Scroll saw magazines ?

[Anonymous]

Just wondering if anyone knows if there are any UK published scrolling magazines ?
I used to get a UK one about 4/5 years ago and I believe it finished due to lack of sales !

 

[Gill]

Hi Alan

Ahhhh....I remember that magazine fondly . Alas, it fell by the wayside shortly after the millennium but a compilation of its projects live on in the book "Simple Scrollsaw Projects" published by GMC. It's by no means a comprehensive collection (where's the nativity set and the ship's hull cut-away?) but at least the magazine hasn't been totally forgotten.

I don't know of any other UK scroll saw magazines. Indeed the only magazines I'm aware of are both American: SSW&C and CW&C. If you haven't tried them out yet I suspect you'll find SSW&C is more to the taste of British scrollers, but they're both excellent publications and well worth having a look at.

Gill

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that Gill.

It's a shame this hobby/profession isn't more widespread in the UK as it has so much to offer people of all skill levels.
With no UK scrolling magazine it's down to forums like this to generate interest in such a varied and satisfying branch of woodworking !

 

[chrispuzzle]

Even in the USA, SSWC is only quarterly - just four issues a year.

I used to work in consumer magazines (a long time ago now) and back then the golden principle was to try and get the advertising revenue to cover the costs, and then the sales were all profit.

That doesn't work for everything, and it was often more a goal than an achievement, but I would guess the biggest problem with a UK magazine is getting advertising into it. There are just not very many brands of scrollsaw, types of blade and books to advertise in the UK. Even fewer if Delta is pulling out.

So most of the advertising is going to be secondary advertising, ie, advertising to scrollers because they might be interested in something else (such as a general Axminster or Screwfix ad). That's not a very comfortable place to be if you are a magazine publisher, because you can be the best scrollsaw mag in the world and still lose advertisers to a DIY mag you don't even compete with and can't affect.

Of course if you have very high sales then you can get more advertising. But the quarterly nature of SSWC is probably because its advertisers don't want to pay for ads 12 times a year - I could be just mouthing off at 3 in the morning, but I bet most of its readers would happily buy it every month and it's the ad revenue that's the problem.

 

[Gill]

I quite agree. The only scope I see for a UK magazine would be something in an electronic format so as to reduce the production costs. Perhaps a quarterly CD or a PDF file that could be downloaded from a website.

The absence of a dedicated publication or other focal point for UK based scrollers was one of the reasons why this board was established. Scrolling seems to be resurgent in the UK, it just needs to be established in its own identity.

Gill

 

[BobD]

And the problem with a magazine in electronic format, especially a scroll-saw magazine, is that fact that if the patterns are already digital, people don't feel bad sharing them...so the digital rights management is an absolute nightmare!

And Chris, you're on target with the magazine; if we had more subscribers, we may be able to publish more issues, but as it is...

Bob

 

[Toni Burghout]

I quite agree. The only scope I see for a UK magazine would be something in an electronic format so as to reduce the production costs. Perhaps a quarterly CD or a PDF file that could be downloaded from a website.

The absence of a dedicated publication or other focal point for UK based scrollers was one of the reasons why this board was established. Scrolling seems to be resurgent in the UK, it just needs to be established in its own identity.

Gill

Big smile here Gill. I believe it would be a huge time consuming undertaking to start such a "magazine". HOWEVER, if you're interested Gill - count Sue and I in on the talks....

Part of our plans for this upcoming year was to add a "Teachers Corner" to our site. This "teachers corner" will cover topics we have discussed in prior publications and workshops. Some articles will be freely listed on the site, others are a fee based lesson, (think they are starting at 3.99 each) and are downloadable through a publishing company called Lulu. We simply don't have the resources to keep them on our site, nor did we have the expertise to organize it which we had to "enlist the help of a third party". (we could use this person to help with such a venture)

These downloadable lessons are short and step by step with photos. Easy to build a library on what you want to learn. They are in downloadable pdf format which would be easy to use for a "ezine" or "magazine" aimed at scrolling in the UK. We have a couple in production right now, but time being what it has been, they are still in the process. I can only imagine what work a "ezine" or "magazine" in this format would be to process. If I get the chance this week to work with Ricki, we will get the one of them up for you to see if you are interested.

Take care
Toni

 

[Gill]

That sounds interesting, Toni. Let us know when everything's ready .

Gill

 

[BobD]

Definately! I think that's a great idea! Are you at all concerned about digital rights management? For some reason, as soon as a person has a digital copy of something, they feel like they can just e-mail it, or burn a CD for anyone they want.

