The Parlous State of the UK Modelling Magazine market

[Albert RN]

Irony of large number of spelling and grammar mistakes in populist gripe about spelling and grammar mistakes from people who've never written a magazine article in their lives.

[Dave Fleming]

Mike McEvoy has a web page, Grumpy Old Modeller

[bzn20]

I don't buy them for a lot of reasons.. TOOOO many adverts, take them out and whats left? Key Publishing Group flogging several of their mountain of titles. How many Spitfires are modelled ? Any VC10 builds been covered ?

Just repetition

 Obviously gone for the popular kits, I don't blame them but its not for me.

I can learn more from BM's membership and WIPs, Ready for inspection etc. than a ship load of mags. I can ask questions.

[Ade H]

6 hours ago, tomprobert said:

The only magazine I subscribe to is Air Modeller...Most articles are well written...

If that's the Meng-sponsored magazine, I must disagree about the quality. The builds tend towards the high end, but the writing is usually atrocious and unedited. I cannot believe that it has an editor, yet someone is thus credited. For another example of this publisher's poor quality and absence of oversight, read either of Adam Wilder's books. Though not to everyone's taste, he is a skilled and distinctive modeller of the artistic style, but his books are undermined by writing which is simplistic and littered with glaring errors which no-one had the good sense to edit.

 

I could have authored that first post myself because it reflects how I feel about most British modelling magazines and, indeed, most British journalistic writing.

 

Anyway: rant over.

Edited August 18, 2017 by Ade H

[Brian]

I, too, agree with the comments above, particularly:

- the repetition of articles, in different magazines, on the same aircraft in different variants.  I don't care if that is Spitfire or Mirage.

- the overprinting of text on illustrations.

- the lack of spellchecking or proofreading.  Any basic word processing program has a spell checker.

- ditto on the announcements about re-issues of 35+ year old kits or the change to a new decal sheet.

- articles on building a model kit which has not been seen on shelves since Pontius was a flight cadet.

- the recent spate of air brushed model articles.  Hairy sticks work too.

- the recent glut of "weathered" model s, coincidently just across the page from a major vendor of weathering goop.  Can one really see all of the pre/post shading or weathering from a distance?  Ie.  1 foot or a scale 72 feet.

I could go on, but rant OFF.  Cheers, all.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Brian
Good taste

[Graham Boak]

Can I approach this from another angle?  The title speaks of the "parlous state" of British modelling magazines, but is this true?   I take "parlous" to mean in danger of collapse, usually for financial grounds.  Is this happening?  How many have collapsed in the past five years?  Doesn't the variety of magazines on the shelf point to them actually being rather successful?  Possibly they are all tottering along on the edge of financial collapse, and perhaps the thin editorial control does indeed point to that.    Yet in a time of national austerity, they continue to appear.

 

If the magazines are continuing to sell, then "parlous" is the wrong word.  Just because many of them appear vacuous and uninteresting to many of the posters above, doesn't mean that they are vacuous and uninteresting to all.  I was particularly struck by Tom Probert's comments above, where Air Modeller is praised for "scratchbuilding" and "old-school modelling", not words I'd have expected to see used in that context.  I don't think I've even opened one on Smith's shelves for a long time, "knowing" what I could expect to see within.  Perhaps I will, next time.

[Sabrejet]

According to an online dictionary, synonyms of 'parlous' are: bad, dire, dreadful, awful, terrible, appalling, frightful etc...

 

So yes, the term is entirely appropriate. Talk of financial stability or viability of these magazines isn't something I'm concerned about. But most comments here do correctly cite examples (and lots of them) of the parlous state of UK modelling magazines.

 

[Ade H]

11 hours ago, Albert RN said:

Irony of large number of spelling and grammar mistakes in populist gripe about spelling and grammar mistakes from people who've never written a magazine article in their lives.

I wonder how you can confidently claim that? Some of us may have written for a living during our careers. Just not for modelling magazines.

[Ade H]

Graham, while Sabrejet's answer to you is correct, I can also appreciate your point that people think of "parlous" as being at risk of collapse. But several of the British magazines deserve to fail. For one thing, I can't believe that the market is not over saturated. Then there are the duplicated builds which publishers show in more than one of their titles. And one only needs to read any one publisher's output for long enough to begin to suffer flashbacks with the repitition. They severely lack imagination and development, which is ironic for a creative hobby. By no means do all modelling magazines suffer from any of these failings — I like and read at least one British (and one U.S.) title regularly — but I think that they are genuine problems.

