View Full Version : Bushcraft Magazine?
Does anybody think that a Bushcraft magazine would be a good idea? I know that it would probably cover the same material as this site but it may be useful in promoting bushcraft to the wider public.
If anybody is interested, what themes or features could / should it include?
I remember Survival Weaponary & Techniques magazine from the dim and distant past and despite its very military outlook it did have the odd good article before it turned into a paintball magazine.
Wolfie
Yeah, SWAT had some nuggets of gold between the covers and it's interesting to see where some of the names that used to write for it are today!
Yeah, SWAT had some nuggets of gold between the covers and it's interesting to see where some of the names that used to write for it are today!
Wonder if they'd ever consider putting the survival/bushcraft articles together into one manual? Might be worth a look....
They can drop the 'chicks in assault vests' thing, though.
TheViking
19-07-2004, 19:42
Hi...
It would be great with such a magazine, but think there would be problems sending it to Denmark each month or so.... :roll: :wink:
I think it should have a tip or two, each time. Off course: articles! :shock: :wink: :-D A section for recommended books or new books of the month, off course covering the relative info.
Some kit tests and a knife section, maybe...?! 8-)
To name 0,001% of what such a mag could contain.......! ;) ;)
Cheers :uu:
Wolfie, a bushcraft magazine would be a fine thing and would have a good circulation. Like BCUK you would need to have a how to section, a review section, kit section, Natural history/flora and fauna section, readers letters and finally a classifieds ads section.
Harder yet would be the staffing and (as tony will tell you) battling your way through all the petty hostility from the industry as a whole.
RAPPLEBY2000
19-07-2004, 23:35
Nice idea, the idea has been around a few times, but how many "bushcrafters" are there?
Magazines like SWAT sold not only to survivalists but to gun owners and militaria interest people too! :shock:
Combat and survival, though aimed at soldiers also has relevent sections on kit, reviews, wild food, and "survival" skills. but it also has lots of pictures of tanks and guns! :cry: it is sold to militaria buffs, all the british forces and cadet forces.
to have a deicated "Bushcraft" magazine would be fantastic, but who would buy it?
obvious.... :shock: ....us, but.... how many of "us" are there?
I don't know of anyone in Norwich or Norfolk apart from me!
if you were to sell the magazine you coulden't do it here.
Combat and Survival is still running i take a look everynow and then to see relevent articles, but i haven't seen anything new for a few years.
SWAT (Survival weaponry and Techniques)magazine started during the cold war, part of SWAT was dedicated to Survivalists (ei getting ready for armageddon! :yikes: ), but wen the berlin wall fell, and USSR dispersed, alot of the paranoia also ended, Swat changed to a more "civilian/ outdoor sport" magazine SAOT (Survival and Outdoor Techniques) including rock climbing rather than the :icon_eek: oh so common deactivated Gun reviews, and how to survive nuclear blasts.
basically there were already magazines that covered climbing walking camping countryside and even mountineering.
so i guess people just bought them!
and SWAT went bust....people didn't need to buy SWAT (or rather SAOT) :cry:
i fear if a dedicated Bushcraft magazine would go the same way!
it would only work if it combined other items of simular interest like nature watching, wildlife, hike and walks, prehaps even stories.
but again, there are already magazines that cover these areas pretty well.
Nice idea though!
I think it's pretty hard to assess whether or not a bushcraft magazine would survive commercially and so there's a big risk in investing in it.
But.... maybe we could produce an online bushcraft magazine for a lot less money and a lot less contractual commitment (by contractual commitment I mean we wouldn't have to pay penalties to printers for not delivering camera-ready copy on time or every month, etc).
It could have a forums link that simply came to Bushcraft UK.
It's articles could be written by practicising bushcraft folks (us!) rather than journos who know little about bushcraft but know a lot about grammar and getting drunk at press do's.
It could include articles that were put together from past forum conversations, thus capturing real-world problems, their solutions and knowledge.
Ditto for pictures.
There's a lot of free software around that could be bent into shape to do this. Take a look at Campsite - http://www.campware.org/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=3&NrIssue=1&NrSection=1&NrArticle=16 - which was written to do this kind of thing and have contributors working from all over the place.
They used to have links to various users that showed how Campsite could look. I can't find it now but one example is http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/home.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=74
The key is that bushcraft is actually about knowledge (knowing lots of small or manual things and how to do lots of small and manual tasks) rather than knowing how to use big, expensive things. That would make it a lot easier to show and transfer knowledge over the web than, say, show how to sail a yacht over the web.
