British Eventing launches new magazine

[JER]

At a time when dead-tree media is dying right and left, British Eventing is powering forward with a new glossy bi-montly, called British Eventing.

Read about it at the BE site (http://www.britisheventing.com/news.asp?itemid=1328&itemTitle=British+Eventing+launch+new+magazine&section=0001000100020004&sectionTitle=Eventing+News&archiveDate=2009-02-1) or read the whole thing online here (http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=wpshpd#/page0/).

Enjoy.

[groom]

That is a very nice online reader! I hope they've managed to hit their sponsors in some way appropriately relative to hits & duration.

[GreyDun]

Is this something that USEA members would enjoy as well (for U.S. news)?

[LexInVA]

Is this something that USEA members would enjoy as well (for U.S. news)?

I'm sure they would if there was enough content to fill the demand (if there even is one for more Eventing content) but I don't think it would float as a print magazine given the costs of print media vs online in this economy and the preference of consumers in the last ten years has steadily moved towards near total online viewing of news and information vs print media.

[GreyDun]

Exactly - many magazine publications are moving to publishing their magazines online only. Would a supplemental online magazine be of interest to readers? (Granted, it was completely new, unique content than what was published in the printed articles).

[LexInVA]

Exactly - many magazine publications are moving to publishing their magazines online only. Would a supplemental online magazine be of interest to readers? (Granted, it was completely new, unique content than what was published in the printed articles).

I think, really, that the publication discussed in this article seems to be just another waffle on the plate as it were and not something that really adds to what is already available on the newsstands. I believe that you could easily supplement Eventing USA with additional online content by referencing the additional online content in the articles if you wanted to go in that direction. Many PC magazines do that quite well as do more mainstream publications such as women's magazines. I can think of several topics for Eventing articles where additional online content would be great though I don't really think creating another magazine would be unique unless you wanted to focus on things that are not the norm in Eventing USA. The thing of it is, and this is really just the way the different disciplines are at the most basic level, equestrian publications are all alike and it's hard to find something new/different or to take a different approach to doing something that has been done a specific way for a very very long time.

[JER]

Is this something that USEA members would enjoy as well (for U.S. news)?

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

Do you mean putting the USEA mag online? Or do you mean putting out a separate/additional magazine online?

[LexInVA]

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

Do you mean putting the USEA mag online? Or do you mean putting out a separate/additional magazine online?

She meant an additional online magazine apart from Eventing USA.

[JER]

And the purpose of this -- as a stand-alone -- is what?

I'm all for good writing on eventing. I think the sport is sorely lacking in this regard and would welcome good, in-depth coverage of eventing issues. The UK mag Eventing (the one published by Ipc Media) is quite good and has a number of regular features which I'd like to see in an American form, although it would require a higher standard of content and quality than the current US publications.

The rider diary, for example, is often really, really top-notch. This year's diarist is Daisy Dick and she's very good at it (she's a Cambridge grad so she should be able to form a sentence). Polly Jackson's diary a couple of years ago was excellent -- even though it was a chronicle of a disastrous season. Unfortunately, the standard Rolex rider diaries (or some rather infamous rider blogs) are rarely very articulate or insightful so I wonder whether we'd be able to get rider-generated content of the same quality here.

GreyDun, I think this is an area where the USEA could call out to its members and see if there's interest in writing about eventing. I know there are a number of people in the sport who earn a living off the written word and others (of equal ability) who'd like to do something like this, perhaps just for fun, perhaps to get some good clips for their portfolios.

You could put out a call to submit ideas, get people working on a totally voluntary basis. Which means no deadlines, but then if you're online, you can publish when you have something worth publishing.

The USEA could facilitate research, interviews, access at competitions, press passes, etc.

And I'd open this up to photographers too. Eventing is a perfect sport for some good photojournalism.

[retreadeventer]

Additional online content would be great - please, clearly edited and written well - concise and to the point - thorough - detailed without being boring and overbearing. How-to's. Backgrounders. Diaries (I agree about the Rolex notes - poor writing for the most part.) Short. Shorter. Edited down. Concise.

[GreyDun]

Excellent ideas - thank you! I'm sure we have many wonderful writers out there who would love to see their articles published, and hopefully they would take advantage of this opportunity. We would LOVE for people to send us things for the website & magazine (fun photos for the homepage, for example, are always needed!). We have the PHC writing for us, we're starting up with the Youth Board, we have the Training 3-Day Committee writing some great articles, and I hope soon we'll have some Adult Riders contributing as well (anyone, anyone?). I'd really like to have as many areas of the sport covered as possible.

I do like the idea of Rider Diaries, and I have a few in mind, actually.

Thanks! :)

[Fence2Fence]

...especially if the on-line content was formatted for easy downloading and reading on the iphone.

I can read COTH on my iphone, but I like how CNN and other sites have so readily adapted to it.

[GreyDun]

Definitely! We've taken these new technologies and online social networking very much into consideration.

[JER]

We have the PHC writing for us, we're starting up with the Youth Board, we have the Training 3-Day Committee writing some great articles, and I hope soon we'll have some Adult Riders contributing as well (anyone, anyone?). I'd really like to have as many areas of the sport covered as possible.

I do like the idea of Rider Diaries, and I have a few in mind, actually.


The PHC's writings -- if we're to go by the most recent blog post -- are a prime example of what NOT to publish. The problem is not the PHC per se, it's that the writing quality is substandard. If you're going to have non-writers writers writing, please either work with them to improve the piece or just do some fix-it copy editing.

Poor grammar, poor spelling, poor organization -- these are all things that really put me off. There's no excuse. Have a friend proofread or hire a copy editor online for a few bucks. Learn to put apostrophes in the right place. Use spell check. It's not that hard.

(Professional writers do this all the time. I know plenty of writers who have copy editors they work with daily. If you want buyers/editors/agents to read your work, you can't be distracting them with errors.)

For Rider Diaries, I recommend using the UK Eventing mag ones as a template. If you can give someone a few seasons' worth of those mags, they'd see what a diary can be. It has to go beyond sports cliches and surface emotion. Match them with a real writer if necessary; a smart rider will know they might be able to parlay some good writing into a sideline career or a higher profile in the sport or more sponsors or at least more publicity for themselves.

In the internet age, content is everywhere. Quality is harder to find and I'd like to think quality is what we're going for here.