Sent you a pm yesterday. 

midnightprowler

One of the reasons I like paper is the reviews.  Not to mention im a forum member AND subscriber and CAN'T access them.

 

Lee, 

If you can't access the reviews on the website, then we need to get that taken care of. If you are logged into the website with the same email that you're using for your subscription, then you should be able to access the reviews. All reviews will be on the website with only a select few showing up in the print magazine.

As for the paper weight, it hasn't changed. 

Regarding the photos for our how-to stories mentioned in another post (not Lee's): We evaluate a story's photos when we consider a story submission. Retaking process shots is almost never an option for a builder becasue by the time they submit a story, the model is finished. We have had contributors reshoot ledes and enders of a finished model.

Regardless, I just looked over the photos for the F4U-1 story, and they are sharp and look good. Darren is an experienced contributor for the magazine and knows his way around not only his photo equipment but his modeling, too. We're satisfied with how the story turned out.  

Regards,

Tim

I'm the author of the Corsair article. I don't know where the disconnect is. I sure hope it's not me. I shoot in a light tent using a RAW setting. I do know that when I take pictures in JPG, I edit them a bit to get them sharper. I don't know if RAW/NEF needs that or not. I know I've been told it's better not to mess with editing them at all. I didn't think they looked that bad, though. Of course, I am biased! 

One of the reasons I like paper is the reviews.  Not to mention im a forum member AND subscriber and CAN'T access them.

midnightprowler

Thanks Tim for chiming in. I was thinking it literally felt like thinner paper.

 

I thought the same. Like they used a lighter weight paper for it. 

As for printed materia, I'm glad we still have a hard copy magazine in this hobby. I like to keep them as reference material. And I also agree with them putting the kit reviews on line. 

Thanks Tim for chiming in. I was thinking it literally felt like thinner paper.

I've had a few that apparently other pieces of mail have gotten caught under the edge and pulled it part way off.  Lucky so far I'm not missing an issue.

I've had a few of the labels fall off but I'm very lucky in that the mailman is a friend of mine and when he sees the magazine without the label he knows it's mine if there is not another one in the stack of mail. Quite a few come with the label falling off. I've missed 1 or 2 in the past but it was replaced after 1 phone call. 

Jim 

Stay Safe.

I had a similar experience with the address label on my copy as well this month, I am amazed it even arrived given that the label was barely hanging onto the back of the magazine.  (It probably did fall off if it was stuck to the back side)

Glad it did arrive though, I was intrigued by the rust rod, the Y Wing, and armored rail car articles.  

Will do.   And BTW I don't mind if they come off at some point, after thet get the my house of course.   Also I'm sure everyone has had one stuck on right over something on the cover of some magazine you really want to see.  I know I know picky picky picky...

falconmod

Tim,

   while your looking at this post could you check into the way the address labels are attached to the cover of the magazine? I've had several delivered to my house with the tags looking like the attached photo.

I'm pretty sure it must have come off my september issue as I never got one.  I probably should have emailed the subsription department but I just went out a bought one off the newsstand .

Thanks

John

 

Hi John, 

We don't apply those labels. Our printer--Quad Graphics--applies those labels before they are shipped.  Also, the labels are meant to be removable so they don't harm the magazine cover. If the glue is too aggressive, we get complaints that it won't come of. So a less aggressive glue might be affected adversely by wet conditions. Quad is usually pretty careful about application and the glue it uses. But I've let our production team know about it and sent them a copy of your pic.

Also, if an issue goes missing on you, please contact customerservice@FineScaleModeler.info and let them know. We'll get is straightened out for you. 

Thanks,

Tim

Tim,

   while your looking at this post could you check into the way the address labels are attached to the cover of the magazine? I've had several delivered to my house with the tags looking like the attached photo.

I'm pretty sure it must have come off my september issue as I never got one.  I probably should have emailed the subsription department but I just went out a bought one off the newsstand .

Thanks

John

Thanks for chiming in Tim.  

While figures and sci-fi hold zero interest on my end for projects, it's great to see well done examples.  There is enough of the subjects that do interest me, along with the how-tos, to keep me coming back.

I'll be a subscriber until either FSM or I die off.