Start small, use voluntary article contributions, don't expect too much, don't make it onerous on contributors, let it reflect the community (us!), keep costs low, low, low. Let it build strength and maybe one day kit suppliers and course providers will want to pay to advertise or sponsor pages in it. If they don't, hey! why worry? We'll still have a well organised collection of our knowledge.
Just my 2c! :-)
Why not just keep the BCUK site going? There's already all the section, it's just missing new articles.
So instead of setting up a hole organisation for a bushcraft magazine, get associated with printers and make sure the hole thing will keep going, instead of setting up a new website, go to all the troubles of finding good server and find people to get it running, just upload the articles directly to the main site! It's already set up, it's got all the sections (news, ressources, reviews, articles, discussion, and even stories [the blog]). Is that feasable?
Just an idea (well no, an adaptation of ginger's idea).
Can I suggest a "grub of the month" section, i.e the food that can currently be found outside, like the plants that are in their "sweet" period, ripe fruit, etc...?
jamesdevine
20-07-2004, 08:58
Hi Have thought about this as well but maybe a annual nothing to flashy made up of the best articles, threads from each section and either put on a CD or printed format.
We could all subscribe to it and contribute to it.
Of course there would have to be and Editor as everyone would want there info included.
I think there would be market for such a thing as there are plenty of people i now who aren't into visiting this site or hardcore bushcrafters but would really enjoy a good mag on the subjects that are regularly discussed here.
James
One of the reasons that we started the Bushcraft UK website was to have a printed magazine, that’s still in the pipeline and is becoming more feasible as we develop more relationships and get more members with good skills and knowledge. To begin with it will be as previously mentioned and published a few times a year, or it will be in magazine form but online for people to download.
At the moment the site (as you’re all aware) is changing the forum, gallery etc are all new and we’ve moved from free software to paid for software because the functionality is so much better. The same is going to happen to the main site with the reviews , articles etc. We are going to have a system where you the members can contribute articles and be much more involved…it’s going to be fantastic. Another upside of it is that it will lend itself to collecting information for a magazine, which is great. This is in development now and is not far off, it’s a big job getting it all just right but the wait will be well worth it. This is the reason that the main site has not been updated much for a couple of months, but soon there will be new stuff on there every day.
Thanks for all your support and especially for the contributions..
Cheers
T
I think that there probably would be a pretty good demand for a magazine, especially when you consider the wide range of subjects that bushcraft could cover. Everything from conservation, crafts, botany, cultures from around the world...the list goes on and on.
As for the life of such a magazine thats up to us. Certainly I think that SWAT had its place at the time, but as mentioned before as political climates changed so did the demand for such a magazine. I would like to think that the ethos of bushcraft does not depend on trends in politics, fashion etc.
I'm glad to here that Bushcraft UK is looking at possibly producing such a magazine in the future. I have to admit that although I don't mind using the internet I am much happier with a book or magazine I can read during a work break, on a bus or anywhere else without having to get on the computer. The idea of producing a compliation of the best bits from the website is a great idea whether it be published or available on disk.
The interesting thing is to look at the life cycle of outdoor books too ... in the 80s they were heavily into the basics and real-life stuff, now, too many are just coffee table travel brochures. Nice to look at but thin when it comes to actual material.
I agree with you there Adi.
And that is actually an interesting observation too, the travel brochure type books (as you put it) only reflect what is popular and they are only popular because of the TV.
Maybe its a sad reflection on the world we live in and by association on us that we now put more store by the word of a TV personality or sportsman than someone who actually does something worth while - once a great englishman was someone like Scott or churchill - someone who did something for their country, now its some over paid, egotistically prat who probably thinking the sun shines out their rear whose only claim to fame is that the camera makes them look good or that they can kick a ball semi straight.
My point? Bushcraft is about being outdoors, the manuals of the 70/80's were written by and for people who walk the walk - the travelogs and fan book are written for people who only talk the talk!
[QUOTE]Why not just keep the BCUK site going? There's already all the section, it's just missing new articles.[QUOTE]
Can't argue with that - I guess we're all helping to write a bushcraft magazine everytime we post something.
That's a nice thought, innit?
RAPPLEBY2000
21-07-2004, 21:26
Wow i didn't know that was possible or likely!
I would be first in the queue for the Bushcraft mag!
it would be nice not to cover subjects that are covered to death like, which is the best knife? for example.
but follow real articles as was mentioned.
just an idea, when testing gear or comparing it try to include the total weight, dry and wet.
good luck with the mag idea!
just an idea, when testing gear or comparing it try to include the total weight, dry and wet.
