End Of a Era.

[ezdays]

I found this announcement:

"It is with regret that Carstens Publicatons, Inc. will be closing permanently at close of business on Friday, August 22, 2014. Carstens Publications, Inc. has been a leading publisher of leading hobby magazines for over 50 years. Unfortunately the current economic climate has placed us in this position. Discussion is continuing with several parties who expressed desire to take on the continuance of the magazines. At this point there is still hope that all three titles will remain in existence. But I can offer no guarantees. We thank you for your patronage over the years, and wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

--Henry R. Carstens, President
Carstens Publications, Inc."

I also found this for someone that worked there explaining in detail the reason for the shutdown. The only thing that keeps a business going is a positive cash flow. There still may be hope Larry, if someone buys the rights and continues publishing RMC & Railfan:

Guys,

A slight bit of additional information. Pretty much everything you've
read about the printer change etc is all true, but it doesn't draw the
complete picture. Allow me to fill in the blanks a little bit.

Any business owner will tell you, it is all about cash flow. You may
have all the sales you can handle, but if you don't get the money in
the door in a timely and steady manner, you are going to have issues.
And that has been the case at Carstens for some time. We have been on
a "pay to play" deal with our printer for years…We'd send the mag and
the money to print it…then we'd send the money for postage and they'd
mail it. And these were not insignificant dollar amounts.

From 2008 on, as the recession kept going, people kept losing their
jobs or taking work that paid less, our sales diminished also. We had
increases in the book line, primarily due to the On30 and then the
HOn3 Annuals, and our ad revenue stayed pretty steady. But over time,
the cash coming in, and the frequency of it inched downward. Our costs
(payroll, taxes, printing costs, mailing costs etc) kept going up, and
in the case of mailing, significantly so.

When Super Strom Sandy hit, we were out of power for 10 days (no
phones, no computers) and we counted ourselves lucky compared to some
on the east coast. But there was basically a half month that we could
not generate any revenue, and of course many folks on the east coast
couldn't buy from us if they wanted to because they didn't have power
or were dealing with flooding issues. Then we had the polar vortex and
the winter that would not end, and had many of the same issues. Those
hurt our cash to the point where we were missing print windows because
we didn't have enough cash to print, and we had to delay. That delay
hurt subscriber confidence and you can see the death spiral picking up
steam. There were any number of things that you could point to, but
Quad Graphics (our printer in St. Cloud for the last 15-16 years)
making the decision to shut the St. Cloud plant down and move us (and
they let all the people we'd worked with go) and put us with a new
plant and new people, that was basically the end. We had very little
money coming in, and with the delay, small prospects of any coming in.
We scrapped enough up to do the June and get it out, but the July will
never see the light of day as a Carstens product.

Now two companies are bidding to buy RMC & Railfan, and so they will
continue in the future in some form. What that looks like I don't
know. The Annuals future is somewhat more vague. It is my hope and
certainly my intent to continue to serve as the editor and bring those
out, but that decision is mostly out of my hands at this point. My
last official day with Carstens is Friday.

I don't want anyone to feel bad for me, I will be just fine and it was
my pleasure to serve the model railroad community and especially the
narrow gauge community as a member of Carstens. God willing, I will be
able to continue to do so in some other form, but I likely won't know
what that might look like for at least another week or so, and likely
longer.

All the best,

Chris Lane