Good woodworking magazine

[Lurker]

I have been given umpteen years worth of GW magazines which I am slowly reading through.
If anyone wants some, or a specific copy, or even a project that might be amongst them, please let me know and I will be happy to pass them along.
Some have quite detailed plans in them.

 

[Mike Jordan]

There was a number of interesting designs in GW at one time, then they made drastic cuts to contributors payments and killed it stone dead.

This is one of mine that I still have and enjoy, the top is stationary and the cylindrical part rotates on a lazy Susan bearing

 

[Lurker]

There was a number of interesting designs in GW at one time, then they made drastic cuts to contributors payments and killed it stone dead.

Steve maskery was saying the same thing when I saw him last week.

 

[Steve Maskery]

My first article was published in the Jan97 issue of GWW. It was a single-page essay about the fine line between design inspiration and plagiarism. I was paid £100 and was in heaven.
20 years later my pay had gone up to £110pp.

A few months ago, a UK mag published 2 articles of mine without my permission. It was a genuine mistake, I think (there appears to be a secondary market for articles, which, as you might guess, I am not happy about). When I kicked up a fuss I was told that their standard rate was £200... PER ARTICLE. So I got £400 for what Nick would have paid me £1100 ten years ago.

Producing a good article is quite a lot of work. I have to take decent photos as ! go, not just snaps with my phone, they have to be edited and annotated. The drawings need to be done, which is a skill in itself. Oh yes, there is some writing to do as well.

It's no wonder good writers decided that it was not worth the candle.

I've not written anything for months and months, mainly because I haven't done much woodwork so don't have much to write about. But my vision is slowly returning to my left eye and I hope to be able to see well enough to make sawdust again by spring.

But any writing I do is for the love of it, not to make a killing. I don't think it is possible to earn a living by woodwork writing, no matter how good you are. That is a great shame that such a skill is so lowly valued, wouldn't you say?

 

[Mike Jordan]

As Steve has pointed out the pay rates are a joke! It’s not worth the time and effort, to do the article?
That’s probably why they have features on adding wheels to a plastic storage bin the make a mobile tool box.
I haven’t bought a magazine for many years, my only copies came with the article payments.
GW had a competent wood worker on the staff but I think the main theme was journalists playing at woodworking rather than woodworkers playing at journalism.

 

[sammy.se]

People with amazon prime can read magazines as part of the membership.

There's usually 1 wood working magazine each month to read

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk

 

[Woodbloke]

My first article was published in the Jan97 issue of GWW. It was a single-page essay about the fine line between design inspiration and plagiarism. I was paid £100 and was in heaven.
20 years later my pay had gone up to £110pp.

A few months ago, a UK mag published 2 articles of mine without my permission. It was a genuine mistake, I think (there appears to be a secondary market for articles, which, as you might guess, I am not happy about). When I kicked up a fuss I was told that their standard rate was £200... PER ARTICLE. So I got £400 for what Nick would have paid me £1100 ten years ago.

Producing a good article is quite a lot of work. I have to take decent photos as ! go, not just snaps with my phone, they have to be edited and annotated. The drawings need to be done, which is a skill in itself. Oh yes, there is some writing to do as well.

It's no wonder good writers decided that it was not worth the candle.



I've not written anything for months and months, mainly because I haven't done much woodwork so don't have much to write about. But my vision is slowly returning to my left eye and I hope to be able to see well enough to make sawdust again by spring.

But any writing I do is for the love of it, not to make a killing. I don't think it is possible to earn a living by woodwork writing, no matter how good you are. That is a great shame that such a skill is so lowly valued, wouldn't you say?

What Steve said; much the same applied to F&C when I used to write for the mag. When I started the rate was £70 per page; ten or so years later it was still £70 a page and might even have been reduced. The editors insisted that decent quality, properly lit images suitable for publication were taken so snaps on Full Auto were out, plus all line drawings etc and additional info had to be provide by the author.
In the end I decided the miserly financial return wasn't worth all the effort required....and it was considerable - Rob

 

[Andy Kev.]

To widen the discussion a little: do you think there's a future in general for woodworking magazines?

I think it would be a shame if they were to go entirely. I used to have a subscription to F&C but then the editorship changed a couple of years ago and it seemed to turn into an arty style magazine, so I let my subscription drop.

I currently subscribe to the American Fine Woodworking which is OK.

Perhaps such mags are decreasingly viable in a commercial sense i.e. perhaps publishers can't make much money out of them. I presume this is due to lots of information being readily available on the internet.

It could be that most magazines in general could be gone in a generation or two. FWIW I think that would be a loss.

 

[Mike Jordan]

I think the internet is killing off magazines of all types, the magazines themselves are compounding the problem by selling downloads of articles from past issues for a fee. The problem isn’t helped by magazines reusing articles (without payment to the author) only a couple of years after the original issue. It may save money but I know what my reaction would be to finding I’d spent £5 on a magazine I had already read!
Adding to the problem is the fact that very few schools have wood or metalwork workshops or staff members capable of teaching the subjects. If young people are not introduced to the making process the interest is not awakened.
Technology and textiles seem to be the buzzwords now, pointless to my mind since only a minute amount of these products are now made here, imports fill all our needs.

 

[thetyreman]

it saddens me that it pays so little, not forgetting that you need multiple skills to be able to do it, I know how much work goes into photography, lighting and editing alone and that's without writing illustration and all the other skills you'd need to finish an article for a magazine.

 

[Lurker]

All true, but I wonder what the circulation is like today compared with then.

