Hi all, I know that any magazine you like to name has excellent issues and maybe some not so interesting to you. To have a regular expectation of a magazine to read you have to make a similar committment i.e. take out a subscription. I read the editorial and clearly the publishers are allocating less money to the magazine.
The subscrition ensures that the publishers get all of the money. I think Colin has mentioned elsewhere that the high street outlets charge for having a magazine on their shelves which reflects on how financially viable the magazine is.
The Model Boats magazine is the only one we have, it would be more than sad to lose it. I wonder if it might be possible for the present to still produce the magazine on line only? As most magazines are almost home publishing now it seems to be a way of staying around and being within government guidelines. I believe that the government will pay 80% of salaries to keep employees employed?
I have all the Model Boat issues stored away and most of Model Maker magazines as well, and occasionally take a single year's issue and have a quiet read, and we all have a lot of time for that at the moment! I also am a long time subscriber which nicely guarantees I get my regular monthly magazine.
Sometimes you have to put your money where your mouth is (without wishing to upset anybody). We are going through trying times and it would be a great shame to find Model Boats had fallen by the wayside.
I suggest that if you buy the magazine in the high street without opening it then take out a subscription. There are always going to be the ones who use WH Smith as a reading room and buy only if they have to.
Being active model boat builders we all have fairly strong personalities, we would never survive otherwise having such a niche interest! The opinions posted on this forum are testament to this.
If you do not actively support what you like or have then it will vanish. Model Boats magazine Forum already knows this from the demise of their original Forum which was as active as Modelboatmayhem is now.
When the original MB forum was taken over by new publishers and ignored I personally pleaded to keep it going as many others may have done as well. I did have a contact via our late club Chairman whose son was the graphic designer for the MB magazine. But to no avail, he implied they were just not interested in the running of it.
Although now resurrected it is a pale shadow of what it once was. But then MBM is here now probably because of this and as an aside if you like this forum then slip Martin a few quid to keep it all viable.
I see from the MB web site that the May edition is there to read, my copy has not arrived yet (?). No advertisers mentioned and many of them must rely on the magazine to keep their on-line businesses going.
Much is speculation at the moment just decide for yourself what you want and what you want to still be there when we get back to a virus free situation. I hesitate to use the word 'normal' as many might well say the old normal was lacking in several respects.
regards to all,
Roy
