What is "on spec"

adv. 1 In hope of success, using one's best guess 2 (context colloquial business of creating a work English) With the hope of selling it, as opposed to on commission (gloss: for hire).

On Spec is a digest-sized, perfect-bound, Canadian quarterly magazine publishing stories and poetry in science fiction, fantasy, and allied genres broadly grouped under the "speculative fiction" umbrella. Based in Edmonton, Alberta, On Spec was founded in 1989 by a small group of Edmonton writers who joined together to form The Copper Pig Writers Society. At the time, there was no paying market for English speculative fiction in Canada (though paying markets in French did exist). On Spec is Canada's longest-running, and according to author Robert J. Sawyer, arguably most successful English-language magazine in the field.

Much more like a traditional small literary magazine than the mass-market-styled American science fiction digests such as Analog and Asimov's, On Spec was founded to address the frustration that English-speaking Canadian SF writers faced having to "Americanize" their stories for the existing US markets.