Edited August 19, 2017 by Ade H

[Seahawk]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

Can I approach this from another angle?  The title speaks of the "parlous state" of British modelling magazines, but is this true?   I take "parlous" to mean in danger of collapse, usually for financial grounds.  Is this happening?  How many have collapsed in the past five years?  Doesn't the variety of magazines on the shelf point to them actually being rather successful?  Possibly they are all tottering along on the edge of financial collapse, and perhaps the thin editorial control does indeed point to that.    Yet in a time of national austerity, they continue to appear.

 

If the magazines are continuing to sell, then "parlous" is the wrong word.  Just because many of them appear vacuous and uninteresting to many of the posters above, doesn't mean that they are vacuous and uninteresting to all.  I was particularly struck by Tom Probert's comments above, where Air Modeller is praised for "scratchbuilding" and "old-school modelling", not words I'd have expected to see used in that context.  I don't think I've even opened one on Smith's shelves for a long time, "knowing" what I could expect to see within.  Perhaps I will, next time.

Once again, I was thinking along similar lines.  We can all agree that magazines are not what we would wish them to be (and it appears that we don't all wish them to be the same thing anyway) or even what they used to be.  However, austerity or not, people have a lot more disposable income nowadays than they had in, say, the late sixties.  In the old days magazines were more of an investment: it was often the purchase of either a kit or a magazine and, if the latter, we expected to get something of abiding value for our money.  Editors realised this and recognised they had to provide a quality product chockful of compelling content to induce potential buyers to dip hands into pockets (no, not misty-eyed nostalgia - just look at the contents page of an Airfix Magazine or Scale Models from the 70s and even 80s to see how much content was crammed in).  Nowadays more of us have the money to buy as many magazines as we want and magazines have become more of a consumable: read and discard (for me the architype of this was SAM in the Taliban era).  The result is that proprietors have been able to design down to that level: editors need only provide just the barest minimum of content to tip people into buying them.  But there's enough money around for a vast range of mediocre magazines to exist in an area where once there were just 2-3 titles which had to be decent to survive.  

 

And we shouldn't forget that magazines are not charities: ultimately these people are in the game to make money so cutting costs eg by underpaying/not paying contributors or not bothering to proofread will always be attractive.

[Des]

My sinuses do not respond well to the smell of strong coffee, curry in any form or cooking garlic with exposure to any or all of these resulting in a splitting headache.     This could give rise to the choice of whether I avoid them wherever possible or seek them out and then complain bitterly of how my dining experience has been ruined by the ambient aroma.     Judging by some of the comments here the latter would seem to be the obvious course for some.

 

Why pay so much attention to modelling magazines if one cannot stand the very idea of them far less the content?

 

If poor quality workmanship, obsessive adherence to current fads in finishing technique, lack of research and incoherent badly spelled and punctuated grammar is so abhorrent has the irony of using of the internet of all places to vent ones feelings on the subject been completely lost on the complainers?

 

Magazines are just one facet of a very wide based hobby which one should be able to take or leave in the same way as the choice between brush painting or air brushing, use of aftermarket or not, era or eras of interest.     Some modellers buy kits that they never intend to build, some modellers choose to restrict themselves rigorously to one particular aircraft type, air arm or time period, some modellers quite possibly only ever experience the hobby through reading modelling magazines, some modellers would never consider buying a kit unless it was produced using the latest in mould technology while other would avoid the same like the plague.   Indeed it might be that some get their modelling pleasure from reading through the modelling magazines at their local newsagent with the wet fur of their parka hoods pulled tight around their faces while steaming gently from the incandescent internal fury caused by the blasphemous words they are reading.   Which of us has any right whatsoever to say one is right and another wrong unless of course we are hiding behind a silly name on the internet.

 

Magazines are run by businesses to make a profit by producing an end-product that will hopefully as often as possible contain something that will meet the varied tastes of its very diverse core readership.     A comment made to me many years ago by someone in the printing business (not modelling related) was that the sales of the print run covers costs but advertising makes the profit, over the years there have been some publications which have eschewed advertising but instead were notable not for any greater quality of content but instead for their cost and/or their very short lives.

 

Content is difficult, indeed not every reader relishes yet another Spitfire, Me 109 or F-18 but the ‘Ready For Inspection’ section on this website shows that many do in addition to which they remain the staple diet of many manufacturers and as at least one respondent has said here they are not interested in older kits so who do you please?     Some do not like reviews of older kits re-released with new decals yet again on this website there are frequent queries seeking information on those very same kits, again who do you please?     Some do not like editors and writers humanising their work by commenting on their daily non-modelling lives which maybe says more about the ability of such complainers to understand the concept of empathy and is perhaps best taken up elsewhere.     For every argument against the content of current modelling magazines there is an equally rational counterargument for it. 

