Knives Annual...

I was thinking of Tactical Knives from Harris. They still has all of those gun and survival mags. I think that when they closed TK, they tried to direct advertisers to their other mags.
Don Hanson III said:
They basically bought fighting knives just to eliminate competition & do away with the political incorrect name.
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jdm61 said:
I was thinking of Tactical Knives from Harris. They still has all of those gun and survival mags. I think that when they closed TK, they tried to direct advertisers to their other mags.
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OK Tactical knives was a different publisher. I used to know all this, but have forgot most of what I knew.
 
jdm61 said:
I was thinking of Tactical Knives from Harris. They still has all of those gun and survival mags. I think that when they closed TK, they tried to direct advertisers to their other mags.
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Harris completely shut down around a year and a half ago. AMG/Parade Outdoor Group bought some of the old Harris titles and has been publishing them for around a year.
 
Yeah, print is dead and that is coming from a guy who has been in and around the print biz since the 70's. :(
Sidehill Gouger said:
Harris completely shut down around a year and a half ago. AMG/Parade Outdoor Group bought some of the old Harris titles and has been publishing them for around a year.
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I emailed Joe K, and he asked me to pass this along to you all.

Hi all, Thanks for your kind words about the KNIVES Annual and for reading my dribble all these years. The knives themselves are what made the Annual great, and Ken Warner was, well … a master. So are many of you, though, who make the gorgeous handmade pieces.

I loved working at BLADE and putting together the KNIVES Annual, and did not leave because I didn’t. I simply got a better opportunity for my family and I. We are very lucky. Steve Shackleford and I worked together for 19 years, and he is one of the greatest guys I ever worked with. BLADE is in tremendous hands, and I can’t say enough about him.

I was pleasantly surprised when F+W Media/Krause contacted me after I left to ask if I’d like to write/edit the KNIVES 2018 book, and of course I jumped at the chance and enjoyed doing it.

I believe its demise had less to do with sales and circulation—I was paid, and distribution/sales were more than solid. It was a winner of a book, as evidenced by your disappointment and enthusiasm over it. Frankly, the publishing company was bought a few times, and downsizing killed good and bad products. The good news is Steve is at the helm of BLADE.

God bless. Good luck, and thanks again. Life is an adventure.


Joe Kertzman
 
Jason Fry said:
I emailed Joe K, and he asked me to pass this along to you all.

Hi all, Thanks for your kind words about the KNIVES Annual and for reading my dribble all these years. The knives themselves are what made the Annual great, and Ken Warner was, well … a master. So are many of you, though, who make the gorgeous handmade pieces.

I loved working at BLADE and putting together the KNIVES Annual, and did not leave because I didn’t. I simply got a better opportunity for my family and I. We are very lucky. Steve Shackleford and I worked together for 19 years, and he is one of the greatest guys I ever worked with. BLADE is in tremendous hands, and I can’t say enough about him.

I was pleasantly surprised when F+W Media/Krause contacted me after I left to ask if I’d like to write/edit the KNIVES 2018 book, and of course I jumped at the chance and enjoyed doing it.

I believe its demise had less to do with sales and circulation—I was paid, and distribution/sales were more than solid. It was a winner of a book, as evidenced by your disappointment and enthusiasm over it. Frankly, the publishing company was bought a few times, and downsizing killed good and bad products. The good news is Steve is at the helm of BLADE.

God bless. Good luck, and thanks again. Life is an adventure.


Joe Kertzman
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That was no dribble, Joe. Those books will stand as a lasting historical record of the custom knife world. Sad there will be no more but happy as heck we had them for as long as we did!
 
Steve Shackleford emailed me with similar news, but allowed that the door of opportunity wasn't completely closed. Yet. Even he isn't sure, because it's happening in offices beyond his.

KnifeGallery.com is a cool resource for visuals. Thank you.

However it will NEVER replace the facts and direct information that text covered in the Knives Annuals.

Joe Kertzman had a style I thoroughly enjoyed. :thumbsup: I will miss him, too.
 
It is easy to pronounce print media dead but what is replacing it? The photos in the Knives annual allowed me discover many knife makers I had not heard of before. I could then hunt down their work on the web. If I have to rely on the web alone, it is going to be just a mater of luck if I find them or not.

In more recent news, Outdoor Life is going quarterly and Field and Stream has been cut to bi-monthly. The "Big Three" of my younger years is a think of the past.
 
Sidehill Gouger said:
It is easy to pronounce print media dead but what is replacing it? The photos in the Knives annual allowed me discover many knife makers I had not heard of before. I could then hunt down their work on the web. If I have to rely on the web alone, it is going to be just a mater of luck if I find them or not.
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Hate to hear of Knives Annuals demise. As stated, hunting on the web can not replace the wealth of information contained in the Annual's directory in the back, nor the short description of each individual knife shown.
Will miss this publication immensely.

- Joe
 
And we will surely miss the cheesy captions. I'm semi-serious. :p
 
I took something entirely different from Joe’s message. Didn’t sound like a leadership issue so much as a profit/time issue. If the book sales are solid but flat, that’s not profitable, as a rule. If the publishing company feels that they can expend their human resources on simpler to publish, faster to publish, and more profitable to publish books, they’re going to. That means that more involved, and perhaps stable but static sales will go by the wayside.



I’d be interested to hear how many folks interact with younger people, specifically 22-year-olds and younger, to determine just how much print this age group exposes themselves to. Perhaps what needs to happen is a digital iteration of the same publication could be offered. Maybe even a back catalog of them...? Seems like there’s 38 years to feed off of.
 
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Matthew Gregory said:
I’d be interested to hear how many folks interact with younger people, specifically 22-year-olds and younger, to determine just how much print this age group exposes themselves to. Perhaps what needs to happen is a digital iteration of the same publication could be offered. Maybe even a back catalog of them...?
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Matt, I shared with a younger coworker once that our little town had built a new library. His reply was, “People still use those??!” He had completed his college degree several years earlier without ever setting foot in one.

And that was over TEN YEARS ago.

There’s nothing like holding a book in your hands. But print media has no doubt taken a big hit (hard to find a brick and mortar book store around) . And to Matthew’s point, younger folks may not ever purchase books.

Sorry to hear that this classic piece is in jeopardy. Hope it continues.
 
Maybe 12 years ago, the Tampa Tribune, our second regional daily newspaper, was worth at least $150 million just for the paper, not including the NBC affiliate that the parent company also owned. A couple of years ago, it sold for $7 million, most of that for the paper's website and the building. Their major competitor, the St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times, bought the paper and shut it down. The building was torn down to make too for a new condo building. They demolished the building with the relatively new press line still inside. Print nothing so good. I haven't been to a "public" library other than the county law library maybe since law school in 1990, but I can't imagine how you get out of college without visiting one at least once. ;)
mb> said:
Matt, I shared with a younger coworker once that our little town had built a new library. His reply was, “People still use those??!” He had completed his college degree several years earlier without ever setting foot in one.

And that was over TEN YEARS ago.

There’s nothing like holding a book in your hands. But print media has no doubt taken a big hit (hard to find a brick and mortar book store around) . And to Matthew’s point, younger folks may not ever purchase books.

Sorry to hear that this classic piece is in jeopardy. Hope it continues.
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