The official announcement was made yesterday that Simple Scrapbooks will cease publication after its May/June 2009 issue.
The announcement sites lack of advertising income to fund multiple magazines (SS is published under the Creating Keepsakes umbrella). Clearly, no one is escaping the effects of our current economy.
Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this.
Obviously, I am sad to see SS go because their content and style has been consistently unique over the years when compared to the other scrapbooking magazines on the market. I have been a long time fan of the magazine and many of its main contributors - Cathy Zielske, Rebecca Cooper, and Elizabeth Dillow just to name a few.
However, according to the announcement, the style of SS will not disappear entirely, but instead be incorporated into the remaining Creating Keepsakes publication and many of the faces of SS will stay on in that endeavour.
As my husband will tell you, I get A LOT of magazines, so in some ways, I think that I may actually like receiving a 'new and improved' combined version of CK each month.
The announcement also stated that 75% of the magazines subscribers subscribe to both magazines, so in that regard, this change makes a lot of sense. Not only will it hopefully help CK to continue to bring us the content we know and love, but also save it's subscribers a little dough by having to subscribe to only one magazine versus two.
So, my take is that although I am certainly sad to see SS go, there may be a silver lining for both the publisher and the subscribers.
My only concern is how CK will incorporate SS's unique style into thier magazine. I hope that they remain true to the promise of maintaining the spirit of SS and don't allow it to fall through the cracks of their existing format.
Only time will tell.
Until then, I'm going to enjoy the final few issues of SS and hope for the best!
READER RESPONSE:
How do you feel about the loss of Simple Scrapbooks? What is your take on the official announcement made by SS?
My favorite magazine--Digital Scrapbooking--has also stopped publication, I believe they are also under CK. I am not happy, to say the least, as there are no other publications that focus on the digital side of scrapping.
ReplyDeleteThat's a bummer. I do get both magazines. I had stopped getting SS for a while, but then I recently subscribed again. After the birth of my 2nd kid, I found that my scrapping style changed by necessity. I don't have time to scrap a lot of busy layouts and needed the inspiration from SS. Hopefully CK will be a larger magazine with more content rather than cutting something to make room for 3-4 pages dedicated to SS style layouts.
ReplyDeleteI feel much of the same way as you do about the demise of SS. It won't be too tough of a blow if CK truly does incorporate SS into CK but it will depend, as you say, HOW they do it. Time will tell. In any event, I am sad to see SS will no longer be on the magazine stands.
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ReplyDelete@My Celestial Star ~ I subscribed to DS, too. Even though I'm not a digital scrapbooker, I still found it inspiring and found techinque in there that I have used. I can totally understand how frustrating it must be to see this one go when it the only one of its kind. Maybe CK will also start including more digital techniques?? They do already have Jessica Sprague's monthly column which is primarily digital.
ReplyDelete@Janna & cjknick ~ I guess all we can do is hope for the best from CK! I'm just hoping we don't see the demise of any more magazines.