 

As mentioned earlier Modelling magazines are but one facet of our very diverse hobby and basically one should be able to take them or leave them although anyone who can do better should write something for one,  after all it would appear that following a quick look at Wikipedia articles can be dashed off in a weekend ......if only!!

Edited August 19, 2017 by Des

[rayprit]

I remember who got me to take an interest in modelling magazines, it was Alan Hall in the 70s...........super modeller who used to contribute to Airfix magazine and the other one that was around..........it was amazing what he could do with a bit of Balsa Wood, cellulose Dope and talcum powder, his scratch building was second to none, he eventually decided to branch out on his own and started Scale Aircraft Modelling, wonderful articles, even though I never had the model he was building it would inspire you to go out and buy the kit in the article, just to follow what he had done.  When he left the magazine a few year later, it went downhill and to me, its never recovered from the Alan Hall days, I did start to collect Seventy-Second and Fourty-Eight scale modeller with Neil Robinson as Editor, they were along the same lines, fair bit of scratch building in them but I think they only lasted for about 6-8 issues...............its all glossy paper and coloured photos now, they look nice but I prefure the older format of seeing how a build is in progress as opposed to modules built and attached to kits.

[Dave Batt]

Must make an observation before I get my coat.

 

I gave up seriously following printed magazines when it became clear that too many of them were obsessed with the weathering cult.  Break point came when I found a magazine with an artilcle that had an opening line (and I'm all but quoting here) "we all know how to stick these kits together so I will not waste any time here . . ." followed by eight to ten pages of photos; "here's the first application of pre-shading.", "Now the centre of the panels are lightened . . " and so on.  I thought the spectacle of shelves filled with over-priced and seldom used unguents was only to be found in a lady's bathroom, I was clearly wrong.

 

As a rule two magazines keep me going.  SAM still obviously believes that an awareness of real aircraft has a role in our hobby, and AMW does a great job of reminding us (well, me at least) that there's a lot more to scale modelling than just aircraft.

 

One final shot about weathering?  No, it's not "a matter of personal choice", not when it specifically supports 10% of the marks in competition judging.  That to me at least suggests that  high-visibility "weathering" is regarded as compulsory withn the hobby.  I've supported the concept of weathering as part of a realistic model since the days of Thunderbirds, but believe that if you can see it, it's overdone.  I do not like being told that I must toe someone else's line in order to properly comply with the hobby's requirements.

 

Edited August 20, 2017 by Dave Batt
grammer 'n' speling

[Des]

36 minutes ago, Dave Batt said:

One final shot about weathering?  No, it's not "a matter of personal choice", not when it specifically supports 10% of the marks in competition judging.  That to me at least suggests that  high-visibility "weathering" is regarded as compulsory withn the hobby.  I've supported the concept of weathering as part of a realistic model since the days of Thunderbirds, but believe that if you can see it, it's overdone.  I do not like being told that I must toe someone else's line in order to properly comply with the hobby's requirements.

 

Perhaps I could add to my list above -

 

Some modellers build for competitions but some (perhaps many, possibly most) do not.

 

As one who does not I can only suggest that those who do make representations about the matter to redress the situation and perhaps remind competition organisers and their judges that 'The Emperors New Clothes' was a cautionary tale against and not a life model for blindly pursuing the latest fads and fashions.     It has always puzzled me that the fashion for accenting panel lines for example which in my mindas a style  goes back to 1970s Japanese kit catalogues so often results in models not of full-size aircraft but instead of plastic models in the style of their diecast counterparts yet the practice seems to be de rigeur in some quarters.

 

As for the writer you quote I read either the same article or one in a very similar vein but if was the same one seem to recall that he but sadly not his influence disappeared from print shortly thereafter. 

Edited August 19, 2017 by Des
added but

[M1ks]

1 hour ago, Des said:

 

Why pay so much attention to modelling magazines if one cannot stand the very idea of them far less the content

 

Magazines are just one facet of a very wide based hobby which one should be able to take or leave in the same way as the choice between brush painting or air brushing, use of aftermarket or not, era or eras of interest.    

 

Content is difficult, indeed not every reader relishes yet another Spitfire, Me 109 or F-18 but the ‘Ready For Inspection’ section on this website shows that many do in addition to which they remain the staple diet of many manufacturers and as at least one respondent has said here they are not interested in older kits so who do you please?     Some do not like reviews of older kits re-released with new decals yet again on this website there are frequent queries seeking information on those very same kits, again who do you please?     Some do not like editors and writers humanising their work by commenting on their daily non-modelling lives which maybe says more about the ability of such complainers to understand the concept of empathy and is perhaps best taken up elsewhere.     For every argument against the content of current modelling magazines there is an equally rational counterargument for it. 

