fine woodworking mag

[johnnyb]

went shopping in Leek today went in whsmiths to check out a few mags. blow me down fine woodworking was £10.99! I thought the content was still good but it was thinner! it was that good I nearly was tempted.

 

[heronviewer]

Costs less to get it by subscription direct from Taunton Press

 

[mwinfrance]

Presumably if you are paying for it it has no ads..oh..wait.

Which is why I stopped buying magazines of any sort* around the turn of the century..and reading them at the doctor's is the best way to catch the previous reader's nasties.

*Except a monthly "brit " thing for a euro ( which is 80% ads ) which SWMBO ( who had two real estate agencies , Cannes and Nice , when we met ) asks me to buy , so she can see how cheap the property being sold by the Brit community "inland" is , compared with prices here on the coast / seashore.

The emagazines I've seen ( on other people's devices ) also apparently contain ads..which , to my mind, means I'd be paying to be spammed..nope..ain't gonna happen.

 

[Jacob]

Presumably if you are paying for it it has no ads..oh..wait.

Which is why I stopped buying magazines of any sort* around the turn of the century.......

I stopped buying woodwork mags about 40 years ago after I did a C&G carpentry and joinery course with a lot of basics. I realised I'd learnt F.A . from the mags and basically they just churned over the same sort of info from one month to the next, with loads of misinformation thrown in amongst the promotions for gadgets and unnecessary expensive tools.

 

[recipio]

Gave up on F+C a few years ago as the content started to ' dumb down ' .The new version is tilted towards ' studio furniture ' - I prefer to see practical projects that I can actually make. I still have many years worth of magazines filed away and like to use them for inspiration. At least they used to get top quality cabinet makers to contribute articles -- it's very hard to find that kind of content online. At times I feel I'd like to start my own magazine !

 

[niall Y]

It is, and continues to be, a challenging time, for all print media. I used to supply the odd article to a couple of the magazines, but I started to notice more in-house content generated , along with advertiser articles. This I presume was a way to fill the pages at less cost. With some of the magazines there was also a reduction in paper quality ( a not inconsiderable saving if you are publishing lots of titles) And, during Covid the demand for content really tailed off.
I did have a subscription to 'The Woodworker' , until a couple of years ago, this I let lapse, as apart from the odd article, there was nothing I was interested in reading. This is even more true of gardening magazines, which after all just cover the same yearly cycle

 

[recipio]

Sorry, my above reply did not reference ' Fine Woodworking ' but they have gone the same way as F+C . They began to drop tool comparisons and while aimed at the American Market were still interesting. When they featured very amateurish online presenters I knew it was not for me - especially at that price.

 

[ColinDeVelen]

A lot of folks will say this is the wrong attitude, but I have found that most magazines will offer a digital only subscription, usually with a very cheap first month. If you can avoid any auto subscription options, and / or are willing to fight your way through un-subscribing, and assuming you have some time to spare, you can usually access a lot of 'back issues' and articles, print them as PDF's, file them somewhere, and then you have the material you want, and have avoided the garbage. It's a fun way to spend a wet winters weekend.
I do also subscribe to some of the e-letters that a lot of them do, so they can see their advertisers message getting through to my inbox (where inbox rules promptly file it out of the way) and use that revenue to keep the staffers paid.