Model Railroading > Carstens Publications announcement re R&R, RMC

Re-posting something Steve placed elsewhere on the interwebs:


"Carstens Publications has announced that negotiations are taking place with several companies regarding the future publishing of Railfan & Railroad, Railroad Model Craftsman and Flying Models magazines. All involved ask for your patience at this time."

Unofficially, I'm talking to some R&R alumni to round up the features for the Railfan 40th anniversary issue in November. Stay tuned!

Steve Barry
Editor
Railfan & Railroad

Steve,
Thanks for something to clear the air.

I hope all works out. I've been a subscriber to Railfan and Railroad since its first issue and to RMC for 40+ years. Yes, I'm an old f---.

If not, thank you for all the years!

Steve Barkley, MMR

While I am a charter subscriber to R&R going back the days of Jim Boyd, I have become somewhat disenfranchised by the quality of R&R for the past couple of years. I stopped my subscribe to RMC years ago and only now buy a single copy if something catches my eye. Hate to see them go away....

Marty Harrison
Knob Noster, MO

This is just an unfortunate fact of the magazine business today. As with newspapers, there isn't much in print that can't be found on line. And accessed almost anyplace with portable devices. Advertising revenue is the major source of income for print publications....not subscriptions. When that shrinks so does the size of the magazine and thus reduces the size of audience who buys it. Anyone seen a copy of Time Magazine lately? Back in the day, the advertising agency I worked for put an ad into all four newsweeklies (SI was considered a newsweekly) almost every week. Now you rarely see an ad for any of the big three automotive companies there. Same goes with model railroad and railfan products. I stopped subscribing to TRAINS Magazine last year. I found there wasn't much there that I couldn't find on line without the cost. But for those who still enjoy having an actual magazine, here's hoping they both survive.

"I found there wasn't much there that I couldn't find on line without the cost"

Now we are definitely hooked on the internet I predict the days of free access to information will become a thing of the past. Leave it to big business to find a way to control the web and profit from it. Ads running down the side of a printed page are certainly less onerous than endless pop ups with hidden X buttons.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

And have you seen what an ad cost in a newspaper or magazine? A one-time, full-page ad in any of the leading train or model train magazine can cost you $5,000+. A very small one-time ad can run about $400. And then when you consider the falling number of people that subscribe to magazines and newspapers, it doesn't seem cost effective. I placed some small, one-time ads in local newspapers this year and they ran anywhere from $170 to $260. But I've since determined that much of my market don't subscribe to newspapers anymore including older folks. And they aren't into social networking either. A Facebook Business Page can cost you a few thousand dollars a month when you pay for all the hits, but few of those hits buy your product. Even Forbes says its a waste of money.

And when you see the pressure to discount products, plus the cost of advertising, you can understand why a certain model train manufacturer is not selling his product through the usual marketing channels. He makes a great product and in volume too but through the usual marketing channels everyone was eating his lunch. It's understandable why many of our innovative cottage industries come and go.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/14 10:41 by wabash2800.

Well, if that is the case, I hope it diminishes spamming and particularly fraud, which is going out of control.

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Now we are definitely hooked on the internet I
> predict the days of free access to information
> will become a thing of the past. Leave it to big
> business to find a way to control the web and
> profit from it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/14 10:38 by wabash2800.

I think this says it all -

From: Bill Schaumburg <bills@rrmodelcraftsman.com>
> Date: August 22, 2014 9:31:29 AM PDT
> Subject: Lights out at the "Pub"
>
> Colleagues,
>
> It has been a great run and it is lights out at Carstens Pub by 5:00 p.m. I will close out my term here of nearly 38 years with the following from Doug Adams, who wrote it around the time I came to RMC:
>
> "So Long, and Thanks for all the fish."
>
> Bill Schaumburg

If there is any value to their assets? I'm told that many of the photos in the Railroad magazine collection have been picked through and are gone. And as much I have respect for Jim Boyd as a photographer and writer, he had a habit of not returning material (not just unsolicited). However, it's possible some others borrowed material from the collection and never returned it. This is based on more than one person's experience including some well known authors and photographers in the hobby. (It was discussed here on Trainorders when he died.) I lost some material too that was priceless to me in the late 60's early 70's, though I'll admit it was unsolicited, though I included a return envelope and postage. If anyone sees a photo of a Penn Central ABA lashup of F units let by FP7 No. 4368 with the Wolcottville,Indiana tower in the background and a bald-headed operator handing up train orders, it's one I lost. I won't even claim ownership anymore, I would just cherish the image.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/14 12:24 by wabash2800.

I hope we can still have access to the articles of Carstens Publications. And YES, I would be willing to PAY for them IF I could pick and choose the articles I was interested in.