Hi guys,

Well, there's quite a lot of speculation here, and there's probably not much I can say that will tamp that down. Needless to say, we don't have any plans to go all-digital. True, we decided to bundle the digital and print subs. There was no reason to keep them separate, especially with the shipping challenges USPS has been facing of late. 

Adjusting the page count for the magazine was a tough decision, and one that we have struggled with for years. For the edtiorial staff, we chose to look at the change as an opportunity. We refocused the print magazine on how-to stories and shifted other stories to the website. The kit reviews are no longer bound by the print publication schedule. At least two new reviews appear every week on the website and are far more timely. Subscribers can access them all month long, rather than wait until the next month when the magazine arrives in the mail (email or otherwise). And yes, I understand that this makes those reviews unavailable to non-subscribers, but that's one of the benefits for subscribing.

Someone mentioned advertising, and I'd like to speak to that for a moment (and I'm only hitting the tippy top of the waves here). For a long time, print publishers each had a formula they used to compare page count to advertising pages in a magazine. Every publication had it's own ratio. Some went with a Cosmo-esque ratio (ad heavy as opposed to editorial), and others went editorial heavy (we were always on that side of things). Come the early 2000s, print advertising was absolutely crushed in the move to online ads. To keep going, print pubs (particularly small and mid-sized mags) basically had to do away with the ad-edit formulas, because if they didn't, the pubs would have been reduced to 6-page newsletters, and two or three of those pages would have been ads (hyperbole, but not by much). Obviously, maintaining a subscriber base for those would have been impossible. At the same time, reader habits were changing faster than reels on a slot machine, and this impacted subscription numbers. Balancing two revenue sources under extreme pressure with rising costs of shipping and printing coupled with with the obliteration of newsstand (a third revenue source) and extreme, monopolistic consolidation on the distribution front wiped out and continues to adversely affect print magazines from small indies to massive publishing houses. The industry saw a couple of dozen closures across many categories in 2020 alone, and  COVID is not singularly to blame; it was a contributing factor, though, in the demise of several titles. 

Dire, right?

Well, not entirely. Some corners of the publishing world have been able to better weather the chaos, but that doesn't mean they're immune. And, as I said earlier, we've adjusted and will keep adjusting, and FSM is in a good place right now. People seem to like to compare FSM and Scale Auto (SCA). The comparison to Scale Auto extends only as far as the similarity in subject matter and that both brands are owned by Kalmbach. I can't and won't bore you with the internal nitty gritty. The point is, where Scale Auto was and where FineScale is are worlds apart.

I have to get back to editing the Building Muscle Cars, Restomods, and Pro Touring special issue along with stories for July 2021. Stay safe, all of you. And if you want to submit a scale-modeling how-to story, don't be shy. 

Tim

 

Gamera

To be honest I did read most of the issue over the hour I had at work the other day. But I really enjoyed the articles on the armoured German railway car, the battered Y-Wing, and the rat rod. I picked up a couple of techniques from those that I want to try in the future. 

midnightprowler

Fsm goes completely digital,  goodbye. 

 

I will still buy it if the price is reasonable.  I will not pay as much as for the print edition.

Fsm goes completely digital,  goodbye. 

To be honest I did read most of the issue over the hour I had at work the other day. But I really enjoyed the articles on the armoured German railway car, the battered Y-Wing, and the rat rod. I picked up a couple of techniques from those that I want to try in the future. 

I don't like reading articles on my desktop- my computer chair is a task chair and not as comfortable as my reading chair.  However, I suppose I can get used to it if fsm goes online only.  I hope it doesn't, but I understand what is happening to publishing.

Several other hobby magazines I used to subscribe to have gone belly up, some several years ago.  Too many people today just do not really like reading hard copy stuff

I usually have my copy by now.  April was supposed to be the first of the new subscription. Don't want to sit here reading a magazine on the screen. I want it in my hand.

Jim 

Stay Safe.

JohnnyK

The only issues that I have with the printed magazine is that there are too few articles and reviews of car models and that the page count is getting too short. I just looked at a July 2015 FSM magazine and it had 66 pages vs. the April 2021 magazine which has 58 pages.