That's exactly the real world testing that we have in mind! :wink: :o):
[QUOTE=Gary] once a great englishman was someone like Scott [QUOTE]
I do try... :biggthump :o):
Wildpacker
01-03-2005, 14:24
The 'success' (well it's still solvent) of Combat and Survival shows that there is a niche in the market for this kind of topic. The problem is keeping the momentum. Most of you could feed a magazine for three months, six maybe, perhaps even a year. But then what? Just keep repeating the obvious? That's what Ray Mears is reduced to on TV these days.
I for one would like to see a UK bushcraft magazine in print, but selling the idea to a publisher like emap would require a pretty effective business plan, and selling it to private investors wouldn't be much different.
How's the idea progressing?
gillmacca
01-03-2005, 14:35
I love the idea. Plus it would make working more bareable, when I know during my break I can read it, plus some people at work might flip through it (if I let them :wink: ), and over time they might get interested.
Walkabout
01-03-2005, 14:46
I think it should have an agony aunt/uncle. :naughty: Any volunteers? :o):
arctic hobo
01-03-2005, 16:51
The thing about Combat & Survival is that it's very much a military magazine, and much more military with a survival slant than survival with a military slant, and so it has much wider appeal.
Plus the trouble with many magazines (and I should know, I sell them for a living) is that they all get very same-y after a while - you can see that they have no material so they write more about the same things. Sooner or later they'll literally be repeating themselves. You can see the same in newspapers that have very little news to report - they re-use material all the time and they're all the same.
Bushcraft is not a subject that would work well in a magazine for those reasons. Worse, there is not even any new technology to talk about, which is what often becomes the staple of a magazine with no material. Because of course we're all about ancient skills! And celebrity talk - how many of us really want to hear about a day in the life of Ray Mears?
While I appreciate bushcraft can be a very wide ranging subject there I don't think it's suitable for such a news-based media as magazines.
There are (I think) about 1500 members on here. OK so there are doubtless more people out there who have not found the forum because they're not computer type people or just haven't stumbled on it yet - but we must also ask ourselves, would those people buy our magazine? Even if all 1500 members here bought it, it would still have to be very expensive, as the salaries of the writers and editing & design staff have to be paid, and the less copies sold, the higher the individual price would need to be.
And at the end of the day, it's about getting out there and doing it, not reading about it. "All the gear and no idea" as they say.
Just my thoughts :wave:
bambodoggy
01-03-2005, 16:59
The interesting thing is to look at the life cycle of outdoor books too ... in the 80s they were heavily into the basics and real-life stuff, now, too many are just coffee table travel brochures. Nice to look at but thin when it comes to actual material.
IMO the very same applies and is highlighted perfectly by Ray Mears's various TV series.....
The new ones on now are (apart from the first one the other night) just going over the same ground again and again....and in less detail....
Still watch them though! lol :o):
Wildpacker
01-03-2005, 17:10
It depends how narrow the focus is. "a day in the life of Ray Mears" might be of limited interest (although at leat one magazine did that last year, and very interesting it was), there are lots of others out there who would be interesting topics to cover. Alicia Hempleman-Adams forthcoming trip to Baffin Island for example. Lots of the technical information about the kit used would be of interest to people here.
Perhaps there already is a UK magazine around that caters for the outdoors enthusiast, there are enough US ones - some of which are very good indeed.
Wildpacker
01-03-2005, 17:18
OK, so TGO is already there, just needs to expand its bushcraft coverage.
OK, so TGO is already there, just needs to expand its bushcraft coverage.
Actually, TGO is a good example of how a potentially "samey" subject can be freshened up by having some decent writers and experienced enthusiasts on staff (in my opinion)
The key appears to lie in not being published by EMAP :roll:
Still lots of gear reviews, mind you. It must be a great help to newcomers, but does get aggravating for readers already in possession of kit (surely 90%)
Can't see a bushcraft mag being a commercial proposition, more a fanzine type thing, though in concert with a website, school and other ventures (expedition planning/arranging/guiding?) who knows?
Good luck, Tony et al. I'll buy it if no-one else will.
Hmm, that'd make it collectable :naughty:
I'll have 10 copies of issue 1 :rolmao:
Jim.
I subscribe to 'Wilderness Way' magazine, which comes from the states. It is good, 4 issues a year, all about primitive skills, tracking, fire, edible/medicinal plants, cultures.....etc...... As I say good, but a bit American, you know.....bit too much about emotions and stuff....like the recent issue which contained a peice about being a dad!!! nonetheless good!"!
steven
bushbasher
05-10-2005, 17:39
Wonder if they'd ever consider putting the survival/bushcraft articles together into one manual? Might be worth a look....
They can drop the 'chicks in assault vests' thing, though.
I always thought that was the best bit!! :D
Lol. Dryad Bushcraft, I saw you on the tele a couple of days ago.