Large Scale Central

Horovitz No Longer Editor at GR

General Discussion
#1

Kalmbach has fired Marc Horovitz as editor of Garden Railways, and will turn the magazine into a quarterly, instead of its current bimonthly schedule.

I have this from a reliable, inside source.

This action is apparently part of a company-wide “belt-tightening” which will include bringing all editorial staff in-house. The new editor is named Kent Johnson. The December issue will be the last under Marc’s editorship. As far as I know, most of the supporting editorial crew will remain with the magazine.

As luck would have it, I just renewed…

Bob, I just posted this on “the other site”. Hope you don’t mind the cross-posting; I thought folks should know.

And Dave, it’s public now!

-The Garden Rail Hobo -

#2

I can fully understand belt-tightening.

I can understand - but I think it is not a good strategy - getting rid of longer term employees with newer, lower-salaried individuals… many companies try this but with limited success.

I CANNOT understand the foolishness of making a magazine less attractive by reducing the number of issues, which means content.

I gave up on GR because of several things… reviews turned into glowing reports of perfect products… so that was no longer attractive, and I loved the advertisements (which pay for the mag) as a nice way to see a bunch of products at a glance and see the sales.

When the Internet grew, and the LS suppliers started increasing the quality and responsiveness of their web sites that started to change things. Now by issuing the magazine less often, any advertiser would be pretty foolish to put in sales and specials when it will be up to 4 months before they are published…

So, the decrease in publication frequency is very negative to me as a reader, and I believe to the advertisers. A double whammy in the slow spiral to the death of the magazine.

Greg

#3

My subscription is just about over and I will not renew.

Wife is thinking of moving and we will not be bringing magazines to a smaller housing situation.

If we go where she is thinking of there is almost no opportunity for an outdoor layout or her gardening interests.

Probably just going to keep my live steam locos and 2 or 3 battery powered locos.

Won’t even NEED track for those!

I can run with OVGRS during the American Invasion, and at TrainOPs, and a place or 2 in Florida(if I do not mind the drive)

#4

My subscription lapsed a few months back. I just don’t have the time to read everything that come to the house anymore. That and I was finding GR less and less interesting. Sure, they would have a great article on something I was interested in, but the next 2 or 3 would be ho hum.

So, is print dead?

#5

With going to quarterly publications, guessing the price isn’t going down either…

#6

Even though I have a backlog of articles ready for GR to publish I also have abandoned my subscription.

I would have to say that LSC played a very large part in my decision when I didn’t renew a few years back:

Back in “The Day”, I would get the “current” GR and read through the entire issue in half an hour - or less. If I wrote an article for GR, I MIGHT get a question or comment forwarded to me - months after the article had been published, and my article might have been submitted YEARS earlier. Most articles did not generate any questions or comments.

I got to thinking; I can post a new topic here on LSC and get almost immediate feedback; often causing me to change the way I would proceed. Or, maybe I get questions while I’m still working on the project. A lot of times, the feedback made for a much better model - or just kept me going.

I cannot get through a day’s worth of posts in 30 minutes on LSC - there’s just so many interesting topics that it’s just hard to keep up any more. On LSC, I can ask the poster specific questions, or provide them answers to their questions - and I can easily qualify my responses to fit the questioner’s experience level or locale.

A publication is hard to do since everybody has varied interests. I concluded that GR didn’t have enough articles to hold my interest any longer; On LSC I can choose to read only those posts that I’m interested in and still have too much to read.

The GR subscription was costing more than the financial support I provided for picture storage on LSC; the subscription was just not as good a value as being a member at LSC.

I wish Marc the best of luck, as I have enjoyed working with him on my articles. He’s probably not very happy right now, but I found that my life generally improved after each lay-off/firing that I experienced (But, it sure wasn’t right away!) (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)It was ALWAYS traumatic and sure made me change! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)

#7

A real shame, but it doesn’t suprise me. I really don’t know when my subscription will laps.

I typically used to ask Marc if an article would be printed based on the idea, or if it just wasn’t something they would be interested in (e.g., the Low Rider train) before writing it. Several times Marc expressed interest, and I submitted and have several published articles. But the last time, he kept asking for more detail in the pictures and when provided, never ran the article even though he said all was good. That was for the diesel fueling facility with pump spouts made from drip system parts. After that (several years ago now), I stopped asking.

#8

I had let my subscription lapse as well, when the review of my pushcart came out I decided to try the digital version for a year. to my dismay I found out that I could not download a copy to my desktop, and only print articles if I wanted a hard copy. I will not be renewing again.

Al P.

#9

As I said in my letter to the editor ,Marc, in the last edition, I thought the longevity of GRW was due to Marc, and I still do, but as the force behind Kalmbach became more evident, more adds, less articles and pages, I believe the end was near. Feel bad for Marc as he definitely had the spirit of garden railways. Sorry to see him go. On another sad note, Top Trigg the moderator to the forum has posted his last farewells and is moving into a hospices location. for those that know, Tom he has been a source of much information and advise for over 7 years or more, If you get a chance and are still able to get onto the forum it might be nice to give him a big thank you for all that he has done for the hobby, Bill

#10

Wow. Really sorry to hear about Marc getting fired and GR getting downgraded. The information in the magazine became less useful to me as my skills and experience in the hobby progressed, but I still enjoyed seeing what others are doing (many are not on the forum). And although I have less need to buy trains, etc the ads were still a good way to find out about new items, new sellers, and what’s currently available.

Also, very sorry to hear about Tom Trigg.

#11

I found the GR getting thinner and thinner so let it go…

LSC and the Narrow Gauge and SL Gazette and the On30 Annual do me (and I ain’t even a narrow gauge man!)…

and…I miss the Timber Times!..