Regarding the quality of the pictures. Keep in mind that FSM is at the mercy of the picture quality that is submitted by modelers. Some modelers do a good job of taking pictures of their models and some don't.

Just a tip, try not to use a bold font when submitting a post.

 

As to bold print, I don't use it to "turn up the volume or be rude," I'm 80, the old eyes don't work all that well now, the larger size helps when typing, or reading. When I read posts from others, I appreciate their using larger print, it does make it better for me. No offense intended.

Patrick

As a matter of fact, I have contributed preview and review articles to a website I'm sure many have visited, without naming the particular madness. So I am well aware it is not a simple task to follow someone's guidelines and still be interesting, too. And that it's mostly a thankless chore. Also, that I am not really that good at it.

But I can say that I have, in fact, tried it. And discovered that it's perhaps not where my own talents lie. My comments were hardly disparaging of authors. More that perhaps the editing process, if there is one, should be stronger. The website in question has very clear guidelines for content, length, pics, etc. 

Only photos of the finished model can be retaken. Obviously, photos of models "during construction" cannot be retaken.

I have a feeling that not too many modelers submit material for articles to FSM for publication. I have submitted material for articles to FSM and it takes a lot of work to creat an article. First, photos need to be taken during the build process. Then those photos need to be cropped and enhanced using something like Photoshop. Next the author needs to creat a story and create descriptions of each photo. Finally, the text and photos need to be assembled and sent to FSM. It is not a simple task. Maybe you should grab your camera and give it a try?

As far as picture quality goes, it shouldn't be a throw up the hands and say, 'well, that's what we got'. This is where editing comes in - FSM should say 'We like your article. The pics could be better, though. Can you take them again and resubmit?'. If the author can't or won't do that, maybe some other article should be published instead. If we've reached the point they'll just take and publish whatever because it's all they've got, regardless of quality, the magazine is in even more trouble than it appears to be already.  

Its been years since I built anything other than a figure. Thats now changed since I joined the forums and without the subscription that wouldn't have happened. I don't own an IPad or a laptop and I enjoy the feel and smell of paper, and when I eventually store the finished mag on my shelf, I can still see it and know that I have that physical resource. If the mag goes I will probably read it on my PC, but it won't be the same.

As for the articles, many of them don't interest me, but I read them all and often come across little gems of information that I might otherwise have missed. I also find it intersting to read how other modelers deal with building and painting challenges. Besides, I've paid my money, so I wants to take my ride!

The only issues that I have with the printed magazine is that there are too few articles and reviews of car models and that the page count is getting too short. I just looked at a July 2015 FSM magazine and it had 66 pages vs. the April 2021 magazine which has 58 pages.

Regarding the quality of the pictures. Keep in mind that FSM is at the mercy of the picture quality that is submitted by modelers. Some modelers do a good job of taking pictures of their models and some don't.

Just a tip, try not to use a bold font when submitting a post.

Just a very few years ago, when the latest issue would arrive, it was something to really look forward to enjoying. After dinner it would be  quite a good one or two hour read.

For some time now, there has been little content that I find of interest or useful. I know that many modelers build other than just military aircraft, so there should be subjects of interest for them as well. I have interest only in aircraft, so space, figures, fantasy, monsters, ships, etc are just wasted pages for me. Far less in the way of aircraft now to suit me.

It seems I see less in reader gallery and reviews, disappointing for sure. But the major issue I have with the magazine currently, is the dismal quality of some photographic reproduction as printed. Very poor, fuzzy and flat in color, not much lively and clear to see now. The subscribers deserve better. The Navy Corsair on this months page 15 is my example of poor image quality, pretty much insulting the builder that put lot's of time into the project.

I've subcribed since FSM started publishing, except for periods of being based out of the country. Even then, I would look for magazine sales stores and buy off the rack if available.

My subscription is up in a couple of months, no renewal for me, I will miss the much earlier versions of FSM.

Patrick

Hi Tojo!

 This is really for everyone that's commented. I don't mind reading off my computer .As a matter of fact I find it kind of pleasant. So- - as long as they still support the Website here and the forums here than I don't have a problem with it. Just make it easy to do. Some of us have enough savvy to come here, But the rest is a Quagmire to our poor old brains.