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Aquascaping World Magazine November/December Issue

George Farmer said:
It is great to see ASW magazine back up and running. Long may it continue this time!

ghostsword said:
We got PFK in the UK, and it is pants compared to Aquascaping World.
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Be fair, Luis! 🙂

PFK covers the entire fishkeeping hobby and industry, so cannot possibly compete with ASW in terms of aquascaping content, and nor should it. However, expect more planted and aquascaping content in PFK from now on. :thumbup:
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🙂 Covers the entire fishkeeping hobby and industry, jack of all trades, master of none. In my opinion pfk is not all that, especially as I am only interested on plants and aquascaping. PFK is a good magazine for most people that want to read about "trips to bongobongo" as some people put it, or read about odd fish that I will never get to keep as they need massive tanks, or read adverts about items that are much cheaper online.

Do a poll here and ask how many people would rather purchase pfk @ £4 a month, or a magazine like Aquascaping World for £5 every three months, and you may be surprised at the responses.
 
ghostsword said:
George Farmer said:
It is great to see ASW magazine back up and running. Long may it continue this time!

ghostsword said:
We got PFK in the UK, and it is pants compared to Aquascaping World.
Click to expand...
Be fair, Luis! 🙂

PFK covers the entire fishkeeping hobby and industry, so cannot possibly compete with ASW in terms of aquascaping content, and nor should it. However, expect more planted and aquascaping content in PFK from now on. :thumbup:
Click to expand...

🙂 Covers the entire fishkeeping hobby and industry, jack of all trades, master of none. In my opinion pfk is not all that, especially as I am only interested on plants and aquascaping. PFK is a good magazine for most people that want to read about "trips to bongobongo" as some people put it, or read about odd fish that I will never get to keep as they need massive tanks, or read adverts about items that are much cheaper online.

Do a poll here and ask how many people would rather purchase pfk @ £4 a month, or a magazine like Aquascaping World for £5 every three months, and you may be surprised at the responses.
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George is on the money.

I don't think you can call PFK pants. Aquascaping is just part of what it covers. It is a magazine that caters for all fishkeeping.Therefore you are comparing a dedicated niche magazine to a wide ranging subject magazine.

Its like a brunette lover comparing a magazine with women of all hair colours to a magazine that only has brunettes and then saying the former is pants because only 20% are brunettes.

They both have a place in the market and at the end of the day ASW in hard copy is nothing more than a pipedream at this stage. 250 definte pre-orders with pre-payment would be minimum for it to even get off the ground. Then there is logistics to think about.

This wouldn't be a small undertaking. It involves looking at every country's VAT and import/export rules plus royalty details and that is before even looking at printing, admin and shipping etc.

Lets not get carried away with thinking about it being a reality until it becomes so if it ever does. There is a lot more to this than just getting a number of people to say 'I'd buy it' and printing. Ther are all sorts of legal aspects to a worldwide product.

And please lets not start having a go at a magazine that is not in competition with AquascapingWorld. We may have more aquascaping content but they win hands down on the other 90% of the fishkeeping hobby.

AC
 
It is just my opinion, and I voiced it, on another forum,

For me PFK is not all that, and I see any other magazine that is more focused to plants and what can be done with them much more interesting than a magazine where a large part of what it reports about is either old stuff, uninteresting or adverts. But obviously my opinion.

The post that George quoted wasn't actually posted on this forum, but on APSA. I wouldn't post that pfk is pants here, where there are members here that contribute to the magazine and have more interest on it more than I do.

I understand that AWM is not on competition with PFK, and it is nice to see that.

But you are right, maybe I was hard on PFK, it is not pants, for me it is just a waste of money, especially when there are so much better information online and now on pdf.
 
By the way George,

The comment on APSA, in its entirety was:
Re: AquaScaping World Magazine is Back!
« Reply #3 on: Today at 10:43:59 AM »

I think that unless I learn to read Japanese will there be a better magazine. We got PFK in the UK, and it is pants compared to Aquascaping World.

I dare say that Aquascaping world is as good if not better than Aquajournal, at least the articles are by real people. People like us.
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http://www.apsa.co.za/board/index.php?topic=4740.0

You should have quoted the whole text, so that the "pants" was on context. On this case was a comparison with Aquascaping world, like saying that a Astra is pants compared to a Porsche. 🙂
 
Luis, your baffling me mate. I just cant see where your coming from.

for the most, people use their eyes to learn. There's no 'magic fix' in these mags your after.

No.1 you have ukaps to learn to grow plants
no2. The guys at PFK are trying their damned hardest to get info to the likes of YOU!
no3. buy aquajournals and open your eyes.
 
Mark Evans said:
Luis, your baffling me mate. I just cant see where your coming from.

for the most, people use their eyes to learn. There's no 'magic fix' in these mags your after.