#12

Marc is an honorable man and gentleman. It is ashamed that a true authority on the large scale hobby was treated so poorly to be fired. i’m sure he will land on his feet and maybe now is free to really express his viewpoints on his part of the hobby and get back to enjoying it, instead of always being the “modertor”.

.

All the best, Marc.

.

Change happens and the only thing not subject to change is that everything is always subject to change. Adapt, move on or get out of the way.

#13

I, too, dropped my GR subscription a bunch of years ago. I don’t want to sound elitist or snobby, but I cant tell my reasons why without sounding that way. Lets just say it was lots of ads and not much content I was interested in for the price.

#14

I never like to hear that someone was given the boot for economic reasons but have felt for a long time that Marc’s limitations on what he would consider for publication restricted the appeal to a smaller base of readers. While over time he did open things up a bit to include articles for more serious modelers, I think it was too little and too late. I gave up subscribing years ago and even at that time only got the magazine for new product information as the rest of the content was of little interest to me.

#15

Bob McCown said:

I, too, dropped my GR subscription a bunch of years ago. I don’t want to sound elitist or snobby, but I cant tell my reasons why without sounding that way. Lets just say it was lots of ads and not much content I was interested in for the price.

I did the same thing, Bob. For probably the same reasons. I still have them boxed up, but it would cost a small fortune to ship them to anyone, so they will be recycled or dumped.

#16

Times change. Anyone remember the Saturday Evening Post? Look? Life? You name it.

In my field, the art magazines are either gone or a thin imitation of themselves filled with ads by clueless artists and galleries who don’t know what else to do. Not to mention almost all the great baseball magazines.

Let’s not even start talking about the newspapers. Our Rocky Mountain News, printing every single day since 1859 in the mining and big-time railroad days, except four days when the Platte River flooded out their printing presses, was killed off shortly after merging with the Denver Post. One of my friends is the great-grandson of the man who founded the Rocky Mountain News. These guys don’t care. Now the Post is a total complete freaking joke: cut salaries, fired everyone with any integrity or skill, outsourced stuff…hell, freaking hell, Opening Day of the baseball season they had a full page “outsourced” picture of the Philadelphia baseball park. Not Coors field, no, CITIZENS BANK PARK.

Marc H. lives here in Denver. He has plenty of company to keep with brilliant Denver writers, photographers, reporters, and editors who have been summarily and cruelly shown the door by companies that don’t give a damn.

When honest, established magazines and papers doing meaningful work can’t make it, what chance does a g-scale hobby magazine stand? I think Marc did a unbelievable job keeping the thing going as long as he did.

edit: sorry for going off the deep end on this, but sometimes I just hate the way things are going. I want Walter Cronkite back!!!

#17

John, You are my freaking hero!!!

#18

Thanks for the news, and all the interesting points guys.

Along the lines of what Gary wrote, GR has been way late in doing articles on 3d printing / lasering. Marc’s editorial two or three years ago, on how that wasn’t really modelling, really got my goat; and it sure didn’t bode well for folks having that bent, especially the younger set.

Regardless, I agree, Marc’s done a great job through all these years, and his departure will signal an end of a era of sorts.

And though it will be a bummer seeing the mag go from 6 to 4 issues a year, I’ll probably hang in there for a year or two. I enjoy the ads, and still like seeing new (to me) and often amazing layouts. How knows, the 4 issues might get back to a normal thickness… at least for a while…

Cliff

#19

Cliff Jennings said:

Thanks for the news, and all the interesting points guys.

Along the lines of what Gary wrote, GR has been way late in doing articles on 3d printing / lasering. Marc’s editorial two or three years ago, on how that wasn’t really modelling, really got my goat; and it sure didn’t bode well for folks having that bent, especially the younger set.

Regardless, I agree, Marc’s done a great job through all these years, and his departure will signal an end of a era of sorts.

And though it will be a bummer seeing the mag go from 6 to 4 issues a year, I’ll probably hang in there for a year or two. I enjoy the ads, and still like seeing new (to me) and often amazing layouts. How knows, the 4 issues might get back to a normal thickness… at least for a while…

Cliff

I do seem to remember that. The ONLY way that somebody can claim that 3D printing/laser cutting/some other really cool tech is NOT modeling is because they can’t do it themselves. Modeling is modeling, whether you use a computer or a knife and straight edge. It takes talent and perserverance to do either and I grow tired of those that want to talk down the latest skills - seemingly because they don’t understand how to do it at all.

OK, the skills required are really different from what we grew up with, but they are STILL skills. And these skills CAN be mastered! (Well, by others, maybe. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif))

Heh - if I hadn’t already unsubscribed, that alone would have been enough to make me unsubscribe - and now I might have to take back the nice words I said earlier.

Heck, if you’re going to run a hobby magazine, you don’t really need to denigrate the efforts of anybody; instead you need to embrace change and try to INCREASE readership and participation; have a bunch of articles that show how cool this new technology really is and how YOU can do it at home! Please do not talk down stuff you don’t “respect” just because it wasn’t “the way” when you were learning (way back when). Sheesh, if there’s an app available, show how this app is SO cool and almost anybody (well, except for TheJoat) can master this and become such a COOL modeler. Sure, you don’t want to offend the “Old Farts ™”, but heck, those folks seem to be going the way of the West anyway, but many are still interested in the new stuff - if they could only figure out how the heck it’s supposed to work.

Repeating old ideas ad infinitum doe NOT seem to be a recipe for success.

I think you want NEW readers and NEW modelers demonstrating that it’s EASY to make this cool project come to life.

#20

One thing, I’m REALLY glad that Bob Brown didn’t sell the Gazette to Kalmbach.