Those of you who were at the ICCE Show probably know about this already -- but a new knife magazine is about to be launched and we're stepping up our commitment to handmade knives.
For over 38 years "Knife World" has served all facets of the knife community with its diverse coverage, publishing hundreds of knifemaker profiles and providing a lot of knifemakers with their first published work. We have always covered a lot of topics with little or no commercial potential, with the intent of producing a publication tailored to our subscribers' interests, more than our advertisers'.
After more than 18 years as editor of "Knife World", I was able to acquire the business in June and am now proud to announce our new direction: with the very next issue, "Knife World" will be replaced by a brand new publication called KNIFE Magazine. (Current KW subscribers will get KNIFE Magazine moving forward.)
I'll spare you all the details here, but KNIFE Magazine will be an oversized (9.5 x 13"), full color, glossy magazine dedicated to serving the knife community -- a big & beautiful publication 50% larger than a standard-sized magazine.
Relative to the ABS and ABS members... every other month will feature "Letters from the A.B.S." -- an opportunity for the ABS to communicate with the buying public.
The "Artistry in Knives" centerspread is now a removable 19 x 13" full color, removable handmade knife poster, featuring photos of the work of 8 different makers every month and at no cost to anyone.
Of course we'll continue with a portion of each month's articles devoted to handmade knives, and even some simpler how-to pieces. The authors you'll see in our pages include such notable names as B.R. Hughes, J. Bruce Voyles, Steven Dick, and Stephen Garger -- as well as some up-and-coming writers including a couple of ABS 'smiths.
Two articles of particular note in the premiere issue:
--Resilience Forge -- a look at a program that helps wounded veterans by teaching bladesmithing as a form of therapy... ABS members have been instrumental in its success
--Steve Kelly of "SK Knives", a profile of the Montana-based Journeyman Smith
Speaking frankly, I think that knife publications have gotten too far away from what serious knife enthusiasts want to read about; that includes but isn't limited to handmade knives. As a result, we're going to produce a "pretty" color publication by knife enthusiasts, for knife enthusiasts -- and for this to work I'm counting on the support of knifemakers in addition to the collector following we've always enjoyed.
KNIFE Magazine is available ONLY by subscription -- you won’t find us at the supermarket!
Subscriptions are $29.95 per year (12 monthly issues) and are available at www.knifeworld.com/knifemagazine.html or by calling 1-800-828-7751.
The deadline to receive the premiere issue is the morning of Thursday, Oct. 8.
That's all I've got -- thank you for your time, and if you want to learn more there's more to be found by following the link above.
Mark Zalesky
KNIFE Magazine editor & publisher
ABS Board Member and Honorary Member
Thank you Mark! This is exciting!
It sounds like this magazine will lean a bit closer to traditional knife making (than others) and showcase the philosophy as well as the beauty in a grand manner. I'm really liking the poster feature. This magazine seems tailor made to fill a void in the knife magazine market.
Also, as someone who's dabbled at writing for magazines, I would encourage you makers to photograph the stages of your projects or a specific aspect of your techniques. A magazine article can be read and re read. As makers, we should consider compiling an article from time to time for magazines like this one. With good photos and clear, interesting, and informative writing, you can offer these for submission to one of several existing magazines. Social media is great, but some still like to hold it in their hands in paper form as well.
I will certainly be subscribing and I really look forward to the wonderful, positive contribution this magazine will make to the knife world.
(I said "knife world")<img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />
And let's not forget the "Scratch and Sniff"! 
Karl B. Andersen
Journeyman Smith
Knife magazine will be a great source of information for makers as well as collectors.
I sent my two year subscription ten minutes ago!
Looking forward to it, Mark!
Russell
I'm with Lin, in this digitized age of glaring screens, there is just something about having an info source to thumb through at your leisure or dog ear a favorite article and as years pass build an impressive collection of. As of 6:15 this morning, i am a subscriber for life! Great idea, thanks Mark.
I'll be looking forward to seeing it in my mailbox.
Thanks to all of you for your support!
If I was going to pick a single word to describe the content of the new magazine, it would be 'diverse' – we want to cover a little of everything, and not too much of any one thing (there will be plenty of coverage devoted to handmade knives). Knife World has always had diverse content, of course, but with KNIFE Magazine we're starting with 16 more pages to be diverse on.
