Magazines

[marcus]

I'm coming in a bit late on this thread, but I'm with Mike when he says :

Inspire me, don't instruct me!!

If I need a new tool (and I don't buy many at all) I would go and have a look at the alternatives in a shop........or if I bought the magazines I would probably look through the advertisements before going to the shops.

I'm now wondering if the inspiration I seek for new projects equates in some way to the inspiration that some people seek for new tools.

At the moment I'm regretting taking out a subscription to F&C a few months ago which I am finding rather dull and uninspiring. What I would like in a magazine is to read the sort of things which are harder to find on the net. Proper in depth articles from or about people who are doing interesting things in wood - and not just the how of what they are doing but the why.

Take Krenov's writings. OK I know that he's not to everyones taste, but you only have to compare a few paragraphs of his writing to anything written in almost any woodworking magazine I have come across to feel the gulf that exists between what is and what could be. I would like, as Mike says, to feel inspired by what I read - and challenged by lots of different view points and approaches to aesthetics, design, working methods etc.

I would like to feel that the magazines viewed me as a woodworker who thinks about what he does and cares about the work and who doesn't need instructions on how to do the simple things - which can be found on the net in five minutes anyway, or in any basic book on woodworking.

To quote Mike again:

Could it be that most readers of the magazines are more interested in the contents of the workshop than in the products that come out of the workshop?

Surely not.

When I was at boat-building college one of the instructors was a guy who was close to retirement and had been working with wood his entire life - on everything from fine furniture to boats and houses. He was a mine of information, and without question the best woodworker technically that I have ever seen. I doubt there are more than one or two on this forum who could approach him in this respect. But if you looked at his tools they were a ragbag lot. Not a lie nielsen in sight! Basic workaday tools, almost all made, or bought second hand and fettled. He had a set of turning gouges made from worn out files as I recall. But the work he did with them couldn't be faulted. To him a tool was not a fetish object, but what he used to do the job. It had to work efficiently and that was it.

Now I'm not immune to a bit of tool porn as it happens and have some nice tools mixed in with the (more numerous) workaday ones, but I do try to remember that they are not an end in themselves.

I guess that a sizable portion of the wood magazines' income comes from advertisers. It's in their interest to push the "you need to spend a fortune on tools because that's what woodworkers do" line. To be fair due to the nature of the material we work with, tools are an important part of our work. We need more of them, and need to think more about them than people who work in most other crafts. I would love to see more balance about this though. Perhaps a line of articles along the lines of "All the Tools you Don't Need", "Make do with Less Tools, or "Tools! - how to know when you have enough of them."!

In general the magazines I've come across seem to assume that the aspirations of their readers are set at a rather low level, and there is little in them to encourage us to really stretch ourselves or to broaden our horizons. The work pictured is often simply not that good, compared to the best of what's out there. Neither does it reflect the diversity that's available. There's very little WOW factor, few things which make me think "I want my work to be that good". (FWW is an exception, or at least was last time I saw it).

Needles to say I won't be renewing my subscription to F&C.

Anyway I will be taking up Nick on his offer as I hadn't heard of BW and it sounds quite promising!

Cheers

Marcus.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

If you haven't asked us for a sample copy yet, Marcus, do please do so and we'll send you a free issue. The offer's open to anyone wanting to give British Woodworking a go.

I really hope we don't set the bar 'too low' at British Woodworking. I sometimes think it's a pity that woodworking magazines are judged by their skill level by many readers, rather than their attitude. As a result they tend to 'dumb down' and make the content focused on the beginners, who are relatively easy to please with tool tests and basic techniques.

I believe that sort of information is going to be increasingly available for free from websites. What we try to do at British Woodworking is to bring a bit more passion to the subject, to make it not just quite useful, but a great read. In focusing only on the useful magazines tend to get a bit dull. I hope that doesn't happen with British Woodworking and that it has the capability to inspire, entertain, inform and challenge woodworkers of all abilities.

Thanks for your support.

Nick

 

[p111dom]

I really hope we don't set the bar 'too low' at British Woodworking. I sometimes think it's a pity that woodworking magazines are judged by their skill level by many readers, rather than their attitude. As a result they tend to 'dumb down' and make the content focused on the beginners, who are relatively easy to please with tool tests and basic techniques.

