NEWS 10/24/08: BPL to Suspend Print Magazine Production, Will Refocus Energy to Online Content Development

[Bill Fornshell]

I am going to call on Monday and see if I can apply my "refund" toward my next years membership fee. It qualifies for free shipping.

[Tom Clark]

Craig,
Good idea! I didn't get #1, and do plan on keeping the issues on my bookshelf. I assume that there are lots of extra issues collecting dust in a warehouse somewhere, and it would be a share to waste them.

[Sam Haraldson]

Craig, given the massive quantity of people whom we take responsibility to satisfy we needed to come up with a single solution to credit them for the remainder of their subscriptions.

[Roman Ackl]

Hi Ryan

even so I liked the print magazine very much I fully understand if you decide to focus on your core competencies in order to be prepared whatever comes up in terms of an economic downturn.

Being an international subscriber to the magazine I (and it seems that I was not the only one) experienced major delays in getting the magazine delivered to my address or issues needed to be re-send to me.

One thing I would like to ask you so is to either:

a. extend the timeline we can use our vouchers to middle or end of next year and not to December 2008. I'm most likely not alone in my ordering habits that I do place an order once or twice at most a year in order to keep postage and customs under control. I would rather wait until spring next year when also some new gear has been released to place another order. Or

b. allow your customers the option to use the vouchers to pay a reduced rate for the online subscription as a premier member.

I'm looking forward seeing edition #11 in Zinio.

One additional thing I would like to mention is in the area of podcasts. Having no insights into BPL internals those seemed to me much of a "Carol Crooker" project and since her departure things haven't been taken on or moved forward. I see not frequent releases, I see content quality dropping (e.g. the latest one with Erin and Craig) and I see no real concept behind them in terms of what you want to cover/achieve with them.
This is of course my subjective view but I would suggest that you/your team decide upon what you can do with those resources which have been freed up by the discontinuation of the print magazine and if it wouldn't be worthwhile re-designed this activity or to decide moving away from the area of podcasts in general.

All the best
Roman

[Jason Brinkman]

My $0.02:

I have been getting the print magazine for the last year. I too have always considered it to be a small book – one of the exact size and shape of popular guide books like the Falcon Guides, which makes it very attractive in my library. I will miss it.

None the less, I applaud Ryan on a sound business decision, for having the courage to explain his decision, and for offering a reasonable policy to make subscribers whole. I would hate to lose everything else here just trying to keep a paper publication afloat.

So how about making some of those back issues available for a package price? I would be happy to use my coupon to expand my library – provided I can bundle the shipping to keep with your mission of minimizing the BPL footprint.

[Sam Haraldson]

Jason – You can bundle all the single issues into one order by purchasing one of each. The price of shipping for one issue is about $7 and the cost of shipping for all the back issues together is only about $10 (when estimated using my zip code).

[Erik Graf]

VERY disappointed. But, it's your show. Glad I at least got it for a while. I gave up my subscriptions to Backpacker and NG Adventure b/c this "magazine" was the only thing exclusively suited for what I wanted to read about without all the extra junk. I hate that it has come to this….

[Brian Doble]

I've always considered my online subscription the best gift I've ever received; what a discovery, finding such a professional, in-depth resource for such a small niche. (It really is a small niche: I just spent 6 months on the crowded AT and only met 2 people who commented that they recognized the BPL logo on my hat.) I'm grateful that the site itself remains, and surprised at all the negative & whiny comments I see. Hooray for BPL Online!

[Charles Leonard]

Although I can understand the reasoning, I'm disappointed with the news and as an international subscriber even more disappointed not to receive issue 11 in print form (I'm not a huge fan of Zinio). I'm not sure I fully understand not sending issue 11 as it would surely have completed some subscriptions (leaving BPL free of the commitment to honour the voucher for those subscribers), but I guess you have your reasons.

I think Roman's suggestions of a longer period of validity of the voucher and being able to use it for premium membership make sense and hope you'll consider them.

[D LARSON]

When I signed up I contemplated getting the print magazine and decided to just get the online version to save paper. As part of my minimalist philosophy I believe I can reduce many of my physical possessions to digital bits and bytes. That being said, I really didn't care much for flipping through the online magazine. Go figure.

The gist of my time is spent right here on the website. The lack of a print/online magazine will certainly afford BPL the resources it needs to make the website even better. I am looking forward to what will come.

[Wade Johnston]

Ryan, what brand of backpack does your son have in that photo. My son is also 10 but a little bigger. Having a hard time finding a pack to fit him.

[John Gale]

Sorry to hear that the print magazine will be discontinued but the decision makes sense in this economic climate. I do have a question, may I use the credit to renew my online membership for the coming year? Thanks.

[Jim Sweeney]

I'm sorry for the people who put so much work into the magazine, but frankly I've never liked it nearly as much as I like the website, though I did enjoy the issue about bears.

