Fred Brown's Goodbye to P&T and McClelland, and hope for the future

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Jan 28, 2018
12,952
134,576
66
Sarasota, FL
Why didn't P&T attempt to continue in an electronic version only? That would have cut the cost and manpower requirements considerably. I understand the traditionalist attitude of wanting the paper version but electronic vs nothing seems to be a preferable for.

 

hawky454

Lifer
Feb 11, 2016
5,338
10,220
Austin, TX
It’s sad indeed. Good article to send it off though. I have almost every issue except for the last 4 prints as it just got too hard to work out the details with P&T if you move and let your supscription expire. I had gone several years without receiving an issue because their system wouldn’t allow me to sign back up as a subscriber, eventually I just got a new subscription under my wife’s name. After some time, I got an email from the almighty Chuck Stanion regarding something else entirely and I brought up the problem I was having, bless that man’s heart, he sent me all the issues to fill the void when I wasn’t a subscriber at no cost to me. It’s a shame that this is the end, I’ve read damn near every issue and I would like to try and get the last years issues to make it complete. I applaud each and every one of the people involved in the magazine, you all are rockstars in my estimation. Much love, much love.

 

blendtobac

Lifer
Oct 16, 2009
1,237
213
Why didn't P&T attempt to continue in an electronic version only? That would have cut the cost and manpower requirements considerably. I understand the traditionalist attitude of wanting the paper version but electronic vs nothing seems to be a preferable for.
It would be possible to do something like this, but the biggest issue I see is the quality of the images. All of those great pictures of amazing pipes, printed on high quality paper stock are sublime. At 1000 x 1000 on a monitor, those images wouldn't be anywhere near as striking, Certainly, the written content would still be wonderful, but it still wouldn't stack up to the printed version of P&T.
Russ

 
Jan 28, 2018
12,952
134,576
66
Sarasota, FL
Russ, my monitor is set to 2560 x 1440. People looking at them on a newer iPad would see them in hi resolution as well.
I'm not saying or expecting it would be "as good". I get that. But printing out a magazine in the higher quality paper, those images are printed on, is expensive. Shipping isn't cheap. Handling all that isn't trivial or cheap. At least the excellent articles and editorials would still be available. It should also be relatively straight forward to pick up advertisers as you could embed direct links to their sites right from the electronic magazine.
I think if it were promoted a bit, you could probably pick up enough advertising dollars to where you could provide the content for free. That makes it even more attractive to the advertisers as the distribution would be significantly larger.
I might want to eat a steak and lobster every meal. But I'd rather eat a hamburger than starve. And I really don't think the photos/images would suffer much if at all.

 

ophiuchus

Lifer
Mar 25, 2016
1,557
2,052
That's a nicely written piece. Caught me in a sad moment. Family members pass, friends pass. I've just seen three of my favorite restaurants going back to childhood close in the last month and a half. All of my favorite pubs but one are closed, and the last one standing has become a friggin' gastropub. Terrific woods are being cleared for apartment complexes and what remains are highly-trafficked nature trails. Jack Daniels is only 80 proof now; hell, even Coke doesn't taste like it used to, thank you high fructose corn syrup. The culture is changing; I guess it's always changing, but I'm a selfish bastard, and some of the more recent changes suck to me. Very good tobacco blends and a great magazine have said bye-bye. It's making me said again thinking about it.
I'll quit whining now. There are plenty of good people and places out there, no shortage of decent places to eat or drink, some remaining wilderness, and neither liquor or pop are good for me anyway. But Kevin ... keep up the terrific work on this website. It may end up one of the last words-and-pictures refuges available to all us archaic pipe smokers before long.

 

ravkesef

Lifer
Aug 10, 2010
2,912
9,173
81
Cheshire, CT
I will treasure my stack of the magazine, because nothing like it will be seen again. Perhaps Vonnegut said it best: “And so it goes.”

 
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