Bob

 

[Mike M]

I see that some of you are talking about a digital CD instead of a magazine. A friend tried it and below you can see how it wound up:
http://www.woodworkingathome.com/
Mike M

 

[Gill]

Unfortunately, Mike's hyperlink got caught up in our anti-spam measures. If anyone would like to check it out, here it is:

http://www.woodworkingathome.com/

Gill

 

[Mike M]

Thanks Gill.
Mike

 

[Toni Burghout]

Thanks for the link Mike.

This idea surely isn't new as Mike's link will prove. It looks like your friend put a huge amount of work into the whole process.

Bob, there is always that possibility. Same as there is with patterns being circulated after they are purchased. Sue and I are well aware of how that hits too. Some time ago we found out one person was purchasing a pattern and then circulating it among their woodworking club. This ISN'T OKAY.

We tried this idea with Lulu publications to see if they (as a third party) would have a better hold on the security of the download. It wasn't what we hoped.

I have an inquiry out to an organization who has managed to send out documents in PDF that you can only print once, and can not be saved on a computer.

I personally don't have enough time or interest in creating such a magazine or ezine, and believe it would take someone like Bob with his expertise, or some computer guru to really get into the publishing. I hope to see something like this in the future, and would applaude the person(s) who can pull this off.

 

[chrispuzzle]

Even a print-once pdf can immediately be scanned and copied, and a person who has a computer system and is clued up enough to download the material and use it is likely to have the means at hand to duplicate it.

It is the ethos of the hobby that counts for most. Toni's story of a person copying B-C plans is a case in point - an individual may not understand the way things work but at least some of the recipients of his generosity ought to, and say "no".

But we live in times where copying, or "file sharing", is endemic on the Internet. You can't safely base the economics of an online or CD-based magazine on anything relying on preventing copying of static files such as plans.

What you probably need is the sponsorship of tool manufacturers and large tool distributors to pay for your basic overhead. You need to collect 'free' plans, either out of copyright or donated, as well as "reader's plans". You could be creative about attracting them, for example, by offering a prize for a "plan of the month" (if you can get someone to put up a prize).

The point is to avoid paying for the stuff that is most likely to be copied anyway. Toni and Sue generously make plans available from time to time for "challenges" such as the recent Aries Challenge, but this is also a benevolent way of advertising their business - I hope they won't mind my putting it in those terms, I am sure they would be just as generous with designs if they were not running a business.

You can of course hide the plans away behind a subscription barrier, and that's a good thing to do to attract subscribers especially since they may be coming to the site to get access to "free" plans.

On the other hand Rick Hutcheson's site already does an awful lot of what a good Scrollsaw online/CD magazine ought to do. It has a massive library of Victorian fretwork plans which are inexpensive to download so that it makes more sense to pay a few bucks to download the plan rather than expend a lot of time trying to find an illicit copy of it. It contains articles about choosing and using a saw and it contains videos illustrating techniques.

If I was planning an independent site I'd want to combine a site like Rick's with forums like these or the Scrollsawer forums. I'd try not to worry about copying, but I'd want to get the famous designers to provide regular freebies for the site in return for advertising links. And I'd be looking out for collections of out-of-copyright patterns from the 1920s (or collections that are about to become 'out of copyright') with a view to providing large libraries.

 

[BobD]

The problem with a lot of the victorian patterns, Chris, is that they were mimeographed....and highly distorted. We've got several designers (John Nelson, Richard Preator, and Pedro to name a few) who devote a lot of time to making sure all the dimensions line up...especially on those with through tenons...

So just use caution when getting victorian patterns; if you are going to pay for them, it's worth it to pay a little extra to make sure the dimensions are correct!

 

[Canadian Scroller]

Online publishing has always intrigued me.
Not from a profit point of view but from a multimedia standpoint.
Mini video clips could go a long way to demystifying the processes.
With PDF files being a recognized standard that most can use I think it would be a great combination.

The only downfall I can see is bandwidth. Most free site providers limit the bandwidth for obvious reasons.

I guess that is where the advertising comes in.
Just like publishing on paper the more advertising you sell the more articles you can include.

Traditionally subscription costs to publications just barely offset distribution costs.

One of the problems with advertising is not everyone likes to read it
A way around that is through subliminal means. Like always including a photo of the product that is sponsoring you. Perhaps by always cutting with a "BRAND X" saw, or always using "ABC Glue company" products.
I guess this is where the salesmanship comes in.
My ideal for an online publication would be to make it free. People scour the net looking for free patterns and information. If it is free from the onset then copyright issues can be avoided, as long as contributions are copyright free.

This is something I would really be interested in for my retirement.
I just have to wait a few years before that.