No.1 you have ukaps to learn to grow plants
no2. The guys at PFK are trying their damned hardest to get info to the likes of YOU!
no3. buy aquajournals and open your eyes.
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Hi Mark,

I think that it came out wrong and you may have misunderstood my posts, especially with regards to PFK.

No.1 you have ukaps to learn to grow plants
# Couldn't agree more, so my point was why bother with a aquascaping special on PFK when all the information they have is here anyway?

no2. The guys at PFK are trying their damned hardest to get info to the likes of YOU!
# The guys at PFK are trying to sell magazines, not just to get information to the likes of me. Most of my information and learning is from the forum. In under a year here I learned more about plants and how to grow them, than from a year subscription of PFK or similar magazines on the market

no3. buy aquajournals and open your eyes.
# Already do. 🙂 . Got all the english versions and now starting to buy the available japanese ones.
Also purchased all the Nature Aquarium Books. Further, I also look at the journals of people more experienced than me so that I learn from their mistakes, and see what works and what does not. Not to copy them, or the magazines, but to see what works and what is just a dead end.

If you look at my humble journals you will see that I have my own style, I am not copying aquascapes, or doing iwagumi's, or whatever others are trying. I am learning, and there are lots to learn, but thanks to posts from you, Clive, and many others, I have managed to obtain information that most probably wouldn't get, would not even know where to look for it or what it meant.

I am not after any quick fix, and I don't think that that will be found on the magazines, but if I am interested on just plants and their keep, and trying to learn about aquascaping why buy and support a magazine that only covers 10% of what I am interested in? Fish are cool, look pretty, but that is not what I want to read.

Using what AC said, if a guy is into brunettes he may not be happy with a magazine that has blondes, brunettes, bald women, etc?

If you are into motorbikes, would you purchase a magazine that is mostly about cars, but has a section about bikes, or would you go ahead and look to buy a motorbike magazine outright?

That is how I feel about PFK when comparing it with a magazine that is just about plants, interviews people that are also into plants, and has artivles about planted tanks.

PFK did a spread now about planted tanks, 28 pages of it, good on them, but as your point no2 says, trying their damm hard to get info for the likes of me. The likes of me that spend its time on UKAPS, subscribes to Tom Barr forum, takes time to digest Clive's articles and posts, and spends money on books written by a japanese guy. 😀

I know you guys have the heart on the right place, and I apologize if I sound rude, or ungrateful to the help and hard work that PFK or similar magazines are doing, or to the work that some of you put into it.
 
ghostsword said:
The post that George quoted wasn't actually posted on this forum, but on APSA.
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Luis,

You are wrong. I quoted your post from this thread; Page 2, 2nd post.

I've never heard of APSA until now. Thanks for making me aware.

I have no issues with you expressing an opinion about ASW, PFK or Aqua Journals, or anything. But please exercise greater tact when doing so.

You may wish to revise the UKAPS Rules and Guidelines before you really offend someone. I realise English isn't your first language so maybe it's a case of misinterpretation. I'm not sure. If this is the case I recommend you construct your posts with appropriate care in future.

For instance some may interpret the following as Aqua Journals not being written by 'real people'.
ghostsword said:
I dare say that Aquascaping world is as good if not better than Aquajournal, at least the articles are by real people. People like us.
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If I were an Aqua Journal contributor, I would be offended by that.

Apologies to Andy (SuperColey1) for being partly responsible for the digression here.

Perhaps it's more appropriate if we continue any future discussion via PM, Luis.
 
Apologies for calling Mr. Amano or his staff unreal people. That wasn't what I meant.

You may be right, as English is not my first language I should construct my posts in a way that is not open to misinterpretation. I will brush up on my english grammar prior to posting again.
 
More the most part, I agree. PFK is aimed at the general hobbyist and people new to fishkeeping. But as Andy says, lets not even try to compare it to the likes of ASW magazine or AquaJournals as it makes no sense.

iirc, Mr Amano stopped printing his magazines in English because there is not enough demand for them. There will always be a demand for a magazine such as PFK though.
 
ghostsword said:
Apologies for calling Mr. Amano or his staff unreal people. That wasn't what I meant.

You may be right, as English is not my first language I should construct my posts in a way that is not open to misinterpretation. I will brush up on my english grammar prior to posting again.
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Thanks for your apology and understanding, Luis. It is really appreciated.
 
Sorry to move away. Just wanted to say I had not heard of ASW mag before today and have found the articles fantastic and the whole thing a really enjoyable read. As someone who dislikes printed media and regularly asks PFK if they will do an online version this was a real breath of fresh air to read a genuine aquatic magazine online .

