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The Parlous State of the UK Modelling Magazine market


Tiger331

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I haven't bought any model magazine for years now, they're too expensive for what they contain, I'm not really interested in super accuracy (oxymoron?) and, to me at least, unrealistic weathering, just looks a bit daft. 

However, I do like to revisit my comprehensive collection of Airfix and SAM mags from the 70's and 80's, probably driven more by nostalgia than anything else?

 

 . . . Kes

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What an interesting topic, which has wandered intriguingly at times.I still buy some modelling magazines - most;y SAM for old times' sake and because I too like Gary Hatcher's amusing and quaint writing style.

 

Some random comments -

 

Actually Dave, I think there were five nots in the sentence you commented on...  ('Pedants are us', alive and well up North!)

 

Terrific to see John Aero back on line.


Folk remembering  Airfix Series 1 for 2/-.  Happy days.   I seem to recall they were 1/11 in Woolies, 2/11 for Series 2. That one penny difference in price was worth while then !   I could rarely afford anything from the higher number series except at birthdays & Christmas.  

 

Conversions prompted by Alan Hall and (more rarely) by W R Matthews in Flying Review - all done in balsa with much sanding, talc, doping etc.  I have a vague memory  using banana oil, but maybe that was for flying models?   And plunge form moulding, which took lots of practice and some times upset my mother when I made a mess in her kitchen.

 

John B

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I don't recall buying a modelling magazine for a few years. I will still riff through them at WH Smith in The increasingly vain hope that there is an article that I absolutely need. Otherwise the only thing that I think would swing me to buying a modelling magazine would be scale plans of a type that I was interested in.

 

Trevor

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21 hours ago, John B (Sc) said:

I have a vague memory  using banana oil, but maybe that was for flying models?  

John B

I think it was banana oil that used to be recommended in the articles Airfix Magazine sometimes ran in the 60s and 70s on converting their "HO/00" and 1/32 scale soft plastic figures. The authors sometimes used plasticine to model pieces of clothing (a hussar's pelisse, for instance) and the oil was supposed to harden it.

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I get two modelling magazines: "FineScale Modeling" and the IPMS/USA publication. I used to get SAM; but, had to drop it as the subscription price became too high(currency rates); and, I had other demands(wife and step-daughter, etc.) that had a higher priority. If it is not what it was; then, that is a shame. I do get the new Airfix magazine from time-to-time when it becomes available. It is well edited and written. FSM also has step-by-step articles that do just that; illustrate each step of a build. They do cover everything(figures, ships, etc.). It is sad to read that some of the UK based pub. are not fulfilling a modeler's needs.

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I still love flicking through my stash of old magazines. Particular favourites were (and are) Plastic Aircraft Models International and Scale Models International. I've tried most of the new magazines, but I just can't help finding the old mags more interesting. To be fair though, my main thing is vintage kits anyway, so the old mags suit me better. 

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I don't think that the modern magazines and products for that matter, give the modeller the same horizons or goals, to achieve something by your own efforts and imagination as in yesteryear. Yes, they will give you a wide range of decal options and colour suggestions and what's going to tempt your wallet next.  Many of the builds to me are really observing one persons undoubted skill at finishing and detailing, which can often come out of a packet.  Nowadays much of it is done for you and there are kits of aeroplanes that most modellers haven't even heard of churned out on a regular basis.

 

I note that on this forum that of the many of the most popular threads of the 'pull up a chair and eat popcorn' genre, are when someone starts a vacform or an old fashioned 'cut and shut' conversion.

 

I once made a Bell Airacobra (when no 1/72 scale kit was available) by using most of the skinny nose and fuselage of an Airfix Defiant, I can't remember where the canopy came from, but the wings were the outer panels of a Frog 1/96 scale Blenheim and a chopped about Frog P.40 tail group. Well it looked like an Airacobra.

 

Of course not every one favours this kind of modelling and if you want to just build every version and colour scheme of you favourite plane then the magazines of any age can aid you, with articles on variants and colours then you just need good, accurate, easy to build model kits and a shed load of decals.

 

John

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You make some very good points there John.

 

The old Airfix Magazine conversions (and those in Chris Ellis' How to go Plastic Modelling) were a great inspiration to me as something to aspire to and then have a crack at.  Sure, they were mostly beyond my abilities then, but they were an excellent grounding and now the most fun I have is in converting, scratchbuilding and going way overboard on minuscule homemade details.  It's what makes my hobby fun for me and I'm much happier doing that than assembling 'flawless' kits from the box.  Others may prefer things differently which is fine by me.

 

I honestly don't think that magazines would go too far wrong by having sections on basic skills: everyone can learn something after all, especially if it's showing something not quite the way one would do it.

 

 

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On 10/09/2017 at 1:19 AM, Des said:

I hope that is not a reference to Airfix Magazine as was in the good old days.

 

I pulled out a few copies covering late 1972/early 1973 and found that including the cover issues back then had either 60 or 64 pages on which between 25 and 28 pages carried advertising.

 

Des, my original post that you referenced had nothing to do with advertising in model mags. It was a post about my endeavours with KLP Publishing, and the steps I'm taking to address some of the issues raised in this thread. My entire post was replaced by a moderator with the phrase "No traders/advertising". No notification or warning, either.

 

Kev

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7 hours ago, Big Kev said:

 

Des, my original post that you referenced had nothing to do with advertising in model mags. It was a post about my endeavours with KLP Publishing, and the steps I'm taking to address some of the issues raised in this thread. My entire post was replaced by a moderator with the phrase "No traders/advertising". No notification or warning, either.

 

Kev

Apologies for that Kev and looking at the post in light of your comment above the censorship becomes clear      Odd though , I had the impression from some of the earlier comments made that industry feedback was actually being sought.

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9 hours ago, Des said:

Apologies for that Kev and looking at the post in light of your comment above the censorship becomes clear      Odd though , I had the impression from some of the earlier comments made that industry feedback was actually being sought.

Me too, Des, hence my post.

 

Kev

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  • 4 years later...
On 18/08/2017 at 20:47, junglierating said:

Ah Mike McEvoy .....I wonder if is son ever continued modelling.where n't his articles called tailpiece

Evening @junglierating.  Yup, still modelling and have now inherited a lot of kits 'n' stuff from him.  I think I'm going to need a bigger study!

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On 1/1/2022 at 10:38 PM, Dominic McEvoy said:

Evening @junglierating.  Yup, still modelling and have now inherited a lot of kits 'n' stuff from him.  I think I'm going to need a bigger study!

Hello Dominic.  

 

Like many of us, I was very sorry to hear of your father's death; he was a really lovely man to listen to.  Glad you intend to carry on modelling, especially with all the reference materials you must have !   Welcome to this madhouse.

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Hi Dominic

 

I was able to be part of your father's funeral service last Thursday via the online link and I just wanted to say how well you and the rest of your family did in the words you all spoke in tribute to him. It must have been a difficult day, but you gave him a fitting send off. I only really knew him from his modelling work, so it was a revelation to find out all of his other interests.

 

As you have probably realised your father was incredibly well liked and respected so hopefully that is a comfort to you.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I visited Birmingham yesterday and bought a copy of FIne Scale Modelling. I was shocked to discover the price has soared to £8.99.

 

I did buy the magazine but in all honesty,  unless I see it containing a build, or conversion, or something specific to do with a kit of mine, I shan't buy a copy again.

 

Very disappointing to see how it's price had gone. 

Edited by Whofan
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@Whofan I spotted that a couple of days ago in our local smiths. From November last year they switched to a bi-monthly printing schedule as well! I have a feeling the cover price is being set by the importer and not the magazine publishers though. The current issue on sale (in the US) is the March/April 2022 issue and the US cover price is $8.99, no VAT is payable on printed material such as magazines or books, so using the exchange rate from my bank (Nationwide) $1.317 to £1 gives a cover price of £6.08 (approx). So a mark up of 33% on each issue! Yes the mark up is eaten up with import costs and distribution costs, but even so that's still a whopping markup on the cover price (and allowing for currency fluctuations). We are a little behind in having the January Sci Fi edition, which I think was £8.99, I definitely refused to buy it at that price!

 

I had already decided on the change to bi-monthly publication, and the already hefty price increase to £5.99/month that I would stop buying it on the last monthly printed issue!

Edited by treker_ed
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1 hour ago, treker_ed said:

@Whofan I spotted that a couple of days ago in our local smiths. From November last year they switched to a bi-monthly printing schedule as well! I have a feeling the cover price is being set by the importer and not the magazine publishers though. The current issue on sale (in the US) is the March/April 2022 issue and the US cover price is $8.99, no VAT is payable on printed material such as magazines or books, so using the exchange rate from my bank (Nationwide) $1.317 to £1 gives a cover price of £6.08 (approx). So a mark up of 33% on each issue! Yes the mark up is eaten up with import costs and distribution costs, but even so that's still a whopping markup on the cover price (and allowing for currency fluctuations). We are a little behind in having the January Sci Fi edition, which I think was £8.99, I definitely refused to buy it at that price!

 

I had already decided on the change to bi-monthly publication, and the already hefty price increase to £5.99/month that I would stop buying it on the last monthly printed issue!

 

I hadn't realised it had gone bi-monthly. Now I'll save myself £17.98 a month!

 

 

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3 hours ago, treker_ed said:

@Whofan I spotted that a couple of days ago in our local smiths. From November last year they switched to a bi-monthly printing schedule as well! I have a feeling the cover price is being set by the importer and not the magazine publishers though. The current issue on sale (in the US) is the March/April 2022 issue and the US cover price is $8.99, no VAT is payable on printed material such as magazines or books, so using the exchange rate from my bank (Nationwide) $1.317 to £1 gives a cover price of £6.08 (approx). So a mark up of 33% on each issue! Yes the mark up is eaten up with import costs and distribution costs, but even so that's still a whopping markup on the cover price (and allowing for currency fluctuations). 

 

Works both ways - for example, British aviation magazines (far better than their American equivalents) are marked up at least the same amount over here. And although we don't have VAT, we do have to add local and state taxes on top - 10% in my little town.

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On 1/25/2022 at 9:55 PM, Graham Boak said:

No VAT on publications.

 

As for the increase in prices of imported magazines - have you seen the increases in international postage/carriage?

We. are investigating how to get our phoenix magazines on sale in US, if. we were going to go into distribution there it works out far cheaper to have them printed in US lot less hassle and paperwork in the days of electronic transfer.

.

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I baulked at the price increase on FSM as well. IMHO it is still an enjoyable - and for a UK modeller - different - read but thats the price of a kit!

 

Shame really - I too would have thought that they could have printed them in the UK/Europe without too much hassle, even if they're in the slightly smaller than A4 format

 

TT

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How does any hobby magazine survive in this online world?

 

I used to subscribe to several modelling mags (and indeed contributed to a few,) but find the depth of info now available via expensive printed sources miniscule compared to what's online for free.

In my modelling cabinets I've got Aurora Knights, Airfix birds and a sailing ship, 1/24 vintage and modern cars and 1/32 aircraft. Thus I'm fairly interested about all sorts of models. My real passion though is 1/32 WWI (reawakened by the Wingnuts decade) but the occasional article I find published on a Great War plane has often been pre-empted by the author publishing step-by-step build articles online.

 

I like physically holding a magazine -  much more satisfying than a tablet, on a train etc - but I can get vastly more info from various specialist WWI modelling sites (for free) than I'll ever get on paper. Plus I can zoom in to details, ask questions and electronically file pictures easily for future ref.

 

I'm sorry to see these mags withering on the vine, but I'm afraid they're past their sell-by dates.

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1 hour ago, Macsporran said:

How does any hobby magazine survive in this online world?

 

I used to subscribe to several modelling mags (and indeed contributed to a few,) but find the depth of info now available via expensive printed sources miniscule compared to what's online for free.

In my modelling cabinets I've got Aurora Knights, Airfix birds and a sailing ship, 1/24 vintage and modern cars and 1/32 aircraft. Thus I'm fairly interested about all sorts of models. My real passion though is 1/32 WWI (reawakened by the Wingnuts decade) but the occasional article I find published on a Great War plane has often been pre-empted by the author publishing step-by-step build articles online.

 

I like physically holding a magazine -  much more satisfying than a tablet, on a train etc - but I can get vastly more info from various specialist WWI modelling sites (for free) than I'll ever get on paper. Plus I can zoom in to details, ask questions and electronically file pictures easily for future ref.

 

I'm sorry to see these mags withering on the vine, but I'm afraid they're past their sell-by dates.

As anyone else is, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion. However, I think on one salient point I have to debate otherwise. Whilst article authors may publish both online, and in print, the only times I have seen both, the online "article" is a much cut down version. I would say that 99% of the time the only thing published online would be pictures of the finished item with a tag line saying "build for xxx magazine, unable to publish anything more until the article has appeared in print". This would indicate that they are under some sort of contract or embargo which would not allow them to detract from the magazine article. There have been quite a few like that on this very esteemed forum itself. 

 

The fact that there is a new publisher set up - Phoenix Publishing, with two new magazine would not indicate that modelling magazines are 'withering on the vine', nor past their sell by date - and judging by the responses in the applicable thread and the response they had at Telford, they seem to be having some success (long may it last I say!... Although I maybe slightly biased I know the editor reasonably well, as we are in the same local modelling club!)

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Paper is dead , the internet lives , everything that anyone could ever need can be found online.

 

How ?      Because someone goes to a book or a magazine and unselfishly shares their investment and time to find answers for those who actually believe the opening sentence.

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