America's Best Home Workshops 2010: CAVEAT EMPTOR

[LarryG]

We have talked about the shops in WOOD Magazine's annual special, "America's Best Home Workshops," several times over the years. The series began in 2007 and continued in 2008 and 2009.

The 2010 edition is now out. If you are thinking of grabbing a copy off the newstand, or ordering it from the publisher, you should be aware that the 15 included shops are the same ones that were in the 2007 edition.

I had someone else pick up this issue for me, and was dismayed to see that it's nothing but a lot of recycled material. Actually I wasn't dismayed, I was pissed. A cover blurb says "BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Updated Edition" but as far as I can see there's nothing new here. Even the short "tips" and "how-to" articles at the back of the book are the same.

If you don't have the 2007 edition, this is worth getting. Otherwise, buyer beware.

[crokett]

I remember looking through one of the earlier editions and all I got was depressed. So I stopped looking at them.

[Eagan]

It is too updated!

Please take another look at the magazine and you'll see that the ads have been updated.

[BrazosJake]

That really sucks. I see a "rate the item" link on the page, be sure to leave your thoughts, Larry.

Besides, what's up with that blaze orange shop they call "spectacular looking"? Is he worried hunters will mistake his tools for deer?

[docrowan]

Larry,

Thank you for the warning! I was really looking forward to the 2010 version since I already own the first three. Very disappointing that they did not chose to continue this series, instead choosing to repackage old stuff.

[Uncle Cracker]

Very disappointing that they did not chose to continue this series, instead choosing to repackage old stuff.

This is very common nowadays in the print publishing arena, as companies struggle to cut production costs and remain profitable, despite dwindling revenues and readerships. If you look closely, a lot of folks whose products are not predicated on news or other such current events are "recycling".

[cabinetman]

Thanks for the warning.
.

[LarryG]

Many of the shops in this series are the kind most of us can only dream about, in fact I guess the majority of them are. Still, I've picked up a bunch of good ideas by studying the photographs -- especially stuff in the background that doesn't necessarily get written up.

Recycling editorial content is nothing new in woodworking publications. Many if not most of Taunton's books are collections of articles taken from Fine Woodworking Magazine. August Home publishes compilations that are reprints from ShopNotes and Woodsmith. WOOD does that, too, with their "Best-Ever..." collections. So I'm used to the practice, and always leaf through titles I'm about to buy at a newsstand, to make sure there's enough new content to justify the price. But as I said, someone else picked up this one up for me. And as far as can tell, there's no acknowledgment of the recycled content on the web page I linked to in my initial post (BTW, not all of the shops that appear there are in this, the 2010, edition.) Anyone who orders this title sight unseen and already owns the 2007 edition is going to get a rude surprise.

Which is why this all feels a little underhanded, a little sleazy. The 2007, 2008, and 2009 editions of "America's Best Home Workshops" contained (AFAIK) only new, previously unpublished material. It's not unreasonable to expect "America's Best Home Workshops 2010" to continue that pattern -- especially when each edition includes a call for submissions for NEXT year's version, and gives regular readers like me a reason to look forward to the next one. If they want to reissue an old title, that's fine; but call it "America's Best Home Workshops -- Encore Edition" or something similarly honest.

BTW I did post my comments, but they've not shown up yet.

[BrazosJake]

Which is why this all feels a little underhanded, a little sleazy. The 2007, 2008, and 2009 editions of "America's Best Home Workshops" contained (AFAIK) only new, previously unpublished material. It's not unreasonable to expect "America's Best Home Workshops 2010" to continue that pattern --

Not even a little, that is underhanded and sleazy. That's like getting the previous-months edition of a monthly periodical.


I would demand a refund.

[BobSch]

Please take another look at the magazine and you'll see that the ads have been updated.

You mean they bumped the prices up, right?

[LarryG]

On further review, a (partial) correction.

Last night I had a second, closer look at the 2010 edition, and got out my copies from 2007, 2008, and 2009 to compare them to this new one. Almost immediately I realized that what I wrote yesterday about the 2010 edition was wrong -- but not necessarily in a good way.

I initially thought this was a "best-of" compilation, with the included shops drawn from all three previous editions. In fact, it's a re-release of the 2007 edition.

The blurbs on the front cover have been rearranged. The introductory page has been lightly rewritten. The ads are different -- Eagan joked about those, but he was right, they have been changed. Otherwise, every page appears to be absolutely identical. Open up the 2007 and 2010 editions to any given page and you're looking at exactly the same thing. Which means I'm no happier now than when I first opened the "new" 2010 edition Sunday afternoon. It's still 100% recycled content.

But for others, this could be good news. If you missed the 2007 edition, this one is safe to buy. I have updated my previous two posts with these new findings.

[Uncle Cracker]

In fact, it's a re-release of the 2007 edition.

That's just irresponsible. Somebody should call them out on this. If they haven't got the resources to do better than to reproduce a single issue, maybe they should just close the doors. I wonder if they bothered to inform their advertisers that they were paying (presumably full price) to display in a "recycled" product...

[natausch]

Look on the bright side, the 2 BT3Ks are still in this version.

[germdoc]

I hear that Playboy will start recycling centerfolds to save costs. February's POTM will be Barbi Benton and March's will be Bettie Page.

[Uncle Cracker]

FWIW, here's the publisher's official response to the criticism:

"It’s fairly typical in the publishing industry to re-issue especially popular titles, and we do our best to make sure people know that such a re-issue is a second edition, not a totally new publication. That’s why the cover is exactly the same except for the prominent starburst that says “Back by Popular Demand! Updated Edition.”

We’ve found that many times we will sell as many, or more, copies during the second printing because many people just didn’t see the first printing, or the first printing ran out by the time they browsed the newsstand. I assure you we had no intention to deceive our valuable customers. It truly is an incredibly rare instance when someone buys both editions, but when this happens we are happy to refund the purchase price of the second edition."