Which Magazine?

[matt]

Which then begs the question Alf, if you don't like the content...why don't you submit something? Writing copy for a mag within a set framework of tight time deadlines, word count and decent quality photography (and not the dross you so often see on t'interweb forums) is not easy. As I've said before, if folk don't like what's in the mags, try writing for one...I've yet to see any article (and would be happy to be proved wrong) in any current paper magazine from your good self - Rob

I don't really like the content either but I'm not suggesting I could do any better, I just don't buy the magazine.

Is it really the case that someone should be challenged to be better before they can express a view? There are cars I don't like but I doubt I could design and build a better car. Meals too - do I have to enjoy the taste (or be seen to) because I couldn't make something tastier? Imagine how quiet the pub would be after the match?! Or maybe that's the exception - every fan really can run/manage/coach etc a football team better than the current encumbants :shock:

 

[ondablade]

Hi Alf, I'm very much in the same space on quality of writing too. Dare I say I'm inclined to think that it is possible to say something worthwhile about even a relatively simple task like cutting a mortice too - there's always room for a new tweak or insight.

When you examine the words so many when writing default to describing actions in generic terms. Not a good example - but e.g. 'we cut the mortice using a router and an an abc jig'. It doesn't tell you much that's not already self evident. Ditto a generalised photo. On the other hand something much more specific like 'use a really sharp upcutting spiral cutter, adding at most 10mm depth of cut each pass while taking care that the router doesn't tip off the ....' is much more useful and for very few more words - potentially a mini lesson in how to make a cut like this in fact.

The good writers have a way of leaving the self evident to speak for itself, while catching the trips that will cause you problems when doing the job for the first time.

I guess a really good writer (a) has been there and done that, (b) has in addition got something worthwhile to add on method and technique, and (c) has the writing ability to communicate the specifics concisely. To my limited knowledge there used back in the day (before mags were run by accountants) to be well recognised right and wrong ways of doing it - you'd hear stories of cub reporters on newspapers being put through the mill by editors as a part of the learning process.

Quite apart from the little matter of whether an editor knows what's needed it's anyway become the case that it's seen as rude to do this sort of thing any more - it seems like perceptions in organisations are often formed more by how fast a guy can run his mouth than by the true quality of his work...

 

[Alf]

I think that what's being suggested here is that those of us who do put fingers to keyboards and submit copy to whatever mag they write for may not have sufficient intellectual gravitas to merit the 'content'
Which then begs the question Alf, if you don't like the content...why don't you submit something? Writing copy for a mag within a set framework of tight time deadlines, word count and decent quality photography (and not the dross you so often see on t'interweb forums) is not easy. As I've said before, if folk don't like what's in the mags, try writing for one...I've yet to see any article (and would be happy to be proved wrong) in any current paper magazine from your good self - Rob

There was one in Traditional Woodworking - it went kaput very shortly afterwards! I don't think the two things were connected... :lol: It taught me a lot though; mainly that the editor didn't know the difference between a bandsaw and a mitre saw, which was less than encouraging. I have two main reasons for not submitting to mags - primarily the incredibly slow turnaround of my projects. Mags seem to like projects, not rambling. Rambling's what I'm good at. And talking about it on the internet as I do it, which seems to me where magazines are going wrong - too much content is seen online first. So I'm reluctant to add to that. But the other is when I do have something, I offer it to Lee Valley first, 'cos they asked. Mind you, they don't encourage rambling either, but equally they don't demand I actually build anything. :lol: (I should, I suppose, declare an interest - although it's not a magazine and anyone can read it free, gratis and for nothing)

Having said which, I don't actually think you have to do it to have an opinion about it anyway. Who hasn't had an opinion about, say, a film or telly programme, but how many of us work in film or TV? Magazines are put out there for the benefit of the reader (one assumes) so isn't the reader's opinion actually the only one that counts? (Basically I'm agreeing with Matt)

Steve, fair enuffski

Jim, F&C do ask? Good for them. Do they give info on desired word count, pics etc? Actually, it suddenly occurred to me - do any of the mags have a page on their website with the basic outline for submitting an article? Dunno about anyone else, but throwing a piece of work at a magazine completely blind is extremely off-putting. It's a bit like being asked to "Make a table" and then finding the dining table you made has to get chopped up to make the desired coffee table, when you could have made a better coffee table all along if you'd only known.

Ian, you're absolutely right, of course - cutting a mortise can be considerably more detailed. Have you considered taking up quill yourself...?

