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Posted: 28-01-2003 13:04 Post subject: Suggest any improvements to the mag!

Taking cue from David Sutton I think we should post and discuss any improvements or changes to the mag that could help to improve it as well as increase it's appeal & distribution. What would you like to see more of or less of? Any new sections you think they should include? Things like that...

Anybody with any suggestions or concerns feel free to post them here.

here are a few of mine.

1. Personally I would like to see more accounts of first hand investigations, ghost hunts, paranormal encounters and things like that included in the magazine more regularly.

2. I would like to see guides on certain fortean subjects such as a guide on how to conduct proper ghost hunts, guides to conducting ESP tests, guide on how to go about dowsing etc. The kind of things that the readers can try themselves.

3. Less of the junkie/naked women type of ads at the back and more along the lines of magic shops, rare & unusual book companies, shops selling archaeological finds etc .... basically more ads along Fortean lines. Of course this is probably too much to hope for at the moment, they keep the revenue coming in after all but eventually it would be great to get rid of them almost toally. Perhaps if we suggest to relevant retailers, compnies etc that they should be advertising int he mag it would help?

4. Expand the strange deaths section to a full page, always interesting, weird or funny as well as drawing first time readers into buying it (I know a few people that started reading it becase of Strange Deaths)

Posted: 28-01-2003 13:37 Post subject:

More Hierophant!

Posted: 28-01-2003 13:39 Post subject:

Agreed, always good Smile

Would be nice to see it expand into a larger kind of monthly report on fortean people & happenings in his inimitable style.

Posted: 28-01-2003 17:28 Post subject:

Great! This is what we need. I couldn't agree more about the need for more 'hands-on' investigative stuff. It's hard for us to do - ie, we're mostly too busy getting the mag together - and while FBI is supposed to provide a bit of this, it doesn't always go in this direction. Did you enjoy Mark's visit to the 'Phantom or Fraud' investigation in 167? In 169, as I was thinking along these lines myself, we've got Jon Downes on the trail of the Geordie Bigfoot. And, yes, as someone said on a previous thread - this is grassroots stuff, without which we'd have no subject matter to speak of. To do more of this kind of thing will involve hooking up with other investigators and organisations on a more regular basis. If anyone has any particular ideas, or belongs to any such groups, then do get in touch.

The suggestion of guides to certain practical subjects is a very good one - I'll see what the others think about it.

On the subject of barenaked ladies and other dodgy ads, its an ongoing problem. A lot of advertisers either don't understand Ft or think we're a 'crackpot nutrag' (to quote our friends at Viz).
I think, on the whole, things are much improved since John Brown days - we now have some very nice ad people (who obviously don't just work on Ft but on IFG's 'proper' mags as well) who really like Ft and want to do their best by it. But it's an uphill struggle - more film and game ads have been coming in, which is great and we'll continue building on that, but all it takes is a slow month for the ad team and we're back to bongs and dildos! Please, please bear with us on this and be patient - we hate these ads as much as you do... but such is life. And please do send us suggestions for ad clients - whilke most of the people we'd love to see in the mag are as broke as the next fortean, it never hurts to ask 'em.

Don't worry about Hiero - he's not going anywhere, although what with all the daily chores at the Fortess of Arrogance, I don't know if he'll be contributing more to FT than his usual column.

Keep the suggestions coming - I think this is useful for all of us. I'll let you all into a secret too - finally, after all these years, we might be getting extra pages! So your ideas for filling them are more than welcome.

All the best

David

Posted: 28-01-2003 17:40 Post subject:

I agree there needs to be more of the "basic" paranormal type stuff - ghosts, fairies, UFOs and the like. While the articles on Chinese pyramids and things are all very well, I personally find them a little boring. One issue in particular that springs to mind as being near-perfect was the Mothman one. Apart from the film tie-ins, the whole thing was really enjoyable and I read every inch of that particular mag.

I like Fortean Traveller too, and the forums - although I was mildly confused by the January issue's "rebuke", I suppose you had some duty to print it to give the guy a say. Nice to see the letters section growing over the last couple of years too. Perhaps instead of having so many "It Happened To Me" stories on the website, you could have three or four in the magazine instead?

Also, how about printing some of the much older articles from the 1970s with updates regarding progress made on the case, whether it was solved, etc.

Posted: 28-01-2003 17:50 Post subject:

Its probably too much too ask for, but I just want 'more' in the mag. It seems to be less and less of a substantial read these days, and I seem to get through the mag much quicker than I used to.

I have fond memories of the A5 / quarterly days, when my copy of FT would literally take me weeks and weeks to get through.

I much prefer longer articles. I find all the main three articles too short and not in-depth enough most months. I would rather you dropped the full page illustrations, and half pages of white space, and packed the pages with denser text, smaller illustrations, and just generally more information.

