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Kickback: Letters from TiC Readers

Our new format: Up in arms?

As a professional carpenter as well as an admitted bibliophile (collecting both books and magazines pertaining to trade craft), I just wanted to express my disappointment that you have decided to switch to a different layout than that offered with iPaper. The release of your e-magazines each period was more exciting to me to receive than most table magazines I receive.

Just when I thought you would be the forerunner in the woodworking genre e-book transition, you go the direction that so many other craftsmen-oriented websites go: the blog and forum. I am already a member of the Taunton blogs and forums as well as the forum over at JLC and I really don’t need another. Taunton has been real pushy as of late for members to use interactive content and join “real time” discussion. But low resolution, choppy streaming, 3 minute videos and daily 200 word blog tweets are a far cry from the information that is obtained through well written 2-3 page articles (with a few pics, of course).

Long story short, I think you guys already have the best carpentry and woodwork related e-magazines on the entire internet and deviating so soon just seems like a move towards mediocrity. Of course I will stick with your site and “magazine” in its next incarnation and anticipate seeing if I am wrong about your new direction.

Gook luck,
GK

Comments/Discussion

3 Responses to “Kickback: Letters from TiC Readers”

  1. Gary Katz

    GK,
    Nice initials.
    I’m sorry we bailed on the fancy iPaper format (You don’t have stock on iPaper, do you?). But we were getting far too many complaints from readers who couldn’t access the magazine, and that disturbed me. Plus there were a few other problems:

    1. You couldn’t search for ANYTHING–definitely not across all issues of the magazine, so if you didn’t know what issue your information was in, good luck! That wasn’t acceptable. Imagine what would have happened once we had a dozen issues published.
    2. None of the articles in the magazine appeared in any internet search engines, so the popularity and eventual success of the magazine was seriously impaired.
    3. It took hours to layout and publish the iPaper magazine and cost thousands of dollars for each issue. I’m committed to supporting and continuing this magazine as a service to the trade, but with minimal advertising income, I can’t afford to carry that much of a debt burden. I hope you can understand and appreciate the decision.
    4. The iPaper version was NOT interactive. I had hoped that the Kickback feature would provide an opportunity for ‘discussion’ but it didn’t and couldn’t. What we needed was an area where readers could respond to articles, where authors could answer questions, where contributors could ‘contribute’– photographs, pdfs, drawings, etc., that would continue and further the aim of each article. That kind of ‘discussion’ has always been missing in paper magazines–letters to the editor never really satisfies the need. That was an important goal with this magazine.

    I appreciate your statement that most blogs are “a far cry from the information that is obtained through well written 2-3 page articles.” That’s why TiC is not a blog. It’s a magazine. We publish thorough comprehensive articles on subjects that many magazines don’t cover. And each article can be supported and reinforced by unlimited peer discussion.

    Please do stick around. I think you’ll find this format offers more opportunity than you first imagined! The future isn’t fancy software. The future is interactivity–learning from each other. I think we’re on to something.
    Gary

    Reply
  2. Ray Menard

    We publish thorough comprehensive articles on subjects that many magazines don’t cover. And each article can be supported and reinforced by unlimited peer discussion.

    What Gary says – that’s the key plus there are great links and photos. I really liked the mag format too. It was fun clicking to the next page, but this works, at least, just as well. I like getting the e-mail updates and my bookmark is now one for ThisisCarpentry rather than an entire list for each new edition.

    Would like to be able to edit my post AFTER it has been submitted. Yup, I make mistakes that I don’t always catch and wish I could fix my post after the fact. Can that be done?

    Reply
    • Tristan Katz

      Hi Ray,
      Thank you for offering your point of view.
      I will look into an editing option for the comments!

      Reply

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