As the world shifts toward digital media, the rigidity of fixed media makes it relatively less and less useful. There is simply no way to fold in the contributions of readers and viewers to a printed magazine, whereas on the BPL site, we have only to open a forum topic to have access to the manifold contributions of interested, intelligent, practiced people who share our passion but whose experience is usefully and completely different from our own–and all this within a day of opening a topic. Or we can do a search on BPL, or increasingly one on Google, and turn up multiple references to previous threads with all sorts of tangentially connected information pertinent to our search.

So I won't miss the print version, and find that the web site grows richer all the time.

[Sam Haraldson]

>and find that the web site grows richer all the time.

James, that richness of which you speak is exactly the goal we have in mind at BPL. Striving to keep not only our editorial content top-notch but to also tap and share the experiences of this community with itself through an ever-changing and growing medium, aka this Web site.

[Noel Hong]

Just subscribed to bpl today with my 2nd order from the Shop. The savings on the quilt and vest were too good to pass up. Only a few dollars more than a DIY. Didn't realize the subscription at one time included a print copy. Happy just to get access to the complete online magazine and looking forward to the future editions.

[Martijn Landzaat]

Hello,

Just read that the magazine stops excisting.
From what I read in the comment there has been an e-mail sent to all subscrivers, but being one I never got any word about this in any of my mailboxes.

best regards,

Martijn

[David Ure]

Out of curiousity, what are the odds that previous magazine articles would be published for members on the website? There are some great articles.

[Ryan Jordan]

David,

We will certainly start the progress of migrating print content online here. You guys deserve to have all of that stuff in this database, and it's been too long.

Ryan

[David Ure]

Thanks Ryan, that is fantastic news!

[William Young]

I only ever received (2) copies of the print version in a years time — what good was it if you never got it — talk about a waste of paper — you should fire whoever was incharge of the print version anyways

[Ken Helwig]

wow William, you're mister happy aren't you!

[John Tunnicliffe]

More and better web content should deliver more and better Podcasts, right? This is what I am looking for, if you're interested. I care nothing for articles treating of the State of UberTents or whatever. Just to be clear.

Rationalizations don't mean much to me either; they are dime a dozen, available everywhere. Enviro footprint? Gimme a break. Electronics burn more juice and create more pollution (think that all the way the way through, including the waste/disposal streams associated with board/component construction) than does the manufacture and distribution of a few thousand copies (if that many) of an itty-bitty magazine. Cite your personal and business reasons for discontinuing the mag, they are many and they are reasonable, but pretention to save the planet by killing the print mag is just too ridiculous. Spare us at least this line of total BS.

By the way, the last issue was the best. Nice job.

Good luck.

[Jim Sweeney]

The last issue well illustrated the (see header) of the print format. NOLS ? Can't get too excited about that. But the articles on Utah's Canyons (about which I know nothing) and Hawaii (about which I know a lot, having grown up on both the Islands visited) were full of gorgeous photos. The text left me wanting more–info, feel, personalities, etc. In contrast, I almost felt while reading the article on Finnish ski touring as if I were trapped in some snowy white vastness myself, where every hillock looked the same as the last, and the horizon never came.

On screen, the photos might have been a little harder to appreciate (not less beautiful, maybe even more, but not quite as easy to organize in ones mind), but inadequacies in the text could have been filled in and corrected by the comments of this huge wiki that is the BPL site.

So I hope BPL will in future commission articles exactly like these, to post to the website.

[Jolly Green Giant]

Yesterday I received BPL Issue 11. As expected, it was great and the best one yet. Also as expected, the Xobni version didn’t do it justice and was entirely too much of an aggravation to read through. It is a deep disappointment to me to see this magazine disappear for what seems to be because of organizational, development, and delivery problems. I would rather pay more and wait longer then have it permanently removed as one of BPL’s excellent educational tools. On a whole other level, it really bothers me that environmental concerns was raised as one of the reasons for the demise of the magazine. I’m sitting here in front of my computer, a place I despise, and instead of giving me a tool that I can take with me when I’m exploring, I’m left spending more time in front of my computer, avoiding the wild, and will likely no doubt burn more electricity and paper as I research and print the magazine. It seems this action actually hurts the environment more and holds the explorer in each of us a little closer to technology…the very thing many of us want to get away from. These magazines don’t end up in a landfill like most junk publications. Because they are so informative and so well done, most folks I know put them on a shelf for reference down the line. Saving written documents is often only left for legal paperwork or things worth keeping. Being that the magazine was worth keeping, something which is high praise, I hope BPL reconsiders bringing the magazine back after a short time away to reorganize their thoughts, development, and delivery needs.

[Steve M]

Well put JK–I too detest too much time in front of a screen. A paper copy gives many more options, not to mention free advertising for BPL when it's left out and about (waiting room, coffee table, etc.).

[Author]

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