Heck, I'd prefer FT to be two-monthly or quarterly with three or four times as much content, but I realise that this is not a very commercial suggestion.

Oh, and please don't have any more video game reviews, unless the subject matter is genuinely Fortean (which is unlikely). Reviews of fantasy / D&D type video games, or even licensed X-Files games are not what I want to read in FT.

Posted: 28-01-2003 18:32 Post subject:

Posted: 28-01-2003 20:01 Post subject:

Ok -

Letters - we've started incorporating 'It Happened to Me' of late, but perhaps you're right and we should use more; it's certainly one of my favourite things on the website and it seems a shame that non-online types (and there are a lot of them out there who read the mag) should miss out. I'll see what we can do.

Mothman and otherfilm tie-ins - I saw the Mothman movie as a great opportunity to alert non-forteans to the real, and much more interesting, story behind the (disappointing) movie. I doubt we'd have even thought of doing the issue otherwise. Taking advantage of interest in X-files, Mothman, Taken or whatever actually serves a number of purposes
a) By keeping the magazine topical and drawing on what's happening in popular culture, it's a way of drawing those benighted souls who don't already read FT into our orbit.
b) If something of a fortean nature is going on on our cinema or TV screens, it's only right that FT comments - we're probably in the best position to do so from an informed viewpoint and I feel it's our duty to lead people further into a subject that may only have got their attention from something they saw on TV etc
c) It's often a nice excuse to do something like the Mothman issue, or to deal with a subject that otherwise we might not have touched for a whil
d) It's, er, what magazines do. Even us. Even on that level, if it helps us to survive, I'm for it. Hopefully, though, we'll never stoop too low (now where's that Pop Idol abducted by aliens story we were working on.......)

Feature length - Look closely and you'll notice that features have been getting sneakily longer again over the last year or more. There was a point where I felt that they had become too squeezed and had begun to sometimes lack substance. OK, we can't run Fortean Studies length pieces in the mag, but look at some recent things like ABCs and they are pretty hefty.

Illustrations, design etc - We know some of you would rather have 60 pages of single spaced, 7-point type to cram as much as possible into the magazine; but then it wouldn't be a magazine anymore. It's one of life's many evils that magazines do have things like pictures and space and have to be designed and look nice and so on, but there you go. We actually take a pride in making it look as good as we can and getting the right balance between images (which are often a vital part of a story) and text.

Games - Well, we like them. Bob likes them more than is probably healthy. And a lot of readers like them, going on how many competition entries we receive. It's obviously always going to be a matter of taste, but they're here to stay and, like books, films and television, are a medium worthy of attention in our opinion. But reviewing them also serves the crucial strategic purpose of getting better advertisers on board so we can kick out the tatty drugs and sex ads... you can see that everything is connected to everything else in a fine fortean fashion. We'll be revamping reviews soon, so you'll get more books (we simply can't keep up with them all with the current state of affairs) but you'll have to put up with films and games too I'm afraid.

Fortean Studies/Back Issues etc - We're sorting it.

Got to sign off now and get busy in the kitchen - but please keep the comments coming

Cheers

David

Posted: 28-01-2003 20:09 Post subject:

I like the strange history articles, like the one about the hog faced woman a few months back, that was very interesting.
I'd also like to see something about alchemy, perhaps a guide for the home alchemist would be good.
Other than that I think the magazine is pretty spot on.

Posted: 28-01-2003 20:32 Post subject:

I'd like to read more firsthand accounts of the paranormal, and a bigger section on the Fortean Follow-ups, but not just relating to recent articles. Maybe looking at a celebrated (or unjustly overlooked) case from a new angle?

Other than that, I think there's a good mix as it is. More pages would be nice, though.

Posted: 28-01-2003 21:05 Post subject:

Posted: 28-01-2003 21:14 Post subject:

If you're overwhelmed with the amount of books you have to review at the moment, why not send them out to people to review for you? If you get a copy of each book for free, that is.

Obviously, you'd have to have some sort of procedure for making sure the reviewers could actually write - perhaps by asking them to submit their own review of a Fortean book first. I'm sure people would do it for a free book (ie. without being paid for the review).

Just a thought.

Posted: 28-01-2003 21:20 Post subject:

Taras, that's a good idea!

Myself, I always enjoy the readers' letters. I tend to skip over most of the interviews, preferring to read the articles instead. And if there are going to be more pages, why not more pictures within articles?

And, as others have said before, less of the 'druggy/porno' ads.

Carole

Posted: 28-01-2003 21:31 Post subject:

I'd like to suggest finding some way to get Fortean Studies over here in the U.S. again.Several years ago they were available through the company on Long Island that used to handle the North American subscriptions.I acquired the first three volumes through them and the fourth through there successor,but they've been virtually impossible to get over here since then.

Posted: 28-01-2003 22:24 Post subject: