Sad Day: Woodwork (magazine) Update

A few weeks ago I was surprised and happy to find a new edition of Woodwork (magazine) in my mail box. Yesterday I was disappointed to receive the following email from Tom Caspar, the editor of the magazine:

Dear friends of Woodwork,

Thank you for your thoughtful letters.

When my parent company, New Track Media, bought Woodwork last year, I was one happy guy. With the help of a small but dedicated staff, I was all set to continue a great tradition in publishing a unique magazine.

I’m writing you to let you know that Woodwork is going through another major change. Not in its content, appearance, or attitude, though. Due to a major and completely unexpected disruption in the newsstand distribution business, Woodwork will not continue as a quarterly this year. Instead, we will be publishing an annual issue this fall.

Chalk this up to the weak economy. Our publisher just made this call the other day, and it wasn’t easy.

I’m not exactly sure what will happen to subscriptions. I’ll let you know as soon as I get the word. The annual issue we’ll be publishing will not go out to subscribers, as I understand it, but will only appear on newsstands.

If you have been in contact with me about writing for the magazine, please send me an e-mail so we can continue our conversation. I’ll still be looking for a wide variety of stories to include in the fall issue. Your contributions, after all, are the heart of the magazine.

Now for some good news: we’re launching a new Woodwork website May 1st. It will host blogs, forums, and galleries of photos, plus stories that have already appeared in recent issues of Woodwork. This site is our way of helping the Woodwork community grow even larger and stay connected.

In the meantime, we’ve started a forum about Woodwork on the new American Woodworker website, americanwoodworker.com. I predict that there will be a pretty lively discussion on the magazine’s past, present and future, and I welcome your contributions. You can access the forum through this link: americanwoodworker.com/forums/3000. First, though, you’ll have to sign in and become a member. I’d like to publish part or all of your letter on the forum, to get the ball rolling, but only with your permission. Please write back if that’s OK with you. I won’t publish your email address, just the gist of what you wrote.

Be assured that the whole team here is eager to publish the next issue of Woodwork. We bought a business, but we also inherited a trust. I hope that the first issue we put out, Spring 2009, shows that we all want Woodwork to continue in the same spirit, and for that, we’ll need your understanding and help.

Talk to you soon,

Tom
Tom Caspar
Editor
Woodwork magazine

So, look for the next issue on the newsstands in the fall and buy it so that this great magazine can continue!