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 $455 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. Though he disliked Cummings' work he was never able to bring himself to reject his 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 would turn up regularly as clockwork and sell me a new story; I hated them all, and bought them all."