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RIP Popular Woodworking and F+W

5K views 45 replies 27 participants last post by  HorizontalMike 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
#2 ·
It was inevitable. Print newspapers have been going downhill for well over a decade, and magazines are not in any better if a position. Best they can hope for is to drive enough only e readership to sustain their businesses through digital ads. But there are SO many sources of content these days that is not an easy thing to do…
 
#3 ·
I just joined the Lumberjocks community today and ran across your blog on the demise of Pop Wood and those other woodworking mags. It is so valuable to get a former insider's view of what's going on there. Thank you for that frank analysis. As you said, I'm sure it was not pleasant for you to write that. As a former print and wire journalist from the old school days when that was more of a craft with a mission than a corporate numbers game, I can appreciate your sense of wistfulness.
 
#4 ·
What a shame, I know you put a lot into Pop Wood when you were there, sad to see it driven into the ground like this.

I guess this explains why I never heard from them after my dining table won the 2018 excellence awards….
 
#6 · (Edited by Moderator)
I think computers and the internet started the downhill slide on humanity for a lot of businesses. I watched an old documentary recently on the design and building of aircraft. It showed a room with at least a 100 draftsman in it working on drafting tables and another room with at least 200 clerks sitting at desk with typewriters.

A dozen CAD operators have taken the place of those draftsmen and computers have probably replaced 90% of all those typewriter and filing clerks. Being a CAD person myself, taught and working on the drafting table for many years, I could never see myself going back to the drafting table. Automation has caused us to have to make some serious changes in our mill work shop in the last 10 years to be productive in the industry. (CNC)

Now what's in the process of killing off millions of jobs is something called automation. Several years ago we visited a distribution center that had had about 300 employees in it. It now has 5 computer nerds working there programing and monitoring all the robots in the warehouses and several forklift operators.

Sad to see woodworking magazines going down. If they want to stay afloat they might need to think about in line with the new way of doing things, in the internet.
 
#7 ·
My subscription to Fine Woodworking expired and I chose not to renew it due to the huge price increase for the subscription and their presumption that they could simply auto renew my subscription since I paid for it online which meant they had my credit card number and the fine print included a clause that allowed them to do so. The business side turned me off to a very good woodworking magazine.

The other issue I've noticed is that the basic articles don't change. Go back 5-6 years and look at what they are building then fast forward to today. There are a few style differences but the same projects are showing up (bookcase, end table, clock, etc.). Woodsmith suffers from this problem, though they seem to be doing OK.

What I appreciate about the books Bob writes is the history section at the beginning as well as some darn good shop drawings and pertinent discussion of the piece and it's construction methods. I'm not sure but I might have all of the books Bob has written on A&C, G&G, Stickley, Harvey Ellis. Keep them coming and I will keep buying them for my library. Reading a book like that is great way to spend an evening looking for ideas for the next project. Beats looking for content on the internet.
 
#8 ·
I still subscribe to PWW, and likely will until the lights go out (which may be sooner than I anticipated). But I was following this info on another forum when several of the posters moaned and groaned about the bad management choices made there recently, suggesting that's what led to this. I guess I think the choices were bad, but is unrelated to it's continuing decline. As someone mentioned above all print media is likely to go by-by in the not to distant future. Bad news for me, I still prefer to hold the paper in my hand. On the other hand, it's fairly hard for such a magazine to have new content all the time…I mean, how many times can you detail building a table? For many years I had subscribed to Popular Photography, which was a much older magazine than any of the woodworking offerings; and they quite publishing a paper edition a few years back.
 
#11 ·
One other thing the woodworking magazines did wrong-they stagnated. How many bookcases and Shaker tables can you write about? How many router tables and crosscut sleds articles are enough? MCM as a style has been extremely popular since the 90s and yet every magazine ignored it and stuck to Shaker and Craftsman with occasional forays into contemporary. I was in a video conference with writers from w/w magazine and when they asked for furniture ideas, one of them mocked me for suggesting MCM. Yet if you go on YT, the MCM build videos are extremely popular with young people who are very much into minimalist styles.
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
Was getting WoodWorker's Journal, Poplar Woodworking and Fine Woodworking. I dropped their subscriptions because of content, Didn't feel like I was learning from their content (old or stale or just plans of stuff you aren't going to build). The last mag from Woodsmith was Vol 40/No 235, I think I just renewed them. Also just sent a check to renew my subscription to Wood. Woodsmith and Wood magazine I do like the content. Was going to subscribe to 'Mortise and tenon', but thought the subscription rate was too high. I do prefer learning from the printed magazines and books, and not e-books. I just checked to see how many woodworking books I've purchased, the count was 35. Like many, I'm sure you all have books you've purchased to learn from. or able to go back and refer to.
 
