Industry News: Scrapbooks Etc. Magazine to Cease Publication :(

HERE is a link. Here is the story:

A Fond Farewell
by Michelle Rubin
May 9, 2012 at 10:00 a.m.

Meredith Corporation has made the difficult decision to close Scrapbooks etc. effective with the August 2012 issue. Scrapbooks etc. has been the longtime brand leader within the scrapbooking industry, but due to the longer term business forecast for the franchise and the industry, the corporation has chosen to cease publishing within this marketplace.

The August 2012 issue, with an on-sale date of June 19, will be released on schedule to our 350,000 subscribers and newsstand buyers through the scheduled off-sale date of August 14, 2012. The ScrapbooksEtc.com website will support the print issue throughout this time period as well.

Meredith Corporation continues our strong support of the crafts industry with our Holiday Crafts titles and our newest addition, Make it Yourself, launching in October 2012. And of course we will continue to serve the growing quilting industry with our multiple quilting titles and website, allpeoplequilt.com.
For questions regarding your subscription, please e-mail sbecustserv@cdsfulfillment.com. If you’d like to purchase past issues for use on a mobile device, go to www.zinio.com/sbe.

On a personal note from the editorial staff, we are grateful for your support through the years. We could not have asked for better readers, and we have loved seeing your scrapbook pages and craft projects in our inboxes, on our website, and on our Facebook page. You inspired us in our mission to give you the ideas and information you wanted to preserve your memories and express yourselves creatively, and we hope that we in turn inspired you to create great pages and projects.

We’ll be posting here on the blog for a few more weeks as the August issue hits newsstands. And look for a post celebrating some of our favorite projects through the years.

THANK YOU!

Well, wow.

I can say that I’ve seen this coming for quite a while but that doesn’t make the news any easier to take, does it? It’s just sad :(

I’m sad for them and I’m sad for us. I’m sad that a scrapbooking magazine can no longer make it in today’s market. Remember when there were, what, 5 of them going strong? Man, those were the days.

I wasn’t happy when Scrapbooks Etc. started focusing more on the “Etc.” part of their title by including other papercrafting and craft projects. It didn’t stop me from buying it but I stopped enjoying it as much. But I guess it was an effort to stay alive, huh?

I have heard much criticism of the magazine since they made that change. I wonder if they had stayed focused on just scrapbooking, if the end result would’ve been any different? I guess we’ll never know.

The last issue will be August 2012 (on sale 06-19-12) so keep an eye out for that. For those of us who’ve subscribed, I wonder what will happen to our unfulfilled issues?

HERE is where the Peas are talking about it. What are your thoughts on the end of Scrapbooks Etc. magazine? Is this all because of the bad economy, the surge in social media like Pinterest and blogs, a bad magazine, or what? Would love to hear your thoughts.