What is going on in the publishing world?

I renewed for three years to some of my favorite
magazines like 73 Mag, Poptronics, and
Electronic Servicing & Technology and they appear to
have gone under leaving me with no subscriptions
and not even a transfer of my subscription to
another magazine as a substitute.

This makes me an unhappy camper not only because
of the loss of money but because I loved getting
these magazines every month.

Do you have any thoughts on this trend?

What is going on in the publishing world?

I renewed for three years to some of my favorite
magazines like 73 Mag, Poptronics, and
Electronic Servicing & Technology and they appear to
have gone under leaving me with no subscriptions
and not even a transfer of my subscription to
another magazine as a substitute.

This makes me an unhappy camper not only because
of the loss of money but because I loved getting
these magazines every month.

Do you have any thoughts on this trend?

Unfortunately, this is a dying hobby....and the advertising revenue wasnt
enough to keep these magazines afloat..........and couple that with the fact
that Wayne Green was a bit of an "outlaw", crazyman, and a rogue didnt help any
with the potential advertisers. And for example...73 magazine was heavily
oriented towards "hands on projects", which hams dont do anymore. Its a proven
fact....these days, without industry support and advertising revenue any
magazine is doomed......Wayne had his day in the sun.....and it finally "gave
up the ghost"

Bill in Missouri

Do you have any thoughts on this trend?

Unfortunately, this is a dying hobby....and the advertising revenue wasnt
enough to keep these magazines afloat..........and couple that with the fact
that Wayne Green was a bit of an "outlaw", crazyman, and a rogue didnt help any
with the potential advertisers. And for example...73 magazine was heavily
oriented towards "hands on projects", which hams dont do anymore. Its a proven
fact....these days, without industry support and advertising revenue any
magazine is doomed......Wayne had his day in the sun.....and it finally "gave
up the ghost"

Bill in Missouri
Not to mention that he is 82 years old, and sold his magazine empire years ago,
for million$ to another party. Tho he might have bought it back, even he could
see that amateur radio was collapseing- not what he envisioned, 3 decades ago,
about becomming the training ground of millions of kids becomming interested , if we
only abandon the code-they will become our future technicians and engineers (those
seem to now be comming from India, and other parts of ASIA)! As to "POP TRONICS",
this I believe was it's resurection of the 50's-early 60's tome, published monthly,
and like 73, was geared to the home builder/experimenter. Worse, the articles tended
to aim at the simple, rather than like, say, the old Ham Radio, or QEX , that was
geared to the true experimenter, where Store Shelf Items were not available. Granted,
these have a small, but very loyal following, as the information isnot redially
available elsewhere- even in Ham Radio's demise, see many requests that ultimately
are found to be answered in Ham Radio- hence the c-d rom available for this set of
mags. Seen these come and go over the years, but always a shock to see another one
bite the dust. How much longer for World Radio, CQ, and QST ? your guess is
as good as mine. RIP, 73, was fun knowing you, especially in the early 60's, and '70's.
Jim NN7K

IIRC, "Poptronics" passed their subscription fulfillment to "Nuts
& Volts", a reasonably worthy successor. I was saddened to see the
last of the Gernsback publications go under, of course, but was
pleased to have been a subber at the time, just for completion.

For the last few years of "73"'s publication, I was always surprised
that it was still going. The signs of death were clear, to me.

I don't know about the other one.

73, doug

"Marvin Moss" writes:

What is going on in the publishing world?

I renewed for three years to some of my favorite
magazines like 73 Mag, Poptronics, and
Electronic Servicing & Technology and they appear to
have gone under leaving me with no subscriptions
and not even a transfer of my subscription to
another magazine as a substitute.

This makes me an unhappy camper not only because
of the loss of money but because I loved getting
these magazines every month.

Do you have any thoughts on this trend?

On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 15:23:41 GMT, "Marvin Moss"
wrote:

What is going on in the publishing world?

The web has superseded much of it.

People expect content for free.

Why pay for expensive paper which may be outdated by the time it gets
to you, when you can read a nearly infinite amount of info which can
be updated daily, on the web for a small cost?

People are playing with the web. Don't have time to write.

Don't know how to write.

Don't have anything to say.

Mags need editorial.

Mags need advertisers. Money is tight. People are cutting down on toys
to a large extent. Advertisers aren't cutting loose much advertising
money, which results in a smaller magazine, which results in less
readers to advertise to, and the vicious cycle spirals downhill.

I renewed for three years to some of my favorite
magazines like 73 Mag, Poptronics, and
Electronic Servicing & Technology and they appear to
have gone under leaving me with no subscriptions
and not even a transfer of my subscription to
another magazine as a substitute.

Poptronics transferred subs to Nuts & Volts. I already was a N&V
subscriber but will not renew.

73 folded due to significant advertiser money being owed to 73 and not
paid. Nothing left, but Wayne still speaks his mind at:

www.waynegreen.com

I miss 73. I remember 300 page issues of that mag in the late 1970s
and early 1980s.

I've never heard of Electronic Servicing.

This makes me an unhappy camper not only because
of the loss of money but because I loved getting
these magazines every month.

You're not alone.

Mags can't exist without editorial (articles written and submitted for
publication). It starts with editorial.

Write something, anything, for your favorite remaining mags. You'll
earn some money, build a reputation, and help them survive. Mags are
desperate for editorial. They need a constant flow of it, each month.

A few of my 337 published articles on communications, surveillance and
countersurveillance are on the White Papers section of my website. All
were published in technical trade magazines which are thriving because
of decent editorial from a number of hard core writers who are willing
to trade an evening or two's worth of writing a month for a few
hundred dollars each month.

Steve WA3SWS


************************************************** *******************
Steve Uhrig, SWS Security, Maryland (USA)
Mfrs of electronic surveillance equip
website http://www.swssec.com
tel +1+410-879-4035, fax +1+410-836-1190
"In God we trust, all others we monitor"
************************************************** *******************

Nix on the dying hobby -- US ham population increses yearly

My take is with so much info free on the web, publishers and authors are
hurting.

--
One Watt

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism;
to steal from many is research.
-- Comedian Steven Wright


"Marvin Moss" wrote in message
ink.net...
What is going on in the publishing world?

I renewed for three years to some of my favorite
magazines like 73 Mag, Poptronics, and
Electronic Servicing & Technology and they appear to
have gone under leaving me with no subscriptions
and not even a transfer of my subscription to
another magazine as a substitute.

This makes me an unhappy camper not only because
of the loss of money but because I loved getting
these magazines every month.

Do you have any thoughts on this trend?

Nuts and Volts remains the main general electronic hobbyist magazine; but
there are lots of other specialty newsletters on specific areas such as
robotics, and even embedded processors, microwaves, radio astronomy, and
so on. As noted, lots of material for the smaller groups has migrated to
the WWW too. If your interests are for a specific area or topic as most of
us seem to be, this may be a positive thing, since the volume of online
resources are much greater than a general interest ham magazine could
publish on paper.

The USA ham population is growing Very! slowly (fraction of a %), and the
amount being spent remains about the same (a few $/day per active ham).
However, the USA ham population is still aging rapidly demographically,
meaning few young newcomers and lots of older participants and re-treads
coming back into the hobby, yes?

I do agree that it would be useful to have a "pseudo" ham magazine portal
in which different "columnists" would organize, review, and point out the
best WWW resources, sources of project parts or components, and so on.

What we are lacking is a means to pay moderate $$ to authors for articles.
The new "milli-cent" billing technology may make that possible shortly,
with digital public key encryption and embedded buyer tags in the
articles. IEEE has a system where these tags can be recovered even from
xeroxed copies, based on shifted up/down lines and characters in the
documents, making theft or distribution of the documents much less likely.

so we may be on the verge of a renaissance of online specialty magazines
once these new technologies get widely used (similar to paying for music
downloads, but articles instead etc.).

bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************