Visual appearance is particularly important when we're dealing with handmade knives, so we are going to try to do 'pretty' in a way that no other publication has ever done and bank on the knifemaking community supporting this publication much better than they did Knife World. Really, our choices are to offer diverse coverage and to attract a diverse group of subscribers and advertisers, or to simply go for the advertising dollars (which means current production knives). We will still cover production knives of course, but I'm striving for 25-30% rather than devoting a majority of our coverage to them.
To me, the most important thing in the magazine relative to the ABS is the ABS' bimonthly column, which is intended to help give the Society a direct voice to the knife-buying public. As an organization we constantly talk about the importance of education, and in my opinion the ABS's educational role is bigger than teaching 'smiths how to make better knives. We need to do a better job of educating the public about what a forged blade is and why it's a good thing. The column in KNIFE Magazine can be used in this way.
Case in point: just yesterday I was having a conversation with a board member about how misused the word "bladesmith" is in the knife community as a whole -- to a surprisingly large percentage of knife enthusiasts (even writers, I'm afraid), "bladesmith" and "knifemaker" are considered absolutely interchangeable terms. We're the American BLADESMITH Society for pete's sake -- if someone doesn't understand what sets a "bladesmith" apart, they clearly don't know what the ABS stands for. That's a serious problem, but it's one that can be corrected through education. (steps off soapbox)
Mark
|quoted:
Also, as someone who's dabbled at writing for magazines, I would encourage you makers to photograph the stages of your projects or a specific aspect of your techniques. A magazine article can be read and re read. As makers, we should consider compiling an article from time to time for magazines like this one. With good photos and clear, interesting, and informative writing, you can offer these for submission to one of several existing magazines.
Thanks for that thought, Lin. I have been talking to a number of different knifemakers (including but not limited to ABS members) about doing more simple, accessible how-to articles for us, and articles on how more complex things are done. This is another angle of the 'education' aspect - for example, if collectors understand what goes into making a piece of mosaic damascus it'll be easier for them to understand the price tag attached to a mosaic blade.
Anyone interested in submitting articles to us is encouraged to contact me directly. You won't get rich writing for us, but we do pay for articles and we pay on time, every time!
Mark
Looking forward to the first issue.
Gary
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Looking forward to the first issue.
Gary
Glad to hear it, Gary... should hit mailboxes towards the end of the month. The new printer requires a little more lead time so they'll be mailed out a bit later than Knife World has been mailed in recent years.
Mark I like the new magazine, however there may be a problem with my subscription, l have received three copies of the first issue I'm not complaining just thought you might want to check it out.
I agree it is a great magazine. Nice pictures and format and I love the larger size. I like Scott received two magazines, one of which I gave to a friend of mine who is starting to be a collector. Hopefully he will subscribe also
Hello mark,
I haven't received any copies yet. I signed up and all, but then i got an email a week later i think saying that i wouldn't get charged until i approved some international shipping. It was made to sound like another email with a quote was being sent off or something maybe. If there is anything you could do to help me out i would appreciate it greatly. Thank you.
Jesse Bartram
Our mailer was supposed to knock out the duplicate addresses when we mailed all of those free sample copies, but suffice it to say that they didn't seem to do a very good job of it -- a lot of folks received multiples of the first issue. The good news is that many of those issues seem to have found new homes. We are still getting new subscriptions from that initial batch of samples mailed almost 4 months ago, I saw one more yesterday.
|quoted:
I signed up and all, but then i got an email a week later i think saying that i wouldn't get charged until i approved some international shipping. It was made to sound like another email with a quote was being sent off or something maybe. If there is anything you could do to help me out i would appreciate it greatly. Thank you.
Jesse has long since been taken care of, but some further explanation for other potential subscribers outside the U.S.: the initial foreign copies cost us $8.22 per copy for the postage alone -- this is a large publication -- so rather than being forced to charge something like $130 per year we decided to investigate other options and find something that worked before taking any foreign subscriptions. I'm pleased to say that we've hit on something that allows us to stick with the old KNIFE WORLD rates of $50 per year to Canada/Mexico, and $75 per year overseas. (That's 12 monthly issues BTW... and domestic rates are just $29.95.)
Thanks for everyone's interest and support, we have been very happy with the initial reception. Subscriptions have been up every month so far even without doing any significant promotion since the first issue. The second installment of the ABS column (written by Harvey this month) appears in the February issue which is at the printers now.
