A Fond Farewell
To BackHome Magazine
Dateline: 13 August 2014
Today I received a copy of Permaculture magazine in the mail, along with a letter from BackHome magazine. The letter informed me that BackHome magazine will no longer be published, and my BackHome subscription will be filled by issues of Permaculture.
BackHome magazine has always been special to me because they were the first to review my chicken plucker plan book many years ago. I sent them one of the very first 100 comb-bound copies (with photocopied pages) that I had printed at a quick-print shop.
Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker was a very humble, totally amateur self-publishing effort on my part, but BackHome saw value in the book and reviewed it. And they even sold it.
I’ve lost track how many copies of the plucker plan book I’ve sold since then but I’m sure it has hit the 30,000 mark. And, amazingly, it still sells better than any other book I’ve published.
BackHome also reviewed my other books and they published an article I wrote about how to make garlic powder. I always dealt with editor Richard Freudenberger, who was very good at his job. BackHome was a class act.
I’m sorry to see BackHome go, but after 24 years and 131 issues, and with the world of publishing going through so many changes, I can understand it.
The issue of Permaculture (a UK publication) that came today looks very good.
Oh my goodness!!!
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard anything; and I'm a subscriber!!
How very, very, sad.
Donna G.
As a follow-up to this blog post, I contacted Richard Freudenberger at BackHome magazine today to say good bye.
ReplyDeleteI told him that I recently cleaned out a lot of old magazines. I got rid of all the modern Mother Earth News and Countrysides, but kept the BackHome magazines (and my older issues of Mother Earth). Both Countryside and Mother Earth are fine magazines but I had to do some serious culling of stuff in general.
With grandchildren and home education in mind, I held onto the BackHomes because I think they are an excellent resource for homeschoolers.
Richard says that BackHome will still be in operation for awhile, selling back issues and their book inventory.
Hi;
ReplyDeleteThis is off topic but I couldn't find your email. Anyway I nominated your blog for the Blog Hop Around The World - Creativity link think as I really admire how creative you are. You can check out my blog and have a look if you are interested, though I suspect you are busy working on a project!
http://sunnybrookfarmus.blogspot.com/2014/08/blog-hop-around-world-creativity.html
thanks,
Gill Pollard
I was just going through my Backwoods Home a couple days ago. I hope they will still pull together the volumes. Thanks for the heads up.
ReplyDeleteOuida Gabriel
I got my issue of Permaculture Magazine yesterday and it seems to have a couple of useful articles, but I am choking on the worldview stuff. Might just have to grab the back issue CDs of BackHome and move on. I just renewed my BackHome subscription for two years so I guess I have some time to evaluate Permaculture. This coming from someone who got rid of National Geographic because it was too offensive and there was no good reason to continue supporting it.
ReplyDeleteAs a BackHome subscriber, I received four copies of the same email from Permaculture - as someone who has enjoyed Permaculture magazine now and then, when I could find it on the newsstand, I'm looking forward to getting it in the mail. I'll sure miss BackHome though! :(
ReplyDeleteI hope you will check out Backwoods Home magazine. It covered many of the same topics as BackHome magazine. These days, print publishing has got to be a tough, tough business.
ReplyDelete