Nick

That's fine but you need to take a definitive tack one way or the other. On one hand your have OPJ making a relatively simple table using techniques most of us know and use and on the other you have people making on off extreme high end pieces to be sold in Harrods. You said in an earlier post that very few of the readers attempt the builds and I'm not surprised that no one would attempt to build that one. If it's about inspiring people by showing them peices that they could never possibly make thats fine too and I would probably go for that as a purely inspirational publication but call the mag British Furniture Design and focus on that. Previous posts have shown that you certainly can't please everyone from beginner right through to pro so at some point all the mags have to choise their target audience a bit more definitively. I think GW have a reasonable middle ground containing intermediate (ie possible to reproduce) articles and more public interest pieces than the others such as owers of wood yards and life long builders without getting to involved in the manufacturing process which for me would leave me a little frustrated. BW is a good publication when you take each article on it's own merits but I find myself reading one, skipping one and since all of these mags are only in the region of 80 odd pages the feeling of value for money is quickly erroded. Take Top Gear magazine for instance. £4 but 300 pages plus on average.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

Fair point. Finding ways to encourage people to read as many pages of a magazine as possible is one of the critical challenges for an editor. That's always going to be difficult if the readers are deciding what to read or not to read based on the project itself rather than the story behind it or the techniques illustrated. We try to have a mix of projects to suit different abilities and tastes and approaches.

Nick

 

[big soft moose]

That's fine but you need to take a definitive tack one way or the other. On one hand your have OPJ making a relatively simple table using techniques most of us know and use and on the other you have people making on off extreme high end pieces to be sold in Harrods.

I'm not sure thats true - i would rather see a magazine that has both beginer, intermediate and advanced projects (though i appreciate that you can have them all every issue) because people who are starting out can then grow with the magazine as their skills improve.

For example i was originally inspired to stasrt turning by the article about mark hancock in "woodturning" there was no way that my skills were up to what he does then - but i saw the kind of thing i could make one day - while at the same time being encouraged by articles like "Ray key - turn your first bowl"

while i would still hesitate to compare my skills to marks, eight years later i am reasonably competent and i often return to those early issues to try projects that i like the look of but couldnt possible attempt back in the days of yore.

also some of us have good skills and drills in one or more fields (turning and scrolling in my case) but in other areas (such as cabinet making) we might be rank beginers but looking to improve.

 

[Dave S]

I guess that a sizable portion of the wood magazines' income comes from advertisers. It's in their interest to push the "you need to spend a fortune on tools because that's what woodworkers do" line. To be fair due to the nature of the material we work with, tools are an important part of our work. We need more of them, and need to think more about them than people who work in most other crafts. I would love to see more balance about this though. Perhaps a line of articles along the lines of "All the Tools you Don't Need", "Make do with Less Tools, or "Tools! - how to know when you have enough of them."!

Marcus, I agree with what you're saying, but I think one only has to look around here a little to realise that many are quite happy to purchase or hanker after tools they don't need. Ok, perhaps I'm exaggerating somewhat, but there seem to be people who spend literally thousands on tools - they polish them, take a picture for their avatar and then... well, what? Put hem away in a cupboard in the workshop? Get them out to gloat occasionally? I don't know, but you rarely seem to see any project threads from some of them. :?

Ok, if that's what people want to do then fine, it's entirely their business. But I do think it means that many are looking for pretty much what the magazines (or some, at least) are offering. And those looking for inspiration, provocation or a 'good read' are perhaps somewhat in the minority.

Another thought - when I was a beginner I bought many magazines, but the two I bought on a regular basis were GW and F&C. GW for the how-tos and the attainable projects (I used to enjoy Pete Martin's project articles very much because they seemed achievable to me as a beginner). F&C I bought simply because it was way out of reach - seemingly unattainable. But it was thought provoking and aspirational.

I stopped my GW sub a couple of years ago and didn't buy any mags for a while. I picked up a couple of F&C recently, but it doesn't seem to have what it used to have. More and more I find myself drawn to the FWW site and having bought the odd copy in the past, it is the one I would be most likely to subscribe to now.

Dave

 

[MikeG.]

When I was at boat-building college one of the instructors was a guy who was close to retirement ..............and without question the best woodworker technically that I have ever seen............... But if you looked at his tools they were a ragbag lot. Not a lie nielsen in sight! Basic workaday tools, almost all made, or bought second hand and fettled. ........... But the work he did with them couldn't be faulted. To him a tool was not a fetish object, but what he used to do the job. It had to work efficiently and that was it.

