stories sold well , despite Pohl 's limited resources : Popular was a major pulp publisher and had a strong distribution network , which helped circulation . Steeger soon increased Pohl 's budget , to pay bonuses for popular stories . Pohl later commented that he was uncertain whether the additional funds really helped to bring in higher quality submissions , although at the time he assured Steeger it would improve the magazine . Some of the additional money went to Ray Cummings , a long @-@ established sf writer who came to see Pohl in person to submit his work . Cummings refused to sell for less than one cent a word ; Pohl had some extra money available when Cummings first visited him , and though he disliked Cummings ' work was never able to bring himself to reject Cummings submissions , or even to tell him that he could not really afford to pay the rate Cummings was asking . Pohl comments in his memoirs that " for months he [ Cummings ] would turn up regularly as clockwork and sell me a new story ; I hated them all , and bought them all . " 
