The Cobbler debuted in the 2013 season and was well received. It covered the vast majority of the ManGame's cobble races with previews and post race summaries. We also had cobble only stats. In additional we have 3-4 tangent articles in each issue about races, riders, fans, etc.
After a great start readership tailed off near the end of the 2013 cobble season. I was not sure if the parallel articles were too much fluff or of the number of teams that really compete on the cobbles was too small to support a fanzine.
In 2014 The Cobbler scaled back and dropped all of the fluff articles. We cut down the number of previews to just a few key races in the PT and PCT. The amount of stats were also scaled back. Readership held steady but it did not bounce back to the early Issues.
So here is the reason for this post.
Do you want The Cobbler to live on?
If you do please take a few minutes to post on this thread what you want the issues to include.
Thanks for all your support in 2013/2014.
========================================= Team Manager of AMEX - Navigon
Editor of the Cobbler
Definitely! The Cobbler really makes the cobble season more immersive and fun.
My suggestion would be to go for more frequent smaller updates in the form of posts in a dedicated 'The Cobbler' thread. This allows more interaction with the readers, because they can comment on each individual update. And it is less work to make.
The things I liked the most were the analysis and custom stats. Short articles about in-form riders and teams would be cool too.
I'll start with the slightly harsh words. But i find it hard to draw readership data from just releasing two 2014 issues across the whole season which amounted to just divsional previews of PT and PCT. They are interestingly written pieces but kind of no more so than any of the other season previews, they are just a lot more focused on cobbles obviously. That was followed up with a calendar which was never going to be hugely popular because i feel everyone who cares that much about the cobbles already knows which races contain them.
The cut back didn't help. As i said the divisional previews are good and interesting but the first issue of 2014 is nowhere near the same. I guess it was just a re-introduction to The Cobbler, isn't helped by the 1 2/3s blank pages, but it's sparse and really needed another article or two. Then there's the lack of anything in the season. Motivation is a tricky mistress, we all know, but without stuff in-season The Cobbler's gonna struggle.
Onto the more positive words now. The 2013 Issues were great! Really in-depth. Tons of articles and analysis through the season. I enjoyed reading them and getting a better understanding of the MG cobbled world in my first season. The decline from 2013 to 2014 was dissapointing after such a good 2013 series. Readership will fluctuate and don't forget peoples interest in the MG goes up and down as the games speeds and slows. It's not always going to be off-season highs of all managers being around and interacting.
You can tell that you had most interest in writing the big 2013 style issues. The quality was so much better. It really comes through. Bring that level and detail back, but perhaps cut back to 4/5 issues per-season and the readership will increase and stabilise across the issues. Stick with the 2014 style and i can see readership dropping away.
If you want to generate discussion and chat about MG cobbles then DD's suggestion is best. Have one Cobbler thread where you can make long posts which people cna then discuss. A Magazine is not the best way to generate discussion and chat. Personally i'd rather have a magazine in the 2013 style a few times a season, because you can always just make long forum posts in the cobbled race discussion threads that will spark discussion without needing this overarching The Cobbler banner. Plus then you get the exposure to all teams in that race and all other managers who drop by, whereas if you don't have particular interest in cobbles you might not take the time to read a whole magazine.
tl;dr
I'd prefer a 2013 style and level magazine, it was just a lot better and really good to read.
But it sounds like the best way to get the discussions that it sounds like you want would just be to make long forum posts either in a Cobbler thread or in race discussion threads.
Or if you don't fancy writing a whole multi-page magazine perhaps The Sound could provide a platform for some articles.
Edited by TheManxMissile on 06-05-2015 00:47
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