 

As mentioned earlier Modelling magazines are but one facet of our very diverse hobby and basically one should be able to take them or leave them although anyone who can do better should write something for one,  after all it would appear that following a quick look at Wikipedia articles can be dashed off in a weekend ......if only!!

The above post is the first one to make sense to me regarding this rant.

If a magazine doesn't offer what you specifically want, write your own! Start a blog, it's free and requires only your time and effort if you're prepared to give it.

Magazines have their place, ive subscribed and bought various publications over the years and the one thing that remains constant is that I buy and read when the content interests me, I stop doing so when it either does not or it begins (as all hobby magazines do inevitably), repeating itself.

Practical Sportsbikes is a non modelling example, a great magazine for anyone with an interest in motorbikes between 1970 and 1999, but, for me, it hit the point of repeating tech tips, tutorials and slowly becoming practical Yamaha RD stroker monthly, there's only so many times you can read about a restoration of a bike that doesn't  interest you, (admittedly I'm odd in that I grew up in an era of strokers when learner bikes especially in 4 stroke format were the rarer beast but I couldn't wait to get onto the bigger 4 strokes and away from the tinnitus ring zing ding of the stroker). That said, lots and lots and heaps more people LOVE THEM so the mags gradually creep toward the more popular or more common.

This is why we see Spits and bf109's in spades, they're a common and popular and prevalent kit.

I'd love to see a publication aimed specifically at 24th scale cars and 12th scale bikes, but would it appeal to others as much as me?

I'd love to see a publication without a single jet aircraft in it, because they bore the pants off me, (I made one for a friend and truly hated the build, I had to drag myself through it and only did because it was a gift) But, jets are popular,  any browse through any forum shows me that, on a forum however, I can skip the jet build threads and not feel like I've wasted money on the magazine and flipped by the three jet builds to read the 2 prop plane articles.

In short, if the content doesn't interest you, angers you, upsets you, or disagrees generally, dont get it. If there's nothing out there covering a subject you want, make one!

[Sabrejet]

Or of course maybe these magazines would love to know how to improve: Many/most of the posters above have already said they won't buy if it looks full of weathering stuff, so the 'don't buy it' bit holds no water.

 

I think the OP was saying how poor the standard of UK modelling mags is, and I for one find it hard to disagree, whether the OP is buying them to read, use as toilet paper or not buying them at all.

[Graham Boak]

5 hours ago, Sabrejet said:

According to an online dictionary, synonyms of 'parlous' are: bad, dire, dreadful, awful, terrible, appalling, frightful etc...

 

So yes, the term is entirely appropriate. Talk of financial stability or viability of these magazines isn't something I'm concerned about. But most comments here do correctly cite examples (and lots of them) of the parlous state of UK modelling magazines.

 

All those adjectives are subjective: they can simply mean "I don't like".  As such, much of the above is interesting but not a measure of the viability of the magazines.  To me, if there is any meaning to the term "parlous" beyond this, it is that the viability is affected.  I think the survivability of magazines is important: I would hate to see the "bad" (or at least the poor, my opinion) driving the good (equally my opinion) out of business.  But I won't buy a magazine unless I am likely to learn something from it - something all-too-absent from the pretty picture brigade.

 

 

[Red Dot]

Well said all of you.

 

Having bought or subscribed to both SAM and SAMI since day one and having kept every issue in good condition, i will be stopping my subriptions when they run out as standards have fallen. The magazines will either go into the loft or be sold and i will use the not inconsiderable shelf space for model displays or new books instead.

 

Andy

[bzn20]

56 minutes ago, Red Dot said:

 sold

Blimey.. that sounds a bit drastic !

[Mike]

I do wish people would stop using that tired, spurious argument "if you don't like the mag contents, then write some articles yourself". Not everyone wants to write for magazines, and even if you did produce articles you wanted to see, you'd still be no better off, cos who reads their own articles after they've been proof read? It's fatuous at best, disingenuous at worst.

 

I've written a couple of articles for mags in the past, and as I wasn't getting paid, I found it quite painless. Send disk, forget you did it, receive copy of mag and have a look how it's been laid out. Forget again til you see the mags at the bottom of your underpants drawer like I did last week, as it happens Plastic modelling mags... Honest!

 

I was in HobbyCraft a year or so with SO and happened across the model isle, with all the mags on the end. I was quite surprised at the price, thickness and paper quality of them, so wandered off. It must be 8 years since I bought a mag now. I get all my modelling info within these fine pages

[Learstang]

Obviously the standards have fallen tremendously when they deign to print articles about models I've built. I've had two articles printed, and a third on the way. Shame on those terrible magazine editors for printing such rubbish! Why back in the good old days (whenever they were; the exact date seems to vary quite a bit), I wouldn't have been able to get my foot in the door with my parlous models and horribly-written, ungrammatical, and typographically-challenged articles. Why even in this short post I suspect there must be several dozen errors.

 

Yours ironically,

 

Jason (modeller, author)

[Calum]

What surprises me is that there are still so many around. I'd be lucky to buy even 1 magazine (of any type) a year. 

[Sabrejet]

10 hours ago, Calum said:

What surprises me is that there are still so many around. I'd be lucky to buy even 1 magazine (of any type) a year. 

I suspect it's rather like the book publishing business: back in the day, publishers would pay authors a reasonable amount and/or royalties, and also fund the research/provision of photos etc. Most importantly, a proper editor was assigned and this person would vet the book proposal and also have a hand in ensuring that the manuscript made sense, was factual, pertinent to any accompanying photos and so on. That is my experience from writing six books. Similar for magazine articles of which I have lost count.

 

However my recent experience is that some (maybe not all) book publishers now expect the author to partially-fund their own books, or be given numerous copies instead of payment. This change also places less responsibility on the publisher, who in the past put its weight and faith behind the author, based on a proper analysis of the worth of the proposal and its likelihood of making a return on investment.

 

The recent move towards the author shouldering more of the financial burden has meant that publishers seem less bothered about whether a book is actually researched, written and put together with any real effort. In fact in many cases it has led (in my experience) to books which have been 100% plagiarised from the internet with maybe 75% of the photo coverage coming from the same place. 'Extravagances' such as editors and proof-readers have likewise been thinned down. As a result these publishers pander more to the 'vanity publishing' author who just wants their name in print than those who have done proper research and would like their work treated with respect. Of course there are authors in both camps, and I have been tempted by the lure of a quick buck (I was asked to write a book on the F-84 with an advance of £2000 but decided that I didn't really know anything about the F-84 and so declined the offer. But it was tempting). First-time authors are often tempted by the 'publish at all costs' route and it's sad when good books like that are spoiled by poor editing, photo coverage, reproduction etc. I also have experience of one of my books being considered as "...another plagiarised work", because the publisher involved was seen by enthusiasts as a vendor of production-line publications (which often included plagiarised errors) and which offered nothing new - and I had been tarred with the same brush.

 

The same I suspect exists with modelling magazines: the odd great article amid yet more hackneyed builds with lots of pretty pictures. It's certainly true that poor editing (for me) often spoils a good article. The only thing I don't understand - getting back to Calum's comment above - is how these magazines seem to pay their authors and still stay in business. It seems to go against the book publishing business model.

 

In the meantime my criteria for getting my stuff published is simple - will I be happy with the result? If the answer is 'yes' then I don't care if I get paid or not. But it's a complex thought process for many and I can see why novice authors would just want to see their work out there in the public domain.

 

For now, BM seems a far better resource than most magazines, but I can't read it in the bath!

[spruecutter96]

I bought around 100 second-hand UK modelling magazines from Hannants London a few years ago (at five for a quid, it seemed too good to pass up). Most of the magazines were published in the 2000's. After reading most of them, it struck me just how much repetition goes on. There were some examples of the same magazine printed a multi-page build article on the latest Tamiya/Hasegawa/Revell "headline" kit release and then they would do a VERY similar article about the same kit in different markings maybe a year later. 

 

Whilst I fully appreciate that any magazine's appetite for new articles must be very difficult to satisfy, wouldn't it be a good idea for the articles to stray from the road-most-travelled every now and then. How about some articles about garage, short-run, resin kits and other more esoteric subjects?

 

I fully appreciate the argument that the magazine could alienate its core readership, but reading about endless articles about Spits, BF-109's and FW-190's gets a bit samey after a while, IMHO. 

 

What do you think?

 

Chris.    

Edited August 20, 2017 by spruecutter96
To add IMHO.

[Seahawk]

20 hours ago, Red Dot said:

The magazines will ... be sold...

Good luck with that.  You will find that the secondhand value of those lovingly collected and carefully preserved magazines hovers around the zero mark.  Modern houses are getting smaller and the demand for printed references is suffering from the erroneous belief that "if it's not on the internet, it doesn't exist".  Mind you, if it's on the internet, at least I might find it: I have little recollection of what's in most of my magazines.