#14 ·
One other thing the woodworking magazines did wrong-they stagnated. How many bookcases and Shaker tables can you write about? How many router tables and crosscut sleds articles are enough? MCM as a style has been extremely popular since the 90s and yet every magazine ignored it and stuck to Shaker and Craftsman with occasional forays into contemporary. I was in a video conference with writers from w/w magazine and when they asked for furniture ideas, one of them mocked me for suggesting MCM. Yet if you go on YT, the MCM build videos are extremely popular with young people who are very much into minimalist styles.

- Woodknack
This.

The stuff they were pushin, women ain't buying. All the stuff in the magazines I would show to my wife, crickets.

It was always funny to see bookcases on the cover. I was working in furniture retail when buying the magazines. You couldn't give a bookcase away.
 
#15 · (Edited by Moderator)
On the off-chance anyone hasn't seen it, Chris Schwarz has a typically pithy take on this over on his blog. He places the blame squarely at the door of the various venture capitalist purchases, which sought only to strip-mine the company for profit then sell on the husk for another cycle of cost-cuts, fire sales, borrowing and re-organizing.

Like others here though, I'd cancelled my sub a while back, mostly because it seemed to have lost its identity and didn't feel relevant to me anymore. Still hope it can find a new home though.

https://blog.lostartpress.com/2019/03/11/an-alternate-ending-for-fw-media/
 
#17 ·
With due respect to the journalism pros/displaced workers it's the fact that print is an inferior medium that is behind the industry-wide decline. Short-sighted business practices don't help, but emphasis upon quarterly EBITA isn't what makes print cumbersome to search and store. Remember "that one article about bevel-up planes" about five or ten years ago? Try to find it in your collection of old magazines, meanwhile a web-user will find fifty articles offerings and videos too with a simple Google search. I like the old "books" for many reasons, nonetheless they cannot compete.

20 years ago I was involved with a market research project for a major auto OEM where the topics revolved around marketing material. In those days one would reach a live operator at a call center or fill in a business-reply card and a week later they'd receive a slickly-produced booklet/catalog featuring their choice of vehicle. We floated the concept of accessing this same content via email or a website, and almost universally the response was negative. People took those catalogs to work to show off what they were buying, to bed to read at night, into the bathroom, and everywhere else. Click (literally) forward to the present and mobile technology replicates the portability and instant access of the old books, and so those cld hard-copy catalogs are fading fast. Internet and mobile are finally in our hearts and minds and so print is doomed.
 
#19 ·
There's obviously still a market for quality woodworking content, but it was never going to be in magazine form. Just look at the success of Marc Spagnuolo and others.

If they'd gone all in on video content creation I think they'd have been better off. That would have required some vision and willingness to invest from the owners, which obviously was never going to happen.
 
#20 ·
I just got into this hobby 5-6 years ago. Even at that time there was plenty of content on youtube to satisfy my curiosity. I never considered paying for a magazine when I could watch well produced content for free online. It also turned me off that every article they wrote online was behind a pay wall.

I get that everything cant be free, but there is some seriously high quality content on youtube, and it is getting better every day. I would attribute that to the death of these very niche magazines. That and you can never trust product review in a magazine…
 
#21 ·
You can't trust product reviews on youtube either. Both places can be swayed by a manufacturer with a fist full of dollars.

Random youtube reviews are no more trustworthy than a magazine review per se, but you certainly have access to more reviews on youtube (and here), which means you're more likely to find someone who isn't shilling.
 
#22 ·
I think there best shot at survival would have been latching on to someone like Ana White. Say what you want about her, she can sell. She could have improved her builds a little, and the magazines wouldn't have to be so stuffy. She could have dropped hints online about next months issue and such.

In the end it probably wouldn't have mattered. They would have seen the online numbers and dumped the magazines. Would have been interesting see though.
 
#26 ·
Oh God, Ana White, yeah she can sell… Sell garbage. Mommy blogs of wannabe furniture designers pumping out crap with a 6 month lifespan are not the way forward in woodworking.

- Woodknack
100% correct.

She's in it for the money only. She found a market and ran with it, and could care less about the people building her junk.
 
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