 

[Mike G]

Here's my confession: I've never read a woodworking magazine. I appeared in one once, but I just flicked through the freebie copy I received, as I have done now and then when waiting around in WH Smiths. I want a magazine to inspire me, not to tell me every single conceivable dimension of a simple little bedside table (for instance). Woodworking to me is about skills, and wood, and beauty, and design. It isn't about following a step-by-step set of instructions. If I wanted to do that I'm pretty sure Ikea could satisfy my needs.

 

[Pete Maddex]

I do like the new format of F&C, I have never built anything from plans, so an article with measured drawings is a waste to me, The most interesting bit is seeing how the joints are cut any jigs used.
So seeing makers and their furniture ok by me.

I do think magazines are virtually doomed, I feel they need to rise above the dross on YouTube and concentrate on advanced projects, and pay more.

Pete

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I stopped buying mags about 30 years ago, the articles become a little like online sharpening arguments - there's a limit to how many times you wish to read the same thing.

 

[AndyT]

One bright exception to the trend already described is "Mortise and Tenon Magazine" - https://www.mortiseandtenonmag.com/

It's as far from being a disposable ad-mag as possible. It's really nicely printed on good paper, with superb illustrations. Just as Mike is asking for, it's about "skills, and wood, and beauty, and design." It celebrates hand tool woodworking past and present.

It does, however cost £22.50 from the UK distributors, Classic Hand Tools - https://www.classichandtools.com/books- ... gazine/c84 - but if you are casting around for a wood-related treat at Christmas, birthday etc, it's not too indulgent. Think of it as an ongoing exploration of the craft, issued in instalments that you can buy as and when you feel like it.

And the other big difference is that they pay their contributors decently. (Don't bother sending an unsolicited manuscript though - if they know about you and like what you are doing, they will invite you to write for them.)

 

[Steve Maskery]

It does, however cost £22.50

And there is the rub. That's what it costs to provide a high-quality woody mag to a very specialised audience. And most people with just throw up their hands and say "No Way". People might want that sort of quality but balk at paying £5, let alone £22.20.
There is so much "free" stuff that the idea of paying for information no longer seems obligatory.
People want a Rolls Royce, but only want to pay for a Skoda.
Well, I do, anyway.

 

[Andy Kev.]

It does, however cost £22.50

And there is the rub. That's what it costs to provide a high-quality woody mag to a very specialised audience. And most people with just throw up their hands and say "No Way". People might want that sort of quality but balk at paying £5, let alone £22.20.
There is so much "free" stuff that the idea of paying for information no longer seems obligatory.
People want a Rolls Royce, but only want to pay for a Skoda.
Well, I do, anyway.

Isn't that in part due to the way we are conditioned as modern consumers? For many people price seems to be the only consideration in any part of life. It does seem to be an eternal truth that if you want quality, you have to be prepared to pay for it. Many of us seem to have forgotten the notion of saving up a bit to get the best.

I don't think I would want to pay 22.50 a month but perhaps a couple of times a year. That would work out cheaper than a year's worth of a not very good magazine.

 

[Mike G]

It does, however cost £22.50

..........People might want that sort of quality but balk at paying £5, let alone £22.20......

I'd never heard of it until a few minutes ago, and I am certainly no profligate spender. I would point out, though, that this is a twice a year publication, not a monthly magazine. I'd still probably want to have one in my hands before deciding whether the cost was justified, but it does look like the sort of magazine I would read.

 

[Mike G]

......I don't think I would want to pay 22.50 a month but perhaps a couple of times a year. That would work out cheaper than a year's worth of a not very good magazine.

That's precisely what it is, Andy. A twice a year publication. Apparently it is 144 pages long, ad free. That makes it a small book.

 

[Woodbloke]

......I don't think I would want to pay 22.50 a month but perhaps a couple of times a year. That would work out cheaper than a year's worth of a not very good magazine.

That's precisely what it is, Andy. A twice a year publication. Apparently it is 144 pages long, ad free. That makes it a small book.

It's also a 'murrican publication with all (probably as I haven't perused a copy) New World phrases and terminology; lumber, woodshop etc which would irritate me immensely, let alone Carruthers :lol: This sort of thing was bad enough when it started to appear in F&C (a wholly English publication) which is one of the reasons I stopped taking the mag. That said, some of their scribblings from Lost Art Press are quite good, especially when penned by 'the Schwarz' - Rob
Edit -had a swift peek at the latest copy with a chap called Klein. Most of it's all been covered in any one of countess Hayward books or even tomes like TToFM

 

[Andy Kev.]

......I don't think I would want to pay 22.50 a month but perhaps a couple of times a year. That would work out cheaper than a year's worth of a not very good magazine.

That's precisely what it is, Andy. A twice a year publication. Apparently it is 144 pages long, ad free. That makes it a small book.

Now you mention it, it occurs to me that I might have read something about it on the LAP website. I think I got the impression that it was about restoration projects, something which is not of particular interest to me. I take from what AndyT has written that it is actually much more than that.

 

[AndyT]

Well, the editors are rebuilding a dismantled 18th century timber building to live in, so yes, restoration does get covered.

But it's wider than that. They've done several photo essays looking at an old piece of furniture to work out how it was made. They have featured carving and other crafts.

I first bought a copy when I heard that Richard Arnold had contributed a piece about his attempt to make a four panelled door, from sawn timber, by hand, in a single day, to check Walter Rose's statement that it was counted as a good day's work.

If you look on the website and blog you'll find tables of contents and sample articles.

 

[AJB Temple]

M&T is good - but I don't regard it as a magazine. And strictly for enthusiasts with some spare cash. There is a second hand market in them.

Woodwork magazines are dead. What does appear to be selling still is magazines on crafts, houses, gossip, women's stuff and cooking. This is pretty much all the supermarkets stock now. And the publishers pay for product placement.