Anyway, I've rambled enough. For some reason this subject never fails to get me worked up; you'd think I'd have learnt by now. Thank you for your indulgence and I shall retire from the fray, even if it means sitting on my hands. :lol:

 

[woodbloke]

There was an excellent article recently in F&C on the basics of taking a decent studio quality pictures of furniture using basic and non expensive kit...simple tripod, taking manual exposures etc and using lighting effectively. F&C will also (or at least they used to) provide a hard copy doc on how to go about submitting a piece to the magazine...all you need to do is ask. Rambling though Al, would be frowned on :lol: concise and precise is more the norm (and he's not needed either) with an element of something in it to make it a DGR (one of Steve's Darned Good Reads) - Rob

 

[alec]

As a newby I wonder how many potential wood workers are put off through magazines, there is very little in them to demonstrate using a basic tool kit, for instance something as simple as squaring a piece of wood. The magazine will tell you put it through your planer/thicknesser that cost £400 then your table saw that cost another £400, it won`t tell you how to use your hand plane that cost £60. As some have said magazines are of little use to the expert and the beginner who may get some good advise and instruction from them cant afford the machinery that the instructors in these tutorials use.
Perhaps a little more thought towards the basic beginner and consideration for the tool kit a beginner might have would encourage more woodworkers and in turn increase sales. Just a thought!

 

[Steve Maskery]

Alec, that is fair comment, except that I don't really think that is the role of a mag. Let's say that such an article is published one month. Fine. But next month that mag is not available, so the next beginner who comes along can't get it anyway. And if that article is repeated a few months later, everyone else complains about repetition and dumbing down.
The examples you give certainly do need to be available, but a text book is, I suggest, the more appropriate medium.
Now you are going to ask me which text book, and I'm afraid I don't have an answer (although I did write a chapter on CAD for Hamlyn's "How to Woodwork", edited by Phil Davy).
S

 

[woodbloke]

As a newby I wonder how many potential wood workers are put off through magazines, there is very little in them to demonstrate using a basic tool kit, for instance something as simple as squaring a piece of wood. The magazine will tell you put it through your planer/thicknesser that cost £400 then your table saw that cost another £400, it won`t tell you how to use your hand plane that cost £60. As some have said magazines are of little use to the expert and the beginner who may get some good advise and instruction from them cant afford the machinery that the instructors in these tutorials use.
Perhaps a little more thought towards the basic beginner and consideration for the tool kit a beginner might have would encourage more woodworkers and in turn increase sales. Just a thought!

There you'd be wrong. I'ts not feasable for a mag like F&C to publish that sort of information each month, but it has been done in the quite recent past. John Bullar did an excellent series called 'The Apprentice' dealing with basic hand tools and methods, along with simple projects to make...the series then progressed into 'The Journeyman' If you have a look at the F&C website at GMC publications there may be elements of it on-line - Rob

 

[alec]

Steve and Rob I here what you both say and your points are valid, I think what I was trying to say was that not everyone has the financial resources to purchase the machinery that articles refer to, and that perhaps an alternative method might be touched upon to encourage and include those with only basic tools. As I said only a thought.

 

[Dibs-h]

The greatest magazine in the world is called GOOGLE IMHO.

Jim

I'm with him!

I used to subscribe to FWW and probably will just renew the online version or get the DVD's with all the back issues - in which case it's almost like access to a libary, which is fine. I don't have to store all the mags and scratch my ar5e and wonder where I saw such and such an issue last! Online can be searched to guide a fine degree.

Online is the future and ultimately those that don't embrace it will die out. Now there's an idea - an entirely online WW magazine! Videos, tutorials, advanced track, beginner track, etc., the needs of numerous groups could easily be met, without the confines of only having x pages!

Dibs

 

[OPJ]

...edited by Phil Davy).

While you mention Phil, a lot of the projects be builds and has featured in Good Woodworking are produced using a relatively minimalistic mix of power tools. Most of it appears to be done on a Workmate, sometimes using timber that's bought as PAR (planed-all-round). Of course, most of the items he produces are to be fitted and used around the house, using man-made products (MDF and ply) along with pine and some hardwoods. It's more towards the DIY-end of the scale... While we're not talking about furniture that would make the front cover of many magazines, there may tips that someone could pick.

(None of the above is intended to sound disrespectful towards Phil or the magazine.)

Magazines are focused on woodworking in general, while most blogs are all about the woodworker; the individual.