It would seem there would be a market for a DVD of Railroad, RF&RR, RMC and Flying Models provided someone is willing to take the chance in the cost involved. Railroad magazine goes back quite far and includes girly stuff (sex sells). <G>

gandydancer4 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hope we can still have access to the articles of
> Carstens Publications. And YES, I would be willing
> to PAY for them IF I could pick and choose the
> articles I was interested in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/14 13:01 by wabash2800.

For the last 3-4 years, I'd go over to the Carstens Publications table at Trainfest in Milwaukee and ask if they would be willing to put their magazines on DVD. I was never given a straight answer. Maybe they did't want to be a "copy cat" after Kalmbach had done it with their magazines which BTW, the "Model Railroader" DVD is currently sold out. I've seen several Historical Societies do this as well which makes sense. To say that your a historical society and not preserve your own history is bizarre to me. Anyway, I would LOVE to see Carstens put their magazines on DVD. I'd buy it along with "Mainline Modeler", "Model Railroading Magazine",etc.

They might be afraid of copyright infringement as I think Kalmbach got around it by providing lower than ideal resolution to discourage reuse. I remember when I was looking for images for my book from its files I was given a long song and dance about Kalmbach not being sure about who owns the rights on many of the images. I suppose in many instances, they were only given one time use rights? I was also told that in many instances, it is just unknown where the images came from. But it seems that many of the images are no longer there as is with Carstens. Someone who checked for me said he was surprised about how few Wabash photos there were.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/14 13:22 by wabash2800.

In general (a very big 'if') articles and photos are sold with "one-time North American rights" or some kind of wording that limits where and how often material can be used. So, a publication might retain a print in its files but not be legally able to publish it again without another payment.

Some authors/photographers are intensely protective of their material. One RR historical society got into a huge fight with a photographer after using prints bought from the Denver Public Library. I don't know the details and who was right or wrong, but it left very bad feelings all around.

A couple of years ago, in talking to a Carstens person, I was told they weren't able to reprint much from the Railroad magazine files because they had bought the archive but not publishing rights. How they were able to run the vintage cartoons was not explained.

At the publications where I worked over the years, sometimes pictures got taken home so someone could "make a copy," and were never seen again.

So basically, if I understand this conversation, is that Carstens along with other publishers will take photographs that we send them, use them for whatever article they have in mind and then take them for their own and not return them or pay for them. What kind of "What's mine is mine and what's your is mine" mentality is that? They do this to their own detriment because now when it comes to being able to re-print anything or digitalize it, they're afraid of someone finding out that the publisher actually took what wasn't theres to begin with. WOW!! How corrupt is THAT??!!

gandydancer4 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So basically, if I understand this conversation,
> is that Carstens along with other publishers will
> take photographs that we send them, use them for
> whatever article they have in mind and then take
> them for their own and not return them or pay for
> them. What kind of "What's mine is mine and what's
> your is mine" mentality is that? They do this to
> their own detriment because now when it comes to
> being able to re-print anything or digitalize it,
> they're afraid of someone finding out that the
> publisher actually took what wasn't theres to
> begin with. WOW!! How corrupt is THAT??!!

Carstens is the only publisher at which I've known this to be a chronic problem. Jim Boyd was notorious for losing people's contributed material. Once he retired, they became better about returning people's material, but their contributor payments were still very slow and often required nagging. I know of one recent contributor who's still waiting for payment after sending several messages and I suspect he and any others will now have to sue somebody to get paid unless any buyer of these magazine titles is somehow willing to take on those liabilities, too.

I did have a slide go missing at Kalmbach once that I would certainly like to get back, but that was more than 20 years ago now and an exception to my overall experience with them. They're also generally good about cutting checks -- often I got the check before I even saw the magazine in which my work was used, and I've even been paid for a couple of articles they haven't published.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
I know of one recent
> contributor who's still waiting for payment after
> sending several messages and I suspect he and any
> others will now have to sue somebody to get paid
> unless any buyer of these magazine titles is
> somehow willing to take on those liabilities,
> too.


Good luck on that. Carstens announced permanent closure this afternoon. Zero chance a new buyer is taking on liability to pay for old contributions. Even taking subscription liability at full value would notbe my choice if I were a prospective bidder (I'm not).

BobE

BobE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> toledopatch Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> I know of one recent
> > contributor who's still waiting for payment
> after
> > sending several messages and I suspect he and
> any
> > others will now have to sue somebody to get
> paid
> > unless any buyer of these magazine titles is
> > somehow willing to take on those liabilities,
> > too.
>
>
> Good luck on that. Carstens announced permanent
> closure this afternoon. Zero chance a new buyer
> is taking on liability to pay for old
> contributions. Even taking subscription liability
> at full value would notbe my choice if I were a
> prospective bidder (I'm not).
>
> BobE

Yeah, I figured as much. Thankfully, that unpaid contributor is not me. I have advised him to get his small-claims lawsuit ready, although there probably won't be any assets to pay a judgment.

I figure my unfinished subscription is probably a loss, too. I thought about not renewing when it last came up, and obviously made the wrong choice.