Please dont look to print this magazine, get it on iTunes instead. I tried to set-up a regular donation but felt the minimum of £5 per month was a bit high for a bi-monthly magazine.
 
steveninaster said:
Sorry to move away. Just wanted to say I had not heard of ASW mag before today and have found the articles fantastic and the whole thing a really enjoyable read. As someone who dislikes printed media and regularly asks PFK if they will do an online version this was a real breath of fresh air to read a genuine aquatic magazine online .

Please dont look to print this magazine, get it on iTunes instead. I tried to set-up a regular donation but felt the minimum of £5 per month was a bit high for a bi-monthly magazine.
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Thanks for the compliments. As with all things in life it is demand that dictates what we do and therefore I think putting something on itunes when it is already available online for free is not really viable but something to look at I guess.

As for donations I can't help you there but will mention it.

As for the comparisons. Please guys we don't want any ill-will on this. I was just letting you know it was available but ASW does not want to tread on the toes of other publications. After all it is important that the 'cumulative' promotes the hobby further so whilst some may prefer a magazine devoted to plants, others may get into plants via another publication they bought more for another side of the hobby. Without magazines like PFK including planted articles the hobby would be limited in terms of exposure to the Internet and whilst we may take it as the norm there are still huge numbers even in the UK that either do not use the internet or are not looking at sites that have high planted visibility therefore they bring new people into the hobby.

Think of the internet as a shortcut. If you are looking for reef it is like opening the magazine, looking at the contents page and then going straight to the reef page before putting the magazine down.

The printed medium is used differently. The majority do not look at the content page and go direct to their desired subject. they flick through the magazine, scan pages, and then stop when they see something that catches their eye. They may also pick up the magazine and read the rest when they have a moment. The internet user won't. If they have a moment they will still go straight for their desired subject. So those who flick through the magazine with an interest for something else may still see the planted picture and stop and read the article and there we have one more interested person.

It all works together and the more the hobby is published in as many different places as possible the more visibility it gets and then the demand increases. So if PFK and all the other fishkeeping magazines bring people into this hobby then the hobby gets larger and then PFK puts more planted content in their magazine as the demand is there.

Whilst we may think of this as a growing hobby it is still a tiny niche in comparison to reef and also in comparison to those who just want fish. With that in mind we should applaud PFK for it's efforts as it benefits us all by raising the demand and therefore increasing the content that you want.

AC.
 
I do Agree with Alot of the Comments made about Magazines and how they are best published. And then Every ow and again you come across a Mag or a book that You wish you had a Hard Copy of.
I.e - A comic I used to Always Borrow from the Local Library Was the Neil Gaiman Sandman Comics, One year i decided to Buy the whole series in Hard back. Glad I did as I have them to Enjoy Whenever I want.
More Like some of the Arrowana Hard Back Would be Awesome.
And ADA is one I want to Have a well as Amano. A Super Qulaity Book Presented in HB is A thing you have to think long and hard about, this ASW would be one of them. Would love it in a Special Edition HB focusing on the bEst Aspects of Scaping and the Planted World.
 
Waste of good wood if you ask me,
I've replaced my bookcases with a network drive. I now have more books to read than ever, at a cheaper price , less dusting, waste of paper and books read once or twice only to sit on a shelf for years. I never buy magazines or newspapers, but subcribe to those I want to read online knowing I wont have to fill a recycling bin. try it and you will see what a waste of space (literally) printed material is. EBills where possible means less envelopes to throw and paper sitting in draws.
eReaders have come a long way, time for us all to embrace the future me thinks.
 
Lol most of the above are asking about a hard copy after they have read the online one. Same thing apart from one is on a screen and the other is printed on paper.

I however am on your lines. Paper magazines aren't my kind of thing. However each to their own.

AC
 
Yes but there is the Nostalgia and Sentiment attached to a HB. The smell of the pages and the feel of the quality of the book.
yes Ereaders have come along way amd I think that ASW would be great on a IPAD.
For those of us who have the xperience of both sides of the coin. there is the old and new both to be enjoyed.
 
Indeed so Gill. I remember the wrench it took to sell the vinyl albums. Eventually I caved in and replaced with CD but I miss the crackle, the ambience and the different sound of vinyl. That doesn't get to the excitement and joy of gatefold covers and picture disc. lol

These days however I am pretty happy to have everything on a hard drive (or someone else's) although I stop short at using anything other than my stereo to play music 🙂

Oh the good old days :crazy:

AC
 
I work with computers, build datacentres mostly, and got almost all my life digitalised, have stopped even printing photos. But there is for me a relief to be away from electronics once a day, with a cup of coffee, radio on the background and a good magazine or book to flicker through.

I have a ereader, laptop, blackberry, ipod and listen to podcasts, but a book is always a book, you cannot take away it's magic and feeling it gives. Even the ereaders are now trying to mimick it by using a page flicker. 🙂
 
i was lucky enough to see the mag at the weekend, it is a brilliant quality and more like a book than a magazine. Well worth the price!

nicely done AC!!
 
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