 

[ondablade]

I'm not sure what's feasible, or even if there is any consensus on what needs to change in the mags - although it's fairly clear the problem is far bigger than anything to do with individual titles or writers.

My personal view is that the current en-masse gravitation of the industry towards dumbing down (and the attendant loss of editorial clout/minimal difference between titles/tight budgets/rapid staff turnover/ad hoc staffing/absence of career writers/kowtowing to advertisers) has its origins in the corporatisation, homogenisation (making all the same) and effective stripping out of the heart (higher vision and values) from the UK mag publishing culture back in the 80s and 90s.

That's not to say that prior to that was some golden age. What was different though was that there was enough freedom/belief in that world for the people with the guts, vision and creativity to do so to have a go. Lots of what they produced was daft rubbish, but every now and then a jewel would emerge and prosper. (on merit - not by buying out and shutting down the opposition)

It's a very old principle, but very true - that (despite the opposite tendency of the corporate mind) true strength lies in diversity.

This isn't aimed at anybody in particular, but there's so much fear about these days. Mag people (even private publishers) behave almost as though they have been brainwashed into believing that there is only one mag publishing model possible - as though their job is to deliver within this framework, or face censure from their lords and masters. Or as though some sort of post modern insecurity or paranoia has set in, so that nobody is prepared to break the mould.

How can it be that as a fairly casual reader I can buy almost half a dozen UK published motorcycling mags - and short of zipping back to check the cover/title can't distinguish which mag it is or who is writing??? They even cover largely the same topics - driven mostly by when the bikes and kit they help push is released by the makers, or when the sanitised pap that masquerades as information is released by the corporatised media channels they all subscribe to. (heaven forbid they might actually have to send out a reporter) What's worse is that woodworking isn't very far behind in this regard....

Breaking the mould is precisely what is needed. This publishing model is dying on its feet, it's the decaying legacy of the brief period when the accountants ruled and it (financially) worked - of when the corporates had taken over, but before the web kicked in to spoil their grab for monopolies. (and before the punter got bored of the resulting dross - you've only got to look at the reduction in stocking of special interest mags over the past ten years - over here anyway)

What's happening now is surely the classic response of bureaucracies/entrenched cultures to change in their external environment. Instead of engaging and responding to reality the old almost inevitably digs in and blindly but ever more zealously applies the old model.

The (actually positive) lesson of industry is that organisations/industries in this situation rarely change, and even less rarely survive. That it's the newer and freer thinking alternatives geared to the new reality that take over the resulting space.

That's just one view. Whatever the cause though it seems to me that right now that discussion of the magazine situation is a bit of sterile topic.

The fact is that it never seems to move beyond the setting out of positions, and the defence of the status quo - plus the odd more senior mag type having a cautious sniff for feedback/ideas, but ever so carefully avoiding substantive engagement....... (heaven forbid that they might get walked into something requiring real change)

 

[ondablade]

A PS on the above. There's a chronic lack of resources at most titles so they try to do it on a shoestring - probably because od some mix of (a) owners/corporates are taking too much out/not investing enough, or (b) because there are too many of them in the market - or perhaps (c) because they are at an early stage of development.

The organisations that die in these situations are those that won't change - normally the bigger ones with rigid cultures.

I'm actually convinced that magazines can as a result of the much high quality reading experience, and the provision of hard copy material that can be easily accessed for future reference compete effectively against the web and the other mags - and that a mag that can differentiate itself through quality can succeed.

But if it follows them down the 'everyone can be an author', the 'make it shiny and glossy and it's sure to sell' and 'my view/writing is as as good as anybody else's and I'll take the hump if you say otherwise' road in offering stuff that isn't very professional or differentiated by it's quality they won't - they have to rise above the babble.

Pricing is an interesting question too. Are very high production values essential to selling a mag with very high quality content? Can a very high quality mag bear a higher price, or would it make sense to tone down the glossiness a bit to free up more money?

The challenge for the smaller private publisher/editor type is to find a space that strikes a chord with and holds the interest of the buying public. There's then a big marketing job to be done. The bad news is that without a really good gut/creative instinct this is a bit of a lottery.

The lesson of management history is that the customer doesn't actually know what they want - they'll happily insist they do, and like me provide reams of waffle - but in the end they mostly repeat the status quo. Satisfying these requirements won't change their buying habits.

Another old saying that's very true - the truth/higher view is never the majority position.....