New Popular Woodworking Magazine

[Admiral]

After slogging through( need a shower..) this thread.....

Some would rather just sit back and person, rather than get out and FIX the problems.   Cry and complain about the content, yet will not do anything to improve things?   Guess the armchair is a safer place...eh?    

"I will follow this path, no longer"

Bandit, I don't quite understand your post.  The assets of PW were sold at a bankruptcy auction in 2019 for $1M.  You think we should have taken up a collection?  Or started a Fund-Me page?  What's your point here?

[hbmcc]

Thanks for the related article links, Admiral. I found the Times article about Equity owner leaches destroying business astounding. Those same scum are begging for free relief from the government Pandemic Money Giveaway--referenced in a linked Times article.

Unlike Bandit attempting to hide, who I empathize with, my capacity for hatred only grows greater.

[Handplanesandmore]

I'm not a subscriber of Pop Wood, but I have access to it through my club. May be someone would find it useful as we all are doing woodworking at different levels, and that's why I haven't suggested to my club that it kill the subscription. That's the best I can do, and I'm not throwing any of my own money at something that I don't even spend more than 10 minutes per issue which is seeing tips recycled, at least one article recycled, and lots of ads. Plywood desk? Google will get your more ideas and videos using that search key.

If they're trying to model after Wood magazine with plywood builds which still has the largest circulation figure, they may find themselves losing old subscribers, but not winning new ones. Just because Sellers has produced a plywood bench for his video series, it doesn't mean Fine Woodworking is going to commission Christian Becksvoort to build one as a featured article.

Simon

[AHill]

What is really sad, yet amazing.....is this continual bashing of a horse that is either now in a glue pot somewhere, or buried.  

Maybe go out to the shop, build a few things, and start up a magazine that you do approve of....Make sure the content is "fresh", readable.....and we'll see how long that lasts.

Or, better yet...take over that magazine, and remake it into your own image.....of course, with this current Crusade....I doubt IF you would get any readerships to come back.....

What killed these magazines?    Look in your mirror.....while you ask Sancho for another lance, to replace the one you broke charging that Windmill......

Since when is it a subscriber's responsibility to rectify issues of a publisher?  We wouldn't be bashing if we didn't care about their demise.  PW was making money before getting sucked into the vortex of buyouts and corporate mismanagement.  They stopped listening to their consumers (subscribers), (and their editorial staff for that matter) and now they are standing at the edge of a cliff without much of a choice but to jump off and die, because there's nobody left to hold them back.  If they were producing relevant and interesting content, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  None of us have the resources like Elon Musk to go make a better mousetrap.

Several of the PW staff were regulars here.  They listened.  They interacted.  They were respected writers and furniture makers (Glen Huey, Steve Shaughnessy, Christopher Schwarz, Charles Bender, Bob Lang, Megan Fitzpatrick to name a few).  What's left are, in my mind, glorified librarians.  I let my subscription run out.  There is far better content out there on YouTube and in various woodworking blogs.

[bandit571]

Starting to sound just like when "Mel" killed off FWW's "knots" forum.




All this bitching, and not one suggestion to fix it....other than "Bitching, Moaning, & Complaining"

[cputnam]

Several of the PW staff were regulars here.  They listened.  They interacted.  They were respected writers and furniture makers (Glen Huey, Steve Shaughnessy, Christopher Schwarz, Charles Bender, Bob Lang, Megan Fitzpatrick to name a few).  What's left are, in my mind, glorified librarians.  I let my subscription run out.  There is far better content out there on YouTube and in various woodworking blogs.

Amen to that!

[GNP]

Starting to sound just like when "Mel" killed off FWW's "knots" forum.




All this bitching, and not one suggestion to fix it....other than "Bitching, Moaning, & Complaining"

Post deleted............by GNP

[Bob Lang]

Since when is it a subscriber's responsibility to rectify issues of a publisher?  We wouldn't be bashing if we didn't care about their demise.  PW was making money before getting sucked into the vortex of buyouts and corporate mismanagement.  They stopped listening to their consumers (subscribers), (and their editorial staff for that matter) and now they are standing at the edge of a cliff without much of a choice but to jump off and die, because there's nobody left to hold them back.  If they were producing relevant and interesting content, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  None of us have the resources like Elon Musk to go make a better mousetrap.

Several of the PW staff were regulars here.  They listened.  They interacted.  They were respected writers and furniture makers (Glen Huey, Steve Shaughnessy, Christopher Schwarz, Charles Bender, Bob Lang, Megan Fitzpatrick to name a few).  What's left are, in my mind, glorified librarians.  I let my subscription run out.  There is far better content out there on YouTube and in various woodworking blogs.

Those thinking this can be fixed need a reality check. This is a vehicle that was overworked until the head gasket blew, then drained of oil and run some more. What you see now is an attempt to make some money from the leftover parts. Lots of my old articles have been reused lately (at least online), and I think they're pretty good but they aren't anything new. The business models that worked for publishing books and magazines 20 years ago are no longer viable, especially for someone like me who makes a living creating content.There is still an audience of people who appreciate good content, but it can't be satisfied by trying to sell subscriptions at $20/year to everyone who owns a table saw while maintaining a parasitic corporate structure. Especially if you're trying to sell the same content that has been sold for the last 40 years and is available online for free.

Good fresh content is out there, but you need to seek it out and find it in publications like Mortise and Tenon, American Period Furniture (the annual SAPFM journal), or Pins & Tales (the SAPFM quarterly). I now edit the SAPFM publications, but you have to be a member to receive them. I also publish my own books, an enterprise I started 10 years ago with "Woodworker's Guide to SketchUp" and my most recent "Shop Drawings for Byrdcliffe Furniture". I'm better off working from home juggling a few things part time than I was working for a publishing company. The pie is a lot smaller, but I'm not the last in line to get paid and people who enjoy what I do manage to find me. Old solutions just don't work in a new world. Creative folks need to develop new solutions and the audience needs to seek them out.

[Handplanesandmore]

 Lots of my old articles have been reused lately (at least online),

It's absolutely fine for them to reuse materials of which they own the copyright. Fine Woodworking has done that for years on its website, but it gives credit where it's due (issue #, date, etc).

I don't know where the current crop of editors at Pop Wood received its education or training to think that reusing materials in its print magazine without acknowledgments is a fine editorial practice.

Simon

[Admiral]

Those thinking this can be fixed need a reality check. . . . .

True, dat. . . . including those who think people here can fix it.