He sounds like my sort of woodworker, Marcus, and his workshop sounds like mine. I don't treat myself to new tools.........I treat myself to new projects, or some new wood.

It is only since joining a couple of forums (fora, I'm told!) that I have discovered that the main thread binding contributers together is tools, not projects. I still don't really understand why. I do know that if you want to have a really long-running and popular thread you say something controversial about a plane..........the equivalent of lighting the blue touchpaper and standing back!!!

Maybe the magazines should split themselves up into 3 categories: tool and machine magazines, introductory projects magazines, and advanced project mags. I'm looking forward to reading Nick's magazine..........and I take the opportunity here of publicly thanking him for the free offer..............because he sounds like a guy passionate about woodworking first, and interested in sales/ circulation second.

Mike

 

[Tim Nott]

I've had a sub to Taunton's Fine Woodworking for a while but am thinking of cancelling as it seems to be less and less interesting "Tune up your tablesaw - Again!"
What's good in UK mags? I live in France so visiting a UK newsagent is un peu difficile

Tim

The "bouvet" is not a bad read, fairly technical though.
and you'll find it at your local carefour !

Thanks - I wasn't aware of that but have signed up for a free copy!

 

[Tim Nott]

A magazine cannot be all things to all people, as Churchill said " you can please some of the people all of the time............."

Though that was Abraham Lincoln :?

And it was fool some of the people.....

But then George W Bush has a good version
"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on"

 

[p111dom]

I'm not sure thats true - i would rather see a magazine that has both beginer, intermediate and advanced projects (though i appreciate that you can have them all every issue) because people who are starting out can then grow with the magazine as their skills improve.

I can't think why any one would want to buy a magazine where two thrids of it is either too advanced or too simplistic for them. On a 90 page mag that's only 30 pages and at £3 that's 10p per page and a large portion of that is advertisments. Surely better to have three publications aimed at each three, beginner, intermediate and advanced woodworker.

 

[Nick Gibbs]

Now there's an idea, Dom! Bags I the intermediates. Good Woodworking can have the beginners and F&C the advanced. I'll have a word with the appropriate editors/publishers, and we should have it fixed by Monday.

And Ratwood, a free mag's on its way!!! Thanks for your email.

Nick

 

[RATWOOD]

thank you nick

 

[big soft moose]

I can't think why any one would want to buy a magazine where two thrids of it is either too advanced or too simplistic for them. On a 90 page mag that's only 30 pages and at £3 that's 10p per page and a large portion of that is advertisments. Surely better to have three publications aimed at each three, beginner, intermediate and advanced woodworker.

fair enough if you are an expert - but then you should be writing for the magazine rather than reading it

if you are a beginer the beginer projects are their to teach you basic techniques and to reassure you that you can actually make something, the intermediate to stretch you a bit , and the advanced to inspire you that you could make something like that oneday.

to get that from a three publication system you would have to spend three times as much.

also by splitting your mag in three you would have a lower readership per mag , thus less economy of scale meaning you would need more adverts to make a profit and thus less content and less autonomy to give frank and honest reviews - no that way madness (and bankruptcy) lies

 

[Nick Gibbs]

Ah, Moose, I couldn't have put it better. Thanks. You should be Chancellor!

Nick

 

[big soft moose]

Ah, Moose, I couldn't have put it better. Thanks. You should be Chancellor!

Nick

cheers nick - but i can't be chancellor, because I understand basic economics

 

[p111dom]

Now there's an idea, Dom! Bags I the intermediates. Good Woodworking can have the beginners and F&C the advanced. I'll have a word with the appropriate editors/publishers, and we should have it fixed by Monday.

Nick

Look all I'm saying is that the mags sometimes try to be a Jack of all trades and end up being master of none. Of course there are economic factors which will prevent a single publisher from creating all three but it's all a matter of market research (or lack of it). Reading through this and other threads it seems that main reason people have for either not buying or cancelling subscriptions to a particular magazine is that they find it of no relevance to their particular level of ability or interest. BW has had a good start and has largely avoided the critisism that the other mags have had over repetition but it is only a few issues old. I hear the agrument that you would want a spread of project complexity which is fine if you are a beginner espiring to get better but as your experience grows you never look back. This means more and more of a single magazine aimed at the whole market has less and less relevance as time goes buy resulting in the inevitable situation where the readed feels it's just not good value for money and cancels. You're right I'm not an ecconomist or the chancellor but to use words one might use, it sounds like a policy of short term gain but long term pain to me.

Personally if I were starting again I would have gladly bought a publication which wasn't afraid to assume you know nothing and start right at the beginning explaining in detail every technical term or acronym refered to. How often have newish people been left scratching their heads over what PAR or a RAS were on this forum. Once the mag starts getting repetative you're probably ready for the next step. All the mags are competing for every level of reader which just seems like madness to me especially as there seems to be an underlying message that bugdets are critical. You don't go into a restaurant and only get one choise of meal. Imagine it, a serving of honey glazed melon mixed with sorbet topped off with hot fish soup garnished with pork, tomato sauce and ice cream mixed all together on the same plate. Who's going to eat that? Granted it would be cheaper to produce in bulk and I bet the accountants would love the financial figures but like my magazines when it comes down to it I would prefer a choise.

 

[p111dom]

also by splitting your mag in three you would have a lower readership per mag , thus less economy of scale meaning you would need more adverts to make a profit and thus less content and less autonomy to give frank and honest reviews - no that way madness (and bankruptcy) lies

Again I think the logic here over simplifies the situation. I'm not sure readership would be that much lower. Again I refer to the droves of people who stay away through lack of relevance. The beginners because of intimidation and the advanced through over simplicity. If you targeted them directly in seperate publications I think the draw of new readers who could find relevance in 100% of the publication significant. As for adverts there are hundreds of manufacturers who in my opinion must be put off by the broadness of the brush in the current mags. For instance Rojek are targeted at a very different market than say Clarke. I can imagine that both manufacturers would have to think very carefully about spending money on advertising aimed not wholey at it's target market. These manufacturers engage in vigerous and costly market research to define their customer base. Why they want to advertise in magazines that don't do the same is a mystery to me. Perpaps it's because they have no choise? If I were the MD of say Draper and a magazine approched me for advertiding revenue I would be more likely to pay a slight premium for advertising space in a mag that targets 100% of my products hobbyist target audience than a mag catering for only 33% of it. That just makes financial sense. Therefore while Ryobi and Festool both make tools they are not in direct competition with eath other and neither would the three ability defined mags. You would also maintain your readership over a much greater period of time and while three publications would be costly there would be a significant savings on things like premises, staff, utility bills etc if all three were produces under one roof. Three mags wouldn't be trebble the cost but could potentially treble the income. Big risk granted but big payout possible. He who has the greatest number of happy reads wins.

 

[big soft moose]

i'm not say your are defintely wrong P11dom but it strikes me that the fact that numerous publishers don't do as you suggest, indicates that there is something wrong with your logic.

There probably is some market for an "expert or proffesional" publication (looking at the photography magazine market by way of parrallel there are numerous magazines aimed at the whole "beginer/intermediate and expert amateur" market (they dont divide between them for the reasons outlined above)

However there is also "professional photographer" which does what it says on the tin combining high end technique advice with buisness advice and interviews with succesful pros. - this is bough by proffesionals and experienced amateurs who no longer get satisfaction from the other mags

Likewise while it is a virtual certainty that dividing BWW in three would lead to the bankruptcy of all three (and we cant really blame nick for not wanting to commit economic and career suicide), there could be a market for nick (Or someone else) to start a "proffesional woodworker" publication .

However now is not the time , with the economy tanking (thankyou mr brown) pros will be cutting non essential costs and mag subscriptions will be among the first to go. (particularly as they can get much of the advice on sites like this for free)

 

[big soft moose]

I received my free copy of BWW today (thanks nick - top service).

having looked through it it looks like a good mag , but there is a disapointing lack of turning - is this just this issue or a general thing because if its the latter although i might buy it occasionally i probably wont subscribe.

also you need to work on your proof reading - Top line of the contents page " 20 Respirators on test , find out which is better: the new airshield pro of the dimunitive power cap" Presumably this is supposed to be "or" Its only a little thing but not picking up the typopos detracts from projecting a proffesional image.

 

[Paul Chapman]

not picking up the typopos detracts from projecting a proffesional image.

:? :? :lol: