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SAMI/SMMi Change owners


WarthogMKL

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Under New Ownership!

Following the successful acquisition of Model Aircraft Magazine, MA Publications Ltd are pleased to announce that Scale Aviation Modeller International, Scale Military Modeller International and the full SAM Publications range of books will be joining Model Aircraft Magazine over at modelaircraftmag.com! 

 

For the moment, the SAM Publications website will continue to run, however, you will notice many changes over the next few weeks and months! You are now able to purchase SAM Publications products at modelaircraftmag.com. 

 

If you are a current subscriber, your existing subscription will continue as usual. 

 

We are looking forward to sharing more with you over the next few months, starting in the March Issues! 

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch. 

 

Kindest regards 

 

The MA Publications Ltd Team 

If you have any queries, 

please do not hesitate to contact us:

 

Telephone: +44 (0) 1234 331 431

 

Email: [email protected]

 

Visit our website: modelaircraftmag.com

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  • 4 weeks later...

Has anybody seen the March issues of either of these magazines yet. The website still shows the February editions to be the latest but the March ones should be out by now, but I cant find them at WHSmith's. Has there been a printing delay?

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5 hours ago, Diggers11 said:

Has anybody seen the March issues of either of these magazines yet. The website still shows the February editions to be the latest but the March ones should be out by now, but I cant find them at WHSmith's. Has there been a printing delay?

This was posted in the IPMS Workbench Facebook page on 4th March that there was a 2 week delay in printing due to a problem at the printers. it was followed up bay a reply from David Francis, one of the editors of SAMI

 

"David Charles Francis Also effects Model Aircraft Monthly and Scale Military Modeller International as all printed at same time under new ownership. As has been said this effects print issue only as the magazine was ready to print on time it is just an issue at printers."

 

I'm a subscriber and have not received any official notification of a delay in my issue being sent out, I have to say I'm a little bit annoyed about that, and feel that subscribers at least, should have been notified of this!

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17 hours ago, treker_ed said:

This was posted in the IPMS Workbench Facebook page on 4th March that there was a 2 week delay in printing due to a problem at the printers. it was followed up bay a reply from David Francis, one of the editors of SAMI

 

"David Charles Francis Also effects Model Aircraft Monthly and Scale Military Modeller International as all printed at same time under new ownership. As has been said this effects print issue only as the magazine was ready to print on time it is just an issue at printers."

 

I'm a subscriber and have not received any official notification of a delay in my issue being sent out, I have to say I'm a little bit annoyed about that, and feel that subscribers at least, should have been notified of this!

Thank you for that information. I didn't know about that Facebook group so didn't see it unfortunately. I checked the MA Publications website and their own social media pages but there was no mention of the issue. I am not a subscriber my self, but I agree they should have informed people that are at the very least.

 

Mark.

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4 hours ago, Diggers11 said:

Thank you for that information. I didn't know about that Facebook group so didn't see it unfortunately. I checked the MA Publications website and their own social media pages but there was no mention of the issue. I am not a subscriber my self, but I agree they should have informed people that are at the very least.

 

Mark.

I sent them a PM through their FB page on Saturday. This was my message

 

"I understand, following comments on other facebook pages that there have been problems with getting the March 2020 issues of SAMi printed. As a subscriber why has no notification been made of any problems getting the magazines that we have paid for out to us?"

 

Their response:

"Thank you for messaging us. Yes there has been a printer issues affecting the March Issues. We are working with them to get them out as soon as we can buy realistically it will be a week to 10 days. We can only apologise for this" (slightly more - but only applicable to subscribers)

 

Whilst they have acknowledged the problem, they have not acknowledged the fact that they should have made subscribers at least aware of the problem.... it's this part that I am annoyed with. My sub was a gift from the wife for my birthday last year, so it's even more annoying from that perspective!

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5 hours ago, treker_ed said:

I sent them a PM through their FB page on Saturday. This was my message

 

"I understand, following comments on other facebook pages that there have been problems with getting the March 2020 issues of SAMi printed. As a subscriber why has no notification been made of any problems getting the magazines that we have paid for out to us?"

 

Their response:

"Thank you for messaging us. Yes there has been a printer issues affecting the March Issues. We are working with them to get them out as soon as we can buy realistically it will be a week to 10 days. We can only apologise for this" (slightly more - but only applicable to subscribers)

 

Whilst they have acknowledged the problem, they have not acknowledged the fact that they should have made subscribers at least aware of the problem.... it's this part that I am annoyed with. My sub was a gift from the wife for my birthday last year, so it's even more annoying from that perspective!

It can leave a bad taste in the mouth when companies act like this. I had a similar thing with two Airfix MiG-17 kits having the same missing part. They were purchased from the Airfix website and they replaced the missing parts but there wasn't much of an apology, it was if they expected parts to be missing and its just how it is.

 

Its not like companies have an excuse not to get information out to the public with all the social media platforms available to them. They are quite happy using them to sell products.

 

Its good they responded to your PM on Facebook though, at least the mystery is solved and the magazine should be available shortly.

 

Thank you again for helping as I was starting to assume they had folded (no pun intended, magazine are folded paper).

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20 hours ago, Diggers11 said:

Its not like companies have an excuse not to get information out to the public with all the social media platforms available to them. They are quite happy using them to sell products.

 

Its good they responded to your PM on Facebook though, at least the mystery is solved and the magazine should be available shortly.

 

Thank you again for helping as I was starting to assume they had folded (no pun intended, magazine are folded paper).

 

It would have been good of them to put something on their web site, not everyone does Facebook and the like.  I did phone them up last Friday after the mag had not turned up and got the answer that was given earlier.

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Looking at the reply treker-ed received, it looks like the March issue will be in the shops the same week as the April issue will be!

 

20 hours ago, Diggers11 said:

Thank you again for helping as I was starting to assume they had folded (no pun intended, magazine are folded paper).

I confess that had occurred to me as well.

Edited by Whofan
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Straight from the horses mouth.

Last Friday the decision was made to produce a combined March/April issue.

The reasons

1. If kept to the normal production schedule the late arrival of the printed March issue would mean it would only be on sale at bookshops for 2 weeks before Aprils arrived. This would not cover the print run cost and would lead to a lot of waste.

2. We were planning a new look from April issue onwards for SAMi anyway.

 

So we are reverting to our original print schedule which mean the bumper March /April r issue will go to press this weekend and in shops 5-7 days later.

It will contain the articles that were planned for March and April  All the first looks planned for both issues and an expanded news section. The only thing we will loose is the large listing of all the new kits planned for 2021. But if we cannot squeeze it in I will post it on the SAMi Facebook page.

 

If I hear anything else I will pass on but once the completed issue is delivered to the art studio my job is done and I do not have anything to do with the distribution side of things.

 

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17 hours ago, WarthogMKL said:

Straight from the horses mouth.

Last Friday the decision was made to produce a combined March/April issue.

The reasons

1. If kept to the normal production schedule the late arrival of the printed March issue would mean it would only be on sale at bookshops for 2 weeks before Aprils arrived. This would not cover the print run cost and would lead to a lot of waste.

2. We were planning a new look from April issue onwards for SAMi anyway.

 

So we are reverting to our original print schedule which mean the bumper March /April r issue will go to press this weekend and in shops 5-7 days later.

It will contain the articles that were planned for March and April  All the first looks planned for both issues and an expanded news section. The only thing we will loose is the large listing of all the new kits planned for 2021. But if we cannot squeeze it in I will post it on the SAMi Facebook page.

 

If I hear anything else I will pass on but once the completed issue is delivered to the art studio my job is done and I do not have anything to do with the distribution side of things.

 

Thank you for the update.

 

Just to clarify is there going to be combined March/April issues for both SAMi and Model Aircraft Magazines? Because I noticed the digital March issue of Model Aircraft is available from Pocketmags but SAMi is not. Does this Digital Model Aircraft magazine actually exist or is it just a cover? (I don't buy digital magazines, just interested to know).

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What's annoyed me personally is the fact that as a subscriber, I have received no information at all regarding this...

 

I have had to contact SAMI via the facebook page to get the information previously posted, and then the info posted by @WarthogMKL in this thread.

 

Why have subscribers not been advised of these changes to their subscription? And as we have paid in advance, will we get an extension to our subscription to take into account the loss(!) of an issue. I do appreciate that there is a combined Mar/Apr 2020 issue being created, but we have still lost part of our pre paid and agreed subscription copies.

 

As I have said, it's the lack of direct communication from the publishers that has really annoyed me the most.

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To be fair the new owners have had a horrendous start with a few issues totally beyond their control all happening at the same time as well as trying to combine assets and systems from two companies. Luckily they have some wonderful editors and studio staff ; )

 

The BIG April issue is ready and proofed and is ready to go OFF to the printers tomorrow PM for print run on Monday.

 

As I have said once out gets to this stage I loose view of the process. But I know meetings have been going on with printers and distribution agents for last 2 weeks as a disruption to your on sale date has a lot of knock on effects. Once the owners are confident that nothing more can go wrong they will put the information out and I will post on here.

I am sorry that so many readers have missed their magazine but it will be with you soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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@WarthogMKL, thanks for the new update, I have my fingers crossed for the new owners and they have my commiserations - anything like this is always awkward, especially for the first issue. We must remember there are  more serious issues than a magazine being late though.

 

Stay well,

 

Ray

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I called into Smith's yesterday and no sign of the new issue. I'm not expecting it until next Thursday at the earliest, the difficulty is the health Nazi I love with (SWIMBO) has decreed I must not go to any shop.

 

I bet that decree will go by the board when she runs out of tea.

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Oops. What an unfortunate time for the magazine to have production and hence delivery & display difficulties. Not many non-subscriber sales likely, alas, as most newsagents shut down.

 

Time to start decreasing the stash...

 

Glad to hear you have fewer ambulance service time wasters, WarthogMKL.  Some small positives! 

 

 

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4 hours ago, John B (Sc) said:

as most newsagents shut down.

I don't know about north of the border but here on the south side of Hadrian's Wall newsagents are some of the few shops allowed to open.

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32 minutes ago, Nigel Bunker said:

I don't know about north of the border but here on the south side of Hadrian's Wall newsagents are some of the few shops allowed to open.

They are exempted up here as well although as footfall decreases it might become a financial or a safety decision for individual shopkeepers.

 

Daily newspaper arrived this morning but will soon discover otherwise if that stops or is stopping when I go to pay for this week on Thursday or Friday at the earliest when we venture out to replenish perishables such as milk and bread.

 

Many special interest magazines are put together from individual contributors , editors and their assistants all working from their own homes but not too sure if the studio work required to get them ready for publication is home based or done in the office but the the printing itself and the potential for maintaining social distancing and minimum workforce numbers at the relevant printing works could be a weak link.      For the moment anyway what has been said seems to suggest that distribution networks can remain operational irrespective of the products involved although again easy to see how that also might end up as a financial decision.

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Out to restock perishables this morning and pay newspaper bill , latest issues were in my local newsagent at 6.99 each.     Did notice in passing that while other newsagents were open WH Smith seemed to be closed but no idea if this is a local or a national matter.

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1 hour ago, Des said:

Out to restock perishables this morning and pay newspaper bill , latest issues were in my local newsagent at 6.99 each.     Did notice in passing that while other newsagents were open WH Smith seemed to be closed but no idea if this is a local or a national matter.

National....

 

Stated on their facebook page, and also there is a statement on their website. for the health of their staff and customers in order to be able to comply with the "social distancing rules"

 

Military Illustrated Modeller (Aircraft edition)

Air Modeller

Model Aircraft

Model Airplane International

Scale Aircraft Modelling

 

These I buy from Smiths - I managed to buy SAM & MIM before smiths closed, MA & MAI I have now bought direct from the publishers. Air Modeller - is a bi-monthly publication, and I think that's due sometime in April.

 

AMW & SAMI I have on subscription, so should come through the post any day soon I hope!

 

 

 

Edited by treker_ed
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For those that subscribe I can update you based on a reply from MA Publications (the new owner) I received a little while ago to an e-mail I sent last night querying what the latest situation is.

 

The reply stated that the double issue has been received back from printers (which is verified by Des seeing it at the Newsagent) and has been sent to the subscription distributers, so we subscribers should see it in the next few days depending on what the current postal situation is in your area.

 

Hope this helps anybody wondering where their issue is.

 

 

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Subscriber copies started to land Friday but both retail distribution and  Royal Mail staffing are going to have an effect, the copies sent to me for new customers went AWOL for 24 hours. All purchases from the website and single copies, new subscribers and books are being sent with in 24 hours by me via My Hermes in the UK and it is working well with most being delivered 2 to 3days after collection. However the record is an order to Germany two parcels sent on Wednesday arrived on Friday!!!

Though some do not liker MH i have only had 1 order damaged and no losses since I started using them for UK orders in Feb, plus as long as we have email you can track the orders progress. After the long gap between issues we know have a short deadline for Mays as it is due to press just before Easter.

We have noted a rise in 3 to 6 month and digital edition subscribers, as I think